Sixth

Revival is here. Right now. Real time. I just got back from a five day glory encounter split into two conferences. The first three days, I was at a year seven to nine PG1, power generation one, camp. The Lord moved radically in those three days. There was no build-up to the last night encounter. There was no convincing that God was real. The people came, ready to meet, in a state of hunger and the knowledge that He was there. Having experienced high school retreats, I could tell from the very beginning that the Lord was releasing a new thing. A new hunger and desire to know God as he can be known. As we were worshipping, I walked around praying for students and I was surprised at the words the Lord was giving me. There were actually nation shakers in the room. There were actually people that would change thousands of peoples lives. All they needed was someone to tell them. Students were weeping as they were realising the very reason they were created, the very reason the Lord loved them. It was crazy. One of the boys, who was notably one of the more rebellious ones, was kneeling unable to move and in convulsive weeping as he was being encountered with a love like no other. This was happening across the room. Not one single person was left out. This is the stuff I read in books about revival.

As I spoke to some of the students afterwards, I noticed a recurring theme the Lord was releasing. A people that were addicted to His presence. That everything else was rubbish compared to His love and presence. They didn't need someone at the front to formally announce the beginning of 'worship time.' People were on their faces in worship even before that. The last night, Pastor Oh released the call to follow Jesus. To actually lay everything down, belongings, desires and our very lives to follow Him. ALL of them went and answered the call. NOT ONE was left behind. At this point, you've got to ask yourself, "what the heck is going on here?" I'm praying for some guys and I'm saying "you might even die!" And all they did was scream, "YES!" YES I WILL FOLLOW JESUS NO MATTER THE COST!

Ok, so from one surreal experience I went to another. I would say even crazier than the last. From glory to glory. This was a two day conference with a church called Open Door Church. They had a massive influx of people lately and felt it appropriate to hold an easter conference. Pastor James, being the guest speaker invited, asked a couple of people to come. The first session just turned into a restoring of, the image of the Father and how he views them. People were weeping as they finally realised that God wasn't some calm, cool, collected Father but He was actually insanely in love with us. Several girls got wrecked has they finally realised that they were beautiful and the Lord valued them. Jesus just began to destroy inadequacy and rebuild value in people's lives. And from this place of the revelation of the love of God, the next session turned into a destroying fear festival. Dozens of people destroyed various fears in their lives, whether it be fear of man, or fear of stepping into their identity, or fear of failure. BOOM. Destroyed. Gone. It was nuts.

Ok, here's where it went wild and all sense of what was truly real slipped out the window. The pastor of the church and his wife, repented to each other and the entire congregation of their lack. THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN! EVER! Especially in a Korean church. He is on his knees weeping in-front of the Father and his wife and the people he is leading in repentance. Blew my mind away. What humility! The Lord released a new thing in that place. People that didn't know that they could hear from God were prophesying over their home suburb Chatswood. Radical transformation in the entire church. I was tired from lack of sleep and just getting wrecked countless times. I have no idea how to process this. It doesn't seem appropriate to just write this down somewhere. It doesn't even seem appropriate to tell as many people as I can. The ONLY appropriate response that I know of, is to worship. Again and again and again. Revival is here. I'm absolutely positive of it. I'm so excited.

Fifth

What a crazy journey it's been! I'm finally back at home. It's been almost a week now. It's weird being back at home. Much is going on my heart. I remember during debrief back in Kona one of the things that Jeff said that struck me was that he wasn't going to teach us how to transition back in, because we were never meant to. As I have been back, I was aware of the natural desire or even pressure to settle back to the 'norm' and stop being radical. To stop being a voice and stop expressing the extravagance of God. Even when I hang out with some of my closest friends that love the Lord, I feel challenged to live out in a more radical lifestyle. To destroy and ruin the ordinary. To ruin what it looks like to be a normal Christian. To again, raise the bar of what radical is. Radical is no longer sharing the gospel on the streets. Radical is no longer the Holy Spirit coming down and touching our hearts. I don't want to down play that and say it isn't amazing, cause it truly is! But what if our desires and dreams were bigger? What if, instead of asking how we make better the praise team, the things we did and the strategies we asked of the Lord was to end sex-trafficking in Sydney and to see all the brothels and strip clubs closed? The Lord's love continues to shape my character and life in such a way that re-defines everything!

As the Lord is challenging me to continue to increase in craziness and increase absolute love for Him I'm getting blown away. I get so tired everyday because I'm literally pouring my heart out to people. Spiritually the Lord fills me up, but physically sometimes my body can't take it. It's so fun though. Together being blown away just by how good He is. Seeing strongholds in my friends' and my own life. I love it! The Lord has placed this crazy desire for community on my heart. I can no longer not live in community. Not that family is not a community, but it's just different. I have yet to put that to words. But just experimenting and living out authentic, intentional community centered around the presence of God excites me to the very core of my being. I come alive talking about it. The Lord created me for this. The specifics aren't important right now, but the desire is there. I believe the Lord will continue to speak more and more of what it looks like and how to do it. Actually, he might not. But He's awesome.

Fourth

I've been back in Kona from Brazil for about one week now. We were the last team to get back and man, was it an amazing to see everybody back. It was evident even in the way they smiled, spoke and looked that they had all been radically transformed by God during the past three months. It was definitely overwhelming but I was just pumped for the first time when we would just get to worship together. After a day of hanging out, and eating good old American food we finally got together as a class. It was so good. Just felt a joy to be back with friends that have been a part of life change. We turned to the Lord in worship and gratitude and it went off. Holy Spirit dropped and the whole class got radically met. Monday night was ministry night and that was just another crazy night. It was crazy to join with the Fire and Fragrance crew and just go for it. So nuts. Just a room full of crazy people absolutely going for it. It was one of the craziest sets I've been in. EVER. 

So as a class, we're debriefing. The school leader Jeff, I love this dude, is debriefing us and preparing us to go home. I love it. Instead of actually preparing us to go home, or give us a strategy to find a way to settle in, we just shared testimonies and just fell more in love with the Lord. We realised going home was just a continuation of what we did on outreach and not the beginning and end of something. Brian Brennt, a man of God that spoke during lecture phase absolutely blew it up again and empowered the whole class to go nuts back at home or wherever we go. Even the man Jim Orred came in. Hearing stories from all around the world of authentic and intentional community centered around the presence of Jesus actually lived out was truly faith building. Hearing stories of radical transformation in the hearts of angry alcoholics, demon possessed people and just the normal average guy told by the very friends that you laid your life down for was... AH 'SO GOOD' for lack of a better phrase. 

The students graduated today. It was incredibly moving. To see the guys that I was able to pour into finally finish a DTS. Finally. They can change the world now, because they've done a DTS. Only true YWAMers can change the world and know Jesus. 

I'm totally kidding. But nevertheless, it was emotional. What an amazing blessing it was. I look back on the six months, and I basically was just a student with these guys. So many things went down, so many memories were made, so many friendships were deepened. It was so legit. I loved every single second of it, even though it was incredibly hard at some times. Many, many desires are on my heart in terms of the next step, but I really have no idea where the Lord is taking me. If you have any desire to live out community with me and just love Jesus and have fun, let me know. In Jesus name.

Third

So debrief has begun. My time in Rio de Janeiro has been amazing. I don't even know where to begin. I've like... backspaced and deleted things I already wrote so many times. Hm... The Lord radically blessed us with friendships and encounters. With the carnivale starting, we all were pumped to get into the city and just do work! It was amazing. I love doing ministry in these types of environments. At the same time, my heart broke. As I just saw brokenness taking on the mask of drunkenness, and partying. We even had a guy ask, "how could this be wrong? People are having fun and living. If this is wrong then I'm just going to live." Oh, if you ONLY knew! I was surprised to find that the carnivale was similar to New Year's celebrations in Sydney. Massive parades and people dancing. One day, I got to see the team, Brandon especially, step out and again break fear of man as he began to share the Lord's heart for the people of Rio de Janeiro on the main strip of Copacabana beach. It was amazing to see and be a part of that.

As we have begun debriefing, the Lord has specifically put my on heart to not only process what has happened in the past three months, but to prepare them on a more personal level to go home. Having been a DTS student myself, I found the change of settling back into home difficult. People will find the things I say offensive and would discourage the things that were laid on my heart. Being a people pleaser, I didn't want to offend anyone so I basically stopped thinking and expressing thoughts like this. I have no idea how I'm going to do that, but we'll see.

Today, we had a team meeting and started to speak out and write down the things the Lord did in us personally. It was amazing just to hear the work of the Lord in the past three months. It just pumped me up!  As I was sharing, I realised the GREATEST things I learned and the GREATEST thing I was taught was the love of God. As cliche and typical as that sounds that is literally the craziest thing I learnt. I definitely learnt many things like patience, selflessness, faith etc. But all of these things fall SO short in comparison to His love. And it's many times where I've heard that, "it's all about love." But NEVER has it actually sunk in that it really is all about that. For the first time I got to see how with the basis of love, everything else comes out of that. A relationship from love and not for love. For the first time in my life, the bible began to come alive and I just couldn't get enough of it. Every time I got to worship was a time where I could just meet and talk to Him and go deeper with Him. More and more and more hunger began to increase and increase as I apprehended His incomparable and endless love for me. No more is it about trying to make Him love me of trying to get up and have one hour of quiet time but I just want Him! It's crazy how people tend to think and be content with christianity. I love it how wrong I was. How the Lord completely blew away my mind and expounded the possibilities of His love into eternity! Everyday I'm in awe of JUST how vast He really is.

Anyway, I'll stop. I feel like you guys know where I'm at. Nothing matters anymore. I don't care. I just want to worship, and I just want Him. More and more. Everyday. FOREVER! Wow! He is worthy!

Second

My time in Sao Paulo is drawing to an end. One more week in this community. We'll be wrapping up all the ministries here that we have here and saying our good-byes to the friends we've made here. Crazy stuff as I remember the Lord's faithfulness to us and me. He worked in crazy ways. Last posted I mentioned the team went on a fast and walked out Isaiah 58 or 48... But it was nuts. We saw hearts healed as we walked around with a sign with a cheesy statement saying, "free prayer."A lady invited us to come and the girls stayed with her for at least half an hour sharing with her the gospel and seeing her heart and life restored. The boys and I wandered off and four hungry women in a hairdresser asked us to come and we prayed to and prophesied over them. The next day, we visited this guy's house who used to come to the church we were a part of. He was disabled from the waist down as he got into a bad accident when he was dancing. He basically gave up on life and refused to eat. As we entered the house, our team had no doubt in our hearts that we were going to see his guy restored and even walk out of the room. He didn't walk out of the room, but it didn't matter. Well, to me it didn't. I realised the results didn't matter to me anymore and the only thing that mattered was that I had the faith and that I loved Jesus. We broke the fast and it was glorious.

The Lord has also led half of the team to go to a Dutch community. They're there right now and probably blowing it up. While they were gone, we've been meeting up with a demon-possessed guy. Doctors would say he's a schizophrenic. As soon as we met him, we felt the Lord was going to free this man. We're fasting and praying, and going tomorrow to set him free. Oh yeah.

Man, I just love the Lord. In the past few days, he's really put intercession on my heart. I guess it was an area, I lacked in almost? I rarely prayed for other things. But as we press in as a team and intercede for things like the youth and missionaries in Brazil, other outreach teams, I just FEEL it. Jesus just gives me a crazy heart for the things I pray for. Cool! Smith Wigglesworth said that, "I rarely pray longer than a half hour at a time - but I never go a half hour without praying."Challenged me.

Basically, Jesus has radically increased my faith and I just love Him!

First

So, this new. Currently in Brazil. Five weeks in on my outreach phase. Ready to see even more. The Lord's been teaching me about leadership and following Him more and more every single day. I've noticed that He's blessed me with an incredible and simple knowledge that He is good. Regardless of whether I have a bad day or good, I just KNOW that He's good, so I don't really have bad days. I've been noticing a recurring pattern in the team where they always seemed to repent of self-focus and selfishness. I asked the Lord, "how do I lead these guys into personal sacrifice everyday and cease having to stop the entire team to deal with this?" He took me back to the scriptures when Jesus offered the young rich man to sell all of his possessions. Jesus offered the road to sacrifice, or to the world. So he said to me, "give them the choice of sacrifice or self." That's what I'm going to do.

The team is embarking on a three day fast to gain a greater heart for Brazil and to really ask the Lord why we're here. I love it. I usually don't like saying things like this but today we had an amazing time with the Lord. I don't like to say it because every time really is amazing, but we just had a crazy encounter. Ashley, a friend on the team couldn't speak in English and could only speak in tongues for a couple of hours. In the midst of this, I'm dealing with frustrations and things that are occupying my mind. I found it hard to engage and really focus in. But the Lord remained good as usual. He reminded me that the main thing is Jesus. Again. Seriously, I wonder how many times I can be reminded of that and still get rocked. Crazy.

The past week the team has started men and women ministries focused on the members of the church we work with and seeing them discipled into following Jesus. It's been amazing. Seeing the men realise the importance of the act of confessing sins to one another and bringing to light the things in their lives they're ashamed of. They were saying things like, "what if you guys hate me after I confess?" I was overjoyed at the new and daring hearts they were possessing as they stepped out and we saw freedom overcome them. So much so, that their faces and appearance seemed to be lifted. He is worthy.

As we're fasting the Lord led us to Isaiah 58. I'm excited to see how real the gospel really is and do the things in that passage. True fasting.