Village of Peace :)

A few stories and moments from my last few weeks in Pohnpei, Micronesia:

  My team went to stay 2 nights at the Village of Peace last weekend.  A family of Christians there had really been crying out for renewal and encouragement and revival in their community, and invited us to come stay with them.  It was like being at a family reunion, tons of kids running around and playing with us, volleyball, tons of cousins, and food.  They really wanted to honor us, because they felt that the more they honored us, the more they honored God and they wanted every blessing he had for them.  They cooked every meal for us, and played the ukelele and sang while we ate, and the kids came into the house where we were sleeping early in the morning and played and sang songs all day long with us.  They even roasted a pig for us one night, which is a food reserved to show honor for very special occasions here.  The weekend started out with awkward silences between us, but by the end we were all crying and hugging and making plans to visit each other again, and we washed the feet of the representatives of their families and they gave us each a traditional dress.  

 We had worship services in the yard in the evenings and went in small groups to visit houses nearby in the day time.  Each family that we prayed with, asked for more love, either personally or for their family and marriage, and for their community to be unified again with more love.  It was such a sweet time.  Several people were healed of heart conditions, blindness and deafness.  And some delivered as they received prayers for impartation of joy.  And we were all encouraged in the Lord together.  

  A friend shared a testimony of a teenager being raised from the dead in an American hospital in the name of Jesus.  One of the cousins of our friends who were hosting us in the village, had died a few days before and was to have a funeral the next day. That evening some of us felt to go to the morgue to ask the husband if we could pray for his wife to be resurrected.  It was the middle of the night when we arrived, and he was sleeping in his car in the parking lot of the hospital/morgue.  So we got to visit with him, and he apologized saying that he didn't want us to pray for her because she had had so much peace with dying, and had time to make peace with everyone, and he didn't want her to come back to life if she might have a sudden death next time and not have a chance to make peace.  So we honored his request, and my friend gave him a donut (which she had brought to give the woman if she came back to life hungry) and encouraged him to remember to eat.  His eyes got so wide and surprised with this simple act of compassion.  He said, "how did you know I haven't been eating?"  She said, "well, you're grieving, a lot of people don't eat when they are grieving."  It was the most practical and matter of fact, simple gesture of empathy and encouragement.  And it opened the door for us to pray for him, and for his 5 year old son.  And he felt the presence of God so much while we prayed with him that he invited us to come back and share more, he and a drunk friend who was awake in the parking lot.  So we just got to share more of the love of God and invitation to know him more.  Meanwhile the others who had come to pray, went into the emergency room and prayed with people there and saw healing and had amazing God encounters in a woman's hospital room.  It was the craziest faith building middle of the night hospital ministry I've ever been a part of.  And we got so close to our Pohnpeian hosts who were driving with us!  What a crazy Jesus kind of night.  

  

   Growing in obedience-  While we were praying for one man to be healed, I saw in my imagination, Jesus washing his feet.  Which is one of the ways I ask God to speak to me, especially when people need healing, I ask for him to show me what he is doing, so that I can do that to release his kingdom on earth.  But I have been entertaining the enemies ideas that my part in a group is not necessary or significant, and so I ignored the Lord in that moment.  I didn't do what he showed me to do.  So even though we prayed for the man, I knew in my heart that I had been disobedient to the Lord, and really wonder what he wanted to release through that.  So I just repented and asked him to show me any other lies I had been believing that had made room in my heart to disobey in that moment.  Wow, so he also showed me that sometimes I am looking for him to show up in such unusual and different ways, or visions, that I missed him when he was speaking through the simple act of foot washing.  I thought I was just making it up, because its not original, its been done before.  But hello, if it was powerful enough for Jesus to do it, obviously it can be a powerful thing when God is doing it!  And wow, I want to listen to the gentle whisper and recognize that that is my King speaking!  So yeah, I just wanted to share this part of my journey, so that I can share the next story when God redeems it and I learn to be obedient next time, and you will know that it came through a process :)

Arrows, Coal, Spears, Scrolls- I cannot even express the work God has been doing in my heart and the commissioning that is being confirmed here. God is showing me his hand in fulfilling dreams he put in my heart from a young girl, and prophetic words from 7 years ago that are being birthed in my life for such a time as this!