Monthly Archives: March 2014

As someone who, for many, many years had major problems with sleep – I know only too well what a miracle it is when sleep DOES come, not just a totally unsatisfying 2-3 hours, but to go to sleep when you go to bed, and sleep through… in Sweden, a number of people had sleep miracles given to them by God. If you’ve NEVER had slep issues, that’s a hard thing to conceive of,  but believe me, it’s a miracle….

I had a message the other day, and as I haven’t asked permission to use names yet, I’ll just say C.S., who’d had major problems with sleeping. Here’s what was in the message…

• Two weeks now without sleeping problems 🙂 :)…. tomorrow I’m leading worship at a big conference ‘heaven on earth’ in Örebro with people from Bethel

Two whole weeks! Enough time for your body to BEGIN to recover from lack of it, but I’m believing that it’s a lifetime thing now for that lovely person.

My problem with sleep related to fear, if I’m honest, that hit me like a train when I was 12…. I’d just got home from school, had had a good day, and had been home 9 minutes (it’s ingrained in my memory, you can tell from the specific time!), to hear my dad die, upstairs, at home, and I wasn’t allowed (by a well meaning friend) to go straight up and see him before he went to be with Jesus…. as a 12 year old, having someone die, and then having the body in the house overnight, ‘did’ me for sleep, and going upstairs on my own, for many years…

And then, learning about the vital importance of rest, living here, I’ve slept well, for the best part of the four and a half years I’ve lived here. Of course, there are some nights when ‘crises’ or issues overwhelm your mind as soon as your head hits the pillow, but I can only tell you how amazing it is, after 45 years of – sometimes total – sleeplessness (yes, I often had prayer for it, ministry for the fear, but the enemy can be blooming persistent at presenting you with issues that ensure he keeps you awake!) – what a miracle it is.

And, an additional blessing, my doctor friend in Mexico, who’s taken me ‘on’ as a project (!!) – weight and knees especially – has been ‘responsible’ for my losing 1½ stones – 21 pounds – 10 kgs, in 3 weeks…..it seems, genuinely, that my metabolism had never really worked properly, and the ‘event’ that deprived me of sleep, my dad’s death, also put paid to the little my metabolism DID work… Maybe it was a prophetic act (! LOL!!) but months ago, I bought from Amazon, in one of their ‘bargain’ Monday to Wednesday sales, a leather belt hole punch…. now, I’ve mad two more holes in my belt – so, 2 inches (10 cms) down….. yeah!!!! Only another 50 pounds/30 kgs to go 😉 – and another 6 inches off the middle….

It’s so good to be back home, as there’s no place like it, but I do have to say that I was very sad to be leaving Sweden, and all my amazing friends, showing me so much love. and, even more especially, because God ‘did the stuff’ – that great ‘Wimberism’ – every day, in every place…. I have always believed, personally, that when we go to meetings, and ‘call down the Presence of God’, that it isn’t necessary. Heresy? Anti-charismatic? Neither! I believe increasingly that WE CARRY the Presence of God with us, in us, and around us….

I don’t always go to meetings feeling on top spiritual form: sometimes, I’m tired, sometimes there have been events or occurrences that take the stuffing out of me, so many things that ‘the stuff of life’ – and, of course, an enemy who doesn’t want us to believe it, get us to a meeting and – honestly – we don’t feel anything. If we didn’t CARRY the Presence, and we’ve got to persuade him to come, then often, not much would happen.

I’m grateful that Jesus sent me – and YOU – as the Father sent him. Jesus got tired, times when he didn’t want people around him, times when he’d even had people try to push him off a cliff…. yet (Colossians 1), the Father was pleased to ‘put all of His fullness into Jesus’ – and we’re sent by Jesus just as His dad sent him.

These past two weeks in Sweden, preceded, of course, by a lovely weekend in Seaford, have been amazing. Not because I’m good: not because I’m a great speaker, not because I’m a magician(!) – but because Jesus was please to give ME all that his Father gave him.

Just looking back, still tired, but I woke early, and started thinking about SOME of the things that happened…. over 2 weeks:-

• 5 people with deafness heard
• a lovely 9 year old girl, with bad glaucoma, saw, perfectly, in a minute
• at lest 9 people with diabetes – 5 class 1 – were healed
• a lady with chronic circulation and unbelievable water-retention began to change shape overnight
• a lady with such terrible pain in her right thigh it woke her many times, slept perfectly the night she was prayed for
• 5 people with major sleep disorders slept
• a lady with massive physical and trauma pain, emotional pain, acute stress and depression, felt all the pain move from her body to her arms and then out of her fingers – all gone!
• cancer dying instead of the person
• meeting the young lady instantly healed over the phone of Multiple Sclerosis, who then had a brain haemmorrage and major balance problems healed
• countless people freed from pain – and unless you’ve suffered acute pain for a period of time, you might not think that’s much! It is….
• migraines disappearing
• IBS, crones, cystitis, other stomach disorders, healed
• ovarian cysts healed

….I could go on, but I’ve blogged some of them over the last 2 weeks. Amazing. Thank you, thank you, thank you Lord… for your power, for your love, for your healing, for your PRESENCE.

Now, it’s home just for 8 days, to do laundry, and other exciting things like that(!), before re-packing and heading back over to England next Wednesday, ready for the warmth of Cali, Colombia from Thursday – and, surprisingly (or not??), finding the Presence of God there, too. I need to try and chill out a bit in these few days, fortunately there’s masses of cricket, rugby, and football on the television, and I’ve got a film or two I haven’t seen yet…. Sweden, I love you!

The last meeting of the two weeks was in the same Baptist Church in Skara: it’s wonderful when you walk in to a meeting, and a couple of people of people tell you immediately that they were healed the night before! Madeleine, who had major circulation problems, and severe water retention in her body, told me Saturday night that she’d know the healing had begun if she could get her jeans on…she’d not worn them for a long time. I asked her, without looking at her legs(!) – jeans on…. thank you, Lord! Then she told me that her dad’s eyesight had been fully restored, and her brother was healed….

Another guy (name gone, sorry!) had pain in his knees reducing minute by minute…..

Lovely meeting…. faith lifted as Madeleine told her stories…. then the first lady up for healing (no, not Michelle Obama!) was healed of pain…a man named Peter, heavy, heavy pain in neck and shoulders for some time, and depression…. all gone. And so it went on again….got Madeleine and Peter praying with people, as were Claes, the pastor, Carl & Cecilia, whom I’d stayed with: many healed, and, much to the church leaders’ surprise, lots of people came forward who’d NEVER go forward for ministry! Maybe there’s a tipping point reached for that lovely church….

Fantastic lunch with with the pastor’s family, and a few from the church… then the long (well, 3½ hours, but it’s a boring road!) drive back to Kungsangen to be near Arlanda Airport for this morning, and the haul home…. but not before a wonderful evening with Stojan, Soila, and Sarah, their daughter, laughing, sharing food, beer, and a lot of prayer for each other….

Amazing, amazing trip…. I so want to come back her soon…. Thank you, Lord, for EVERYTHING you’ve done, it’s been wonderful!

Wonderful day yesterday…. I didn’t go far, as dear Bjorn & Maria invited half of Borås to their home, it seemed! They have a WONDERUL ministry of loving people (shouldn’t we ALL have that? Don’t think a lot do!), and genuinely caring for them with a longing to see them healed and whole, even some who turned up yesterday – with others – whom they didn’t know! Their house is like Piccadilly Circus at rush hour, at times, yet they embrace everyone, find ‘fika’ (the lovely informal sandwich/salad’scones/waffles’ tea that is much par of Swedish life. I don’t know that I know many people with bigger, more generous hearts than them. Thank you, Bjorn, Maria: your wonderful. And Kristin, Filip, and John – you’re every bit a part of the love in this home, much bigger than you’d ever know, and such a blessing to me…

Thursday, Phillip and his best friend Adam, both youth pastors, took this old git out to lunch: both cool, trendy eligible young man with a near-pension-age Cockney in tow. Had a lovely time with them, and then, bless ’em, they prayed for my knees on the steps of the church opposite, very public, and they have been noticeably better….bless you both!

Yesterday, chill-out morning after the late night in Gothenburg (no, it’s NOT where Batman lives!!! That’s Gotham). A lovely lunch with Bjorn, such a dear, close friend, even with the ‘blocks of absence’ in our friendship with my not being in Sweden. B & M’s friendship is one of those you pick up beyond where you left off last time.

Then – the human tsunami. I’m not mentioning names here, as some were Maria’s colleagues from school, and some are Christians-in-waiting. Another aside – hilarious, not just to me (as my pension from the NatWest Bank – £10 a week at 65 – would never be beaten for ‘lowness’!!) – Maria was notified of a pension from some place she worked a couple of days ago. It’s massive!!!! At 65, she gets 3 Crowns (Kronor) a month, reducing to 1 Crown at 70 years old…. so that’s about 28 pence a month for 5 years, then reducing to 9 pence a month!!

I have no idea how many passed through the house from 4-8 pm: I didn’t know any were ‘in waiting’! but it wouldn’t have changed the way I’d prayed, anyway… no spectacular miracles, but I think just about everyone experienced the awesome peace of God, heat, tingling, electricity going through them, some with pain reducing (of course, that will continue). B, M, and I all knew that God did stuff they didn’t tell us about – maybe didn’t even realise, weren’t aware of….so, in process are things like a new thyroid where the old one had already been removed, arthritis (knees, yep!!!) having more flexibility and no pain when standing (after sitting a long time – I know that one!!)… I could list all the ‘usual’ stuff from previous blogs, but want those lovely folk to retain their hidden identity – until THEY choose to talk about it.

All of the people felt the Presence of God in the house, and when He’s somewhere, you don’t have pray too much, ‘cos ‘nobody does it better’…. (cue song?)….

Some of the folk seemed totally bowled over by the way I pray…. 🙂 …. with humour, and conversation all in the middle of it….! Sort of knocks not-yet-Christian people’s view of stuffy, unknown religious word prayers, on the head! And I was wearing my Shakespeare t-shirt – can’t understand why people think it’s funny, it’s from ‘Much ado about nothing’ – ‘He hath an excellent stomach’….!!!!! Some of them thought it was brilliant…. maybe we ought to let people see us laughing at ourselves more often….?

And then, yet another privilege: last Tuesday I had the joy of speaking in the Pentecostal Church here. The Pastor, Urban, is a delightful man: I loved praying with him. He has a brother in law, Paul, who was, for much of his life, a missionary in Bolivia and Argentina. I couldn’t physically get to pray for him, as he lives in Jönköping. He had to come home to Sweden as cancer was diagnosed, pretty rampant extreme cancer too: prostate, spread quickly to his skeletal frame. So Maria phoned him yesterday, and – what a delightful, wonderful man… as someone with a raging love for South America, it was so lovely to connect with someone here with an even greater passion than me for that great continent. We chatte in and out of English and Spanish, and prayed for each other in Spanish. This man is not ready for that foul disease to take him: I felt as I prayed for him that he’d have years ahead back there, and that one day, with my lovely friends Hendrik & Teija Hoere, from Cali – who are also passionate about Bolivia – that we’d all meet there and bring heaven to earth, and Bolivia transformed…

Then, an extra blessing… a lovely friend, from 7 years back, Pierre, and I went out to eat, and catch up with each other. It was so, so good.

By the way, the picture isn’t what Bjorn & Maria USUALLY look like… they’re just a lot of fun, and crazy, which – like with Vello and Ingalill, and Stojan, last week, is why I get on with them…. 🙂