Faith and Joy

The house is quiet this morning. Everyone is catching up on much needed sleep. The sounds of car horns, roosters, delivery trucks, and locals still penetrate the air, but they are blending into the "quiet" the longer we stay.

Yesterday FAITH and JOY emerged. Hospitals and homes were the target -- we were going out to pray for the sick. The students of the school and our team gathered in the morning to break into teams. There was a seriousness among the students. They had heard testimonies of our team laying hands on the sick and them being healed...and the yearned to see the same thing happen to them. There was one mandate that I gave: 'GO IN LOVE, honor the people you are praying for by taking love not just power, and then demonstrate that love through power. GO IN LOVE---and JOY!!!!" The students here are accustom to religion being something that requires you to be very serious, and "godly" in all your actions (quite legalistic and very judgemental)---and somehow the lie has come that your relationship with Christ does not include JOY! So-- we released the teams to go be the person God created each one to be -- BE YOU! Take the love of Christ through YOU and take the joy and spread it around.

Well, I smiled for hours as the teams returned. Yes, they were carrying testimonies of healings: knees healed, pelvic bones being healed, paralytics walking, and pain leaving bodies. But the JOY came when they started talking about how people wept (it is not common for people to cry in this culture) from feeling loved. The people in the hospital went from angry and depressed to smiling, lauging, and full of joy. One team visited a little 5yr old girl who is paralyzed. This little one has not smiled nor giggled in quite sometime. Can you imagine being a little one who loves to dance, and now your body is trapped from being free to be a child. The team prayed, and then someone followed their heart (Go Holy Spirit Go) and began dancing around her. The team said...we all became 5 years old again. As they all started dancing, this little one began to giggle and smile and hug, and even got swept up in the arms of the team and danced! She did not get healed physically-- but her heart was captivated by joy! Joy of the Lord is our strength!!!

We did a time of testimonies when the teams returned...and to my delight, everyone was full of faith and joy. The common response to outreach in the past has been discouragement and disappointment. Because "spiritual medicine" is common here -- the students hunger for power. They want to see the power of their God defeat the enemy...yesterday they watched love, joy, and yes--healing, push back the gates of hell in their city. But for the first time in response to some being healed and some NOT being healed their response was the same--JOY overtook them...the power of love is changing their city.


"Treasure Hunting" today!
For those who haven't a clue as to what that is...stay tuned for an update!