- When I cleaned off the hook after this morning’s breakfast with Vello and Paul Bennison began God’s spirit speaking to my heart ang water tower. Sometimes when things in the natural place, so it can also point to something (a State might) that exist in the spiritual. The water has become defiled because a lekage from a toilet in the Tower’s restaurant, where it has been said that “it has dropped” from the toilet. Suddenly, I sense how the spirit of God wanted to show and tell me how it can “drop negative words that pollute” my heart and as dirty my inner world and prevents the crystal clear stream flowing fresh and clear out of my mind. Negative words about myself, about others, about leaders, for context, well the list goes on and on, up impurity from the inside out.
I experienced something strange seen also how this is associated with the meetings we’ve had this weekend with Paul Bennison. This has been a weekend where the TESTIMONY of God’s mighty power has been the key, and it created faith and great joy in all our hearts when we listened to Paul, and people this weekend have themselves experienced God’s healing power!! I was wondering about how this water tower could have something to do with the weekend and then suddenly I was reminded of what exodus 15: 22-27. THE BITTER WATERS OF MARAH AND HOW IT WAS SWEET! Moses threw a kind of wood in the water and it was sweet (a model of Christ’s cross), and it is especially verse 27 that talk about how absolutely crucial it is for us to live in obedience and transfer to the word of God because in that there is the promise of healing and healing!!
And I was thrilled with words and testimony that have been on Facebook the last 2-3 days: here’s a little;
Ingalill Vaim:
Lovely start! Acceleration tonight… :)
Last night was a really great time, with a good number of people here in Orebro. Ingalill led the worship beautifully, such a lovely ‘platform’ to speak from, and I felt a wonderful freedom when my time came, with great friend Erik Wahlberg translating. Here’s what Ingalill put on her Facebook page about last night, and then about tonight:
- SÅ tacksam för denna kvällen!! So thankful for this evening
- We had a wonderful meeting yesterday and God touched many people’s lives and hearts. Tonight we continue at 19. Praise led by wonderful Rut Yismaw Ambaye
A lot of what happened for people last night wasn’t ‘explosive’ miracles, but a really gentle moving of the Holy Spirit, deep, into many emotional and spiritual areas of their lives. A few people had significant reductions in pain – if that doesn’t sound much to you, then maybe you’ve never been in extreme pain! – and some folk that I believe we’ll know, if not tonight, at least tomorrow, that they’re healed, including two Class 1 diabetics, interestingly a number of people with major issues of sleeplessness, and some with totally undiagnosable problems – they’re the sort it seems to me that God will heal simply because doctors have no idea!
So, beginning to get ready for the second Kingdom connection tonight – and even more of God’s presence, though he was very much in evidence last night!
Sweden, beautiful Sweden
Hej!
That’s hello in Swedish, just in case you didn’t know – often repeated twice… thankfully, I arrived last night, after the passport trauma of Monday (well, my forgetfulness, more like!). Yesterday wasn’t without another ‘hiccup’ – I have an ‘old people’s’ computer bag – one on wheels! – and always attach my rucksack by it’s purposely designed strap to my computer bag ‘puller’. Well, clearly I didn’t do the connection right yesterday, and I happily sailed through the priority’ lane 🙂 and got to security – without my rucksack! Once again, panic – airlines tell you to put ‘valuables’ in your hand luggage, and mine had my ‘cannot-be-without’ iPod in it, headphones, phones (I always take extra phones with me for ‘local’ SIM cards in whatever country I’m in), books, and much more…
I went back to where you get your passport and boarding pass scanned and asked to be let out to look for it. You can’t do that, apparently! It needs a ‘manager’ to come and check you out, and it takes at least 15 minutes to get one…. everyone (except me, I guess) seemed very relaxed, blase, about it… and it was a good 10 minutes before I was reunited with it! So, two things that have never happened before happened within 36 hours of each other on the same trip….
….I’m praying that it’s a good sign for this trip, that any attempt to stop me failed (though not without anguish!), and I arrived here at the lovely home of my dear friends
Stojan and Soila Gajicki (Serbian and Finnish, if you’re wondering if they’re Swedish names! – and I go to Vello & Ingalill Vaim tomorrow, Estonian and Norwegian! Yes, there are Swedes in Sweden!!). I’ve not seen any of them for about 4 years, so we had a wonderful evening and morning catching up, and talking about the possibilities of future trips together.
The view from my bedroom window here is one that causes me to suffer for the Kingdom… 😉 – such a beautiful lake, just slightly down the slope from Stojan’s sauna, so generally it’s into the sauna, then a run down the hill into the lake, then back into the sauna…. trouble is, running – or even the slope dwon to the sauna and lake – isn’t something attainable -YET – with my knees, but again, soon, I know….
Power and panic!
It was a great weekend at Fresh Springs Church, Seaford, with three meetings. Lovely worship at each of them, led by Nicki Hardy, Gerry Page, and Tric Hindley, and, for me, it was great to, like last time in Seaford, to have friends come from other places – some relatively, some very far! Saturday, one man came from Exeter (a 400 mile round trip), another from Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex (probably a 200+ mile round trip), and a number of folk from Eastbourne, Maidstone, etc.
God blessed a good number with healing, healing in process, and one lovely man, John, who’d been in a fairly deep hole of depression for some time, came to set next to me to wait while I was praying for someone else – Gerry, the worship leader, actually – whose ankle has been bugging him for a long time. Something made me grab John’s hand and say, ‘Come on, you pray for this!’ and he did – and instantly, as he testified yesterday, all the depression, disappointment, and feeling of lack and loss, left him….
A lovely lady, Doreen, has testified to being on her way to being healed: Lesley, who suffered terribly with water-retention in her legs and feet, checked her legs a few minutes later, and they’d already gone down in size noticeably. For others, it was the freeing from pain, especially arthritis, and Sasha, a friend from north Kent, whom I only know as a result of mutual mate Mark Hendley, and to whom I’d only ever spoken on Skype(!), had this lovely story to tell:
- MOTHER AND DAUGHTER OVERWHELMED BY THE LOVE AND POWER OF JESUS
I popped down to Seaford where Paul Bennison was speaking. Ministering in places such as Columbia he regularly sees cancers disappear, the dead raised and other creative miracles and healing leading to many deciding to follow Jesus as a result.
I was sat at the back listening to him speak so was very surprised when Paul invited me to share some testimonies of the goodness of God and then had the privilege of praying for people
A Mother wanted prayer for her daughter. They had been involved in a road traffic accident. Her 7 year old daughter had developed problems with her sight as a result of injuries from the accident. She had some areas of ‘blackness’ in her visual fields and was unable to see colours properly. It was a wonderful moment when she started to see outlines of colour – her mother was overwhelmed with emotion as her daughter started to pick out colours. This was a special moment as the love and power of Jesus was further displayed when the mother reported the neck and shoulder pain she had suffered as a result of the accident going too.
They had come because of the evangelistic outreach of the church – as a result they had an encounter with the love and power of God which brought hope into their lives. Come on Jesus –
Tric, the leader of the church with her husband, Peter, is gathering the stories up and will either send them to me, on post them on my Facebook page.
So, a visit on my way back to Richard and Louise, leaders of Kings Church, here in Addlestone, and back then to Keith Margi’s for a ‘short’ night – 4.40 am departure to Heathrow, for Sweden…..
Or not! Hence, panic – no passport! I’ve never lost my passport before, certainly never been in the queue at check-in to discover it missing. A frantic rummage – and frantic means you don’t look properly! – produced – nothing! Hoping I could fly to Stockholm just on ID – a drivers licence – as it’s an EU Schengen country – but no, can’t go without your passport. So, poor Keith, who’d just got back home, was then back en route for Terminal 5, to pick me up, while I had to work out what to do next….
I was just about to call the passport office in London to report it lost or stolen, when I thought, I wonder if it’s in my Bible Bag….I never ever put in there, it’s always in my computer bag. Lo and behold, it WAS in my Bible bag….. relief in extremis! Hurriedly re-arranged flights (at a cost, of course – what airline does nice things free??!), and I’m off to Sweden tomorrow afternoon. I’m just grateful not to have lost it, as UK passports are very valuable in the ‘wrong’ hands, and I was already thinking about how to get a replacement in time for Colombia in just over 3 weeks’ time….
Orf we jolly well go again, then! (with great expectations, apologies to Charles Dickens!)
It only seems like 3 or 4 days since I got back from Mexico, but I must have missed a few days somewhere, because tomorrow morning, I’ll find myself sitting in an aeroplane again, albeit only to Heathrow…. but it begins a trip that I’ve had rising expectation for that God’s going to surprise us…..
At 3.30 pm the first meeting in Seaford kicks off, with what I know will be great worship, as Nicki Hardy is leading it. It’s always good to know who is going to be leading the worship, as sometimes it’s harder to follow than others! With the wonderful blessing of the healing of the brain tumour that I heard, and blogged for days about(!) this week, I’m so looking forward to seeing what God is going to do over the three meetings in Seaford.
And that, of course, will lay a lovely platform to springboard to Sweden from, though I’m told it’s cold and wet…. nothing new for people who live in Ireland! – but there are some great events arranged. A gentle, restful start in Kungsangen, with my great mate, Stojan, and his lovely wife Soila. Perhaps gentle and restful aren’t quite the right adjectives for either me OR Stojan, as we laugh a lot, share very similar humour, and similar tastes in sausages, beer, and saunas….
In Orebro, I’ll be with my great friends Vello and Ingalill Vaim. They have a church and run a ministry ‘Prophetic Forum’ – I’m always a extra nervous speaking when Vello’s there, as he’s an incredibly prophetic ‘seer’…. years ago, back in the mid ’80s, I met a wonderful cockney prophet/word of knowledge man, Johnny Barr. Johnny was a true cockney, an amazing man of God, though his words of knowledge rarely stretched to remembering your name! He could – and often did – tell you your life story without ever having met you before. When we first met, he told me, ‘over a cuppa tea, ma bruvver’, the date, the time, how old I was, when my dad died: what he died of, how old he was, that he was mis-diagnosed, what happened to others in my family with ‘blood problems’ – for about 15 minutes….. I wondered if I’d got my life story printed on my t-shirt! Every time I knew I was going to see him, I repented of everything I’d already repented of, and repented of stuff I hadn’t yet thought of doing, in case he got a word of knowledge…
Vello carries that same Godly authority, and his understanding and teaching of Scripture, and the prophetic, is awesome. So me getting up and doing my bit with Vello there, tends to set the butterflies off – though in the latter years, I’ve learned how to get them to fly in formation….
And then on to Boras, and many meetings/individual times with countless asylum seekers and some illegals….the ministry Bjorn and Maria have is incredible, and I’m excited to see some of the folk who were asylum seekers when I was last there, which I guess must have been about 4 years ago….
So, please Lord, deluge us with your presence over these next days – and surprise, even shock, us all….
A blessing!
I’ve just spent two lovely hours with David, the man who God has done miracles for in respect of his brain tumour. It’s always so god to be able to talk to the person concerned, as you can get all the right information! His tumour, considered ‘very large’ by the Consultants, is right in the centre of his brain, so totally inoperable, and the story of how God has healed him is wonderful. The small residual ‘lump’ the doctors say will just dissolve….. What’s even more exciting is what it’s done for his faith, and he knows that he is now a living, walking, talking testimony! Hearing about how the docs were flummoxed by the fact that the tumour had shrunk so rapidly, and his tunnel vision restored to full peripheral vision, was great!
Though he hadn’t been given a ‘terminal deadline’, the doctors had made David totally aware that there was nothing they could do more than manage pain. And then he told them that he no longer HAD pain….
God’s so good!!
The brain tumour miracle confirmed!
Well, that was quicker than I thought! I contacted my lovely friend, John Gault, who’d invited me to speak at the Holywood CFC Men’s breakfast on ! February, and he told me the story, and I’ve just put the phone down from talking to David, the man who is living in this miracle! What’s more, to fill in any other missing details, we’re meeting for an Ulster Fry breakfast on Wednesday morning… 🙂
David has had this tumour diagnosed for 18-20 months. After the initial diagnosis, it seemed to ‘shrink’ as a result of the treatment – chemo – and medication: and then, rapidly, it increased to 105% of it’s original size…. I imagine that’s pretty worrying. What’s more, it was pressing on two optic nerves, and as a result, David had tunnel vision. He’d lived for the whole time with severe headaches, and couldn’t do anything without starting the day with heavy duty pain-killers.
As we parted on the Saturday, I said to him that I believed it would go, and that he’d know, from God, when he should stop taking the pain medication.
The Sunday morning after the Men’s Breakfast, he got up to go to church, and didn’t have a headache…. first time in 20 months. He’s not taken a single pill since, either.
He went to see the Consultant, whose initial gambit was ‘Well, David, as the tumour has increased in size so drastically, we’ll have to increase your medication, and decide on the next course of action’. David’s response was that he had no headache, and had stopped taking all the medication. The Consultant told him that he was foolish: why had he done it? The response was, ‘I was prayed for and my headaches stopped’. David said the doctor looked at him as though he’d got two heads and was crazy: and instantly booked him in for another scan. That happened on February 13.
The next meeting with the doctor, to discuss the scan, was one of shock for the medic! The tumour has shrunk so much, that the doctor said is will just ‘dissolve’ and disappear…..
How, just how, does God do this stuff??!! Meeting up for brekkie with David will be a little like having a party barbecue with Alejandrina, in Mexico City, two weeks ago six months after she should have been dead…
It just leaves me speechless, humbled, astonished, amazed, that the prayers of Christianity’s Jobsworth, the religious Del Boy, God uses…. At the same time as I rejoice with the everyone who is healed, and want to cry with joy, I also find tears of utter gratitude falling as I hear the stories of what God does in people’s lives….
Thank you, Father. You utterly blow me away.
A wonderful miracle….
… and in the U.K, too, not some far off land where people ‘don’t have anything else OTHER than miracles and healing’ – I hope you can sense my tongue firmly in my cheek at that last phrase, because in a large majority of places, there IS access to medical care/hospitals. They might not be the sort of hospitals that we would want to be ill in, but that’s not the issue….
I was just minding my own business wandering around Tescos about an hour ago, and at the printer ink section (as you do!), was greeted by Andy Galbraith, who is the Assistant Minister at West Church, Bangor, the church I am part of when I’m home. He told me a wonderful story that he’d heard two ladies sharing: he mentioned the name of one, and I don’t know her too well, but she was telling the other that her ex-husband (I think! – I’m trying to chase down the facts already!) was at a Men’s Breakfast I spoke at recently in Holywood (no, not for Oscar Winners! – that’s Holywood with two ‘l’s!!), at Christian Fellowship Church. He’d got a large brain tumour, and, as the story was related from one lady to another, with a lot of excitement and awe, it seems that the tumour, after a scan a week of so after being prayed for, had shrunk by more than two-thirds, and the rest was disintegrating…. From what I was told, the Oncologist was somewhat gobsmacked…. 🙂
I’ll gather as much info as I can over the next few days, and write a more detailed account!
Wonderful, just wonderful…
The picture alongside the post, of Alejandrina with me, will live in my memory for many, many years: it’s something very precious to hug and hold and talk to and laugh with someone who should have been dead 6 months ago…. so amazing, God, you’re just so awesomely amazing….
It was a tremendous day yesterday, though in respect of preaching I had the morning off in Beny and Paty’s church! – but that didn’t stop a good number of people c0ming up to me afterwards and asking for prayer!
Beny got one particular lady from last week to testify as to her healing: My ‘report’ on Luz Maria last week was this:
- Luz Maria, a lovely lady suffered from a problem that both bothered her ‘cosmetically’, but also caused pain in her back. One shoulder was considerably and visibly higher than the other, which of course, meant her back was out of alignment (ifI recall, she’d had a bad fall some time ago), so the ‘leg lengthening’ had its day today. I know, it isn’t the leg that grows (normally! – sometimes it is, like in India 22 years ago!). There were a few church folk around watching, Luz’s right leg was a good 2-3 cms shorter than the left. But only for a few moments more… funny thing is, it kept ‘growing’ on the palm of my hand, and was soon about a centimetre longer than the left, so that one had to ‘come
Luz Maria, with skeletal problems following an accident, one shoulder lower than the other: blown away as her back re-aligned and her leg grew 2-3 cmsdown’ too, which it did! A taller lady: why doesn’t that happen to me? I’d love to be taller! She was totally blown away as she felt movement inside her right leg. Her shoulders were level when she stood up 
…
Here’s the link to her telling the story herself yesterday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP6I72t0cYA
Rodrigo, a young boxer with a tumour in his shoulder, had this to say yesterday: http://youtu.be/VlfjM0OZJKI
Others came up to me privately after the meeting just to hug me for what God did last Sunday – a bit of a privilege getting hugged for something you haven’t done!
Last night, I spoke in Danny & Paty Ortiz’s church, and it was ‘interesting’ how much of the healing at that meeting was emotional rather than physical. Fiorella once again wrote down all the names for me – and then disappeared off back to Cuernavaca at 5.30 am without giving them to me! One lady, whose policeman son is in jail on ‘trumped up’ kidnap charges, was absolutely desperate. The transformation in her face, which had been full of fear, pain, and hurt, was incredible.
There was a young guy, Giovanni, 19, who had been shot in 2012, and hospitalised for much of 2013: paralysed totally from the waist down as the bullet had passed through his lung and wrecked his spine, wheelchair-bound. His mum was there, too: both ‘Christians in waiting’ (!). Had a lovely time chatting to Giovanni, and asked him if he’d forgiven the shooter…. no, he hadn’t, he’d been far more concerned with revenge. I didn’t push the issue, but ‘suggested’ (quite strongly, maybe!) that he visualise the guy – though he’d been fully face-masked – and spoke out ‘ Lord, I forgive him’ – a pretty tough assignment, I knew that, but – he did it. I prayed for him, asking God to bless him, and begin to restore the very wasted-away lower part of his body. and give him feeling back.
Wow… he did! Not only feeling, in his right knee and foot, but movement that was not involuntary, and as our chat/prayer went on, he felt more and more sensation in his legs… I also suggested to him that God was on his case, and wanted to not only transform his body, but his life. Mum was weeping, I think we all were…. he didn’t make any commitment last night, but took a Bible away and promised to read Mark’s gospel, and I told him that I felt he’d wake this morning with more feeling than last night, and with muscle, flesh, and tissue beginning to return. His pastor, Danny, is with me in Cali in 6 weeks, and Giovanni and mum said they’d go to their church each Wednesday and Sunday… so I’ll see what news Danny has then!
I didn’t finish praying for people until 11.30 pm, though I’d finished speaking at about 9.15 pm, so a trip to the best taco restaurant in that area was very welcome. Gorgeous chilli pineapple salsa!! Veeery late night home though, but well worth it!
A VERY special day….
“One of the most memorable days of my life was when I had lunch with Paul and he introduced me to a young girl (18) called Johana. Paul had met her one year before in a local hospital, on her deathbed, just hours before her death, having been read the last rites by her priest. Paul prayed with her that first day for two hours and here we were, talking, eating and laughing with her one year later after she was healed by the love of our Lord Jesus. A living walking talking breathing testimony to the work Paul does in Jesus’ name.”
Those are words written by my great mate, Paul Silvester, about a young lady whom, a year before, had been given a few hours to live, with leuchaemia and lymphoma. Paul wrote that 12 years ago: and it changed his life. Something happens deep inside of you when you spend time with people who SHOULD have been dead – even more, like China 27 years or more ago, when I shook hands with, and greeted, two ladies who HAD been dead, one 4 days, one 7 days – it’s a humbling, mend-bending experience. You can never be the same again.
If I could have taken photos of Johana when I went to the hospital to pray for her, with a friend, you would never have believe she could survive. A skeleton with skin, somehow still breathing, and a ‘look’ of fear and death on her face that will stay with me forever.
This afternoon and maybe into early evening, I’m spending it with a lovely lady Alejandrina, and her family. It’s to celebrate her total healing 6 months ago, when she;d been sent home from hospital to die. The doctors in the hospital could do no more for her, cancer pretty much everywhere, and her GP, my friend in the house I’m staying in, and who has given me such wonderful care this fortnight, asked if I’d go to her home (Ecatapec, about 2 hours north of Mexico City), to pray for her. She’d got a couple of days to live. Alejandrina, too, had that ‘death’ look about her: sitting with her, gathered around the dining table with her husband, daughters, sons, son in laws, I confess that I know I can’t heal a cold in my own strength, and the first thing I prayed was for me – that God would remove the weight of expectation on ME from her family – a weight I wholly and utterly understand, when YOU are their last hope….
And today, more than 6 months later, she and her family (others of them were healed that day too), want to celebrate with me – but of course it wasn’t me, it was God – her healing, her life, and her joy. I think among the great rejoicing this afternoon will be a fair few tears…
I wasn’t to try and get a short video ‘interview’ with her: if we can make it work, I’ll post it here….(if I know how!!)
