A little bit of everything

It has been a couple of weeks since our last blog and much has happened. God is really working us over.
The past weeks have been intense. Two weeks ago we had a lady speaker named Donna Jordan who is a prophetic lady with a motherly calling to the nations. She spoke on listening to God which was very different and off the cuff teaching style. She has a tremendous relationship with God and communicates with him in real time. She would often pause during her speaking and send up quick bullet prayers just like Nehemiah. It was very cool to witness her do this. She taught us, not how to hear Gods voice par say, because there isn’t really a formula for that but, more that God truly wants us to communicate with him about absolutely everything. Some of the examples she gave were even to the extent of asking God what she should eat when she went to restaurants and other things like movies music how many games of solitaire she should play! Really interesting. I really enjoyed the week. We ended with an exercise that was cool; we broke off individually and answered a series of questions. #1 God, what do you think about me? #2 God, what are your plans for me? #3 God, what do you want to say to ________ (person’s name) through me? Number 3 was crazy-the leaders went around the room and had the names of all the students in a hat and we had to pick one out and pray about what God wanted to say to them through us. Yeah, it was really different. To tell you the truth, Barbie and I switched names. It’s all good though totally God.
Ok here’s what happened. Barbie got this dude, Earl, who I have had on my heart that I had been praying for a few days, and I got Aarons wife, Kendra, who Barbie has been hitting it off with. So it was all good, really different though but very awesome. I came out of that time receiving a couple of things from God that I have been left to pray fervently about.
After this week we did something completely different. A pastor from a local church in Medicine Hat came and lectured about leadership. It was awesome, Pastor Ian from the Bridge church shared about his journey becoming a pastor and shared some insight that he had about mentoring and the different kinds of leaders there are. It was an information packed week and probably, in my opinion the best week we have had. He left us with lots of tools to study up on about leadership and also gave us a free book!
On Saturdays, we do outreach in town or volunteer work or what have you. This past weekend we worked with the Salvation Army and we were bell ringers. I know that you all have seen them with the plastic dome thing on the metal pole colleting money for Christmas. Yeah we did that this year in Super Store. It was so fun. First thing we did was deck out our pole thing. Barbie went and bought decorations, Santa hats and bells. Then John “Bear” bought a dock station for an iPod and we rocked some tunes and danced and talked to people and pretty much provided free entertainment. It was fun. It’s interesting, the people’s reactions. There were four types of people, maybe five; Number one, people that joyfully gave had it ready and dropped cash in the pot. Number two, people that walked past then turned around rummaged through the purse or pockets and scraped some change together. Number three, people that came up to us and made excuses or told us how they donated to some other charity. Number four, people who avoided all eye contact and made emergency phone calls seconds before they got to the door. Number five, people who would make small talk with us about, well in this case John’s Sweater or beard. Good times. I think we made about $500.00 in the four hours we were there so I was stoked. I would suggest volunteering for a shift or two, and just go for it! Make people smile!

God is good - week 2

Has it been 2 weeks? Some days, I feel like it's only been a couple of days; Other days, it seems as though we have been here all our lives. It's a good thing.

Today is Monday November 3. Luke and I find ourselves, once again, sitting in the cozy basement of Shane & Nikki Fox. Funny as it sounds, this place is our getaway from our getaway.
This week has been amazing- busy, emotional... a time of discovering more about out Heavenly Father.

Our leaders were excited to inform us that we would be sharing lectures with the New Waves DTS. Since most of them speak English as a second language, they had a Simoan translator for the whole week. This meant, though, that we would be in lectures in morning and afternoon.

We were told ahead of time that this week's topic- "The Father heart of God" would be hard, both content and application.

At first it was tricky to, ahem, stay awake, but it got easier as the days went on. It was most difficult after lunch. ("I just need to close my eyes for five minutes!")
We discussed attributes of our Earthly fathers, areas of darkness in our hearts which became strongholds in our lives preventing us from accepting God as our Father. Forgiveness. Reconciliation. Restoration.

Larry (our lecturer) shared many personal experiences & revelations. The raw emotion he brought to the class was incredible, and eventually many students felt moved to share. After much prayer and waiting, more and more came out and healing began in many.

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment.
But he who fears has not been made perfect in love." 1 John 4:18 NKJV

I have to say, I was resistant at first. Little by little, in my own times of reflection, the Lord began to show me dark places in my heart. There are many of which I am already aware, but He wanted to go deeper. Why do I do the things I do?

God is amazing, and what He does when we are obedient, and just listen and wait. This has been a struggle for me- waiting, listening.

Hallelujah! I love it when He brings things to the light. I walked for a long time in the shadows, in fear. When things come out, it hurts, but the freedom is worth it.

"To those who have been called,
who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ:
Mercy, Peace and Love
be yours in abundance[!]"
Jude 1:1-2 NIV

(Luke)
Yes this week was definately a harder week than last. This week we walked through a segment of teaching called "openness and brokenness". The goal of this time is to ask God to go deep into your heart and search out any areas of darkness that are in your life. Difficult! The goal of which is to bring further healing and humility. It was definitely an intense time of listening to God speak to us.
It has been so amazing here so far. I am learning to wait and hear from God. I know most of us have been in a place before where we are asking God to speak to us and when we think we hear something, we wrestle with if it was just us or if it was actually God speaking. I have been learning to discern that voice inside my head.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Proverbs 1:7 NASB

This week we talked a lot about Love and fear. At one point our speaker noted that there is no fear in love, and quoted 1 John 4:18. I reflected a while on my walk with God and as I did I pondered upon my own revelations of fear and love and I was lead to conclude that there is fear in love but not the fear that is experienced by a wife with a overly oppressive husband. The fear I have in my relationship with God is a holy fear. A fear of doing something that would break God's heart and, the fact of the matter is, I have. In sin of omission and comission I have done this numerous times. But as I am further sanctified in my walk with Christ I can further develop a Holy fear of the Living Father God.

Cool. Well we will be writing more as the days go on. Please remember to pray for us and feel free to comment.

Blessings,
Luke & Barbie.