The last week or two here have been really awesome. I'm loving being immersed in a different culture, I was not expecting England to be sooooo different from the US; but it DEFINITELY is! I love it though. Although there are a few things I could do without, for example showers that are so tiny you have to stand sideways in and washing machines and dryers that are in the kitchen? and I mean TINY kitchens, ones you can already barely move around in. The washer and dryer just chill under the counter space...its really strange. Other then that I love England! The British Academy Film awards are here next week and I'm really wishing I had a way to go, but maybe one day. Its also as always interesting to see your country though the eyes of other cultures. One thing that makes me really sad is that almost always the first question people ask is if its true that our food is 'Super-sized'. They get really REALLY excited about that, especially the kids; but then I was trying to explain to them that super sized food = super sized people, so it really doesn't end up being that awesome in the long run. But they don't care, they just want to eat massive hamburgers, pounds of french fries and gallons of milkshakes! It was kinda cute in a way...
We've had some really awesome moments since we've been here. One night Jesse and I went to Dover Bar in West London where one of our newfound friends was singing. Now, we just met her on the way to the Bar through a mutual friend. We knew nothing about her except she is a really sought after singer here in the UK and has sung with Mariah Carey and others. Thats all we knew, oh and that she is a Christian. We ended up talking to her for about 5-6 hours that night and God's presence just completely flooded that place. From the moment we sat down, God told her several things about us that there is no way she could have known and vice-versa. We spent most the night prophesying over each other. But it was sooo intesnse! Jesse pretty much answered every single thing she has asked God that night before in prayer! Even down to when we were standing up, putting our coats on to walk out the door, Jesse got one more word for her and she just started crying, saying that was the very last thing she asked God right before she went to bed the night before! God used our story of the last 2 years of our lives living by faith to take her out of the last 2 1/2 year dark season she was in. It ended that night!! Simply by us telling her our story! As a kid, she grew up in church and met a guy, I think she was in middle school, maybe high school, anyway this guys said he was sick. She knew God still heals people today so she prayed for the man. He came back later and said that he had been completely healed! When she asked what he had, he said 'Full blown AIDS'. How awesome is that!!!! Same thing happened with another person who had cancer. Sad part about this story is when she testified in front of her church, they told her to quit wasting her time and get back to her school books. She has such an awesome calling on her life and has such a call to the music industry!! She is a beautiful person inside and out and I'm very honored to be able to call her my friend and that God would use us in her life they way he did, and she has been a great encouragement to me as well!
A few days after that night we headed over to a friends house for the weekend. She is a single mom and has 3 kids. We knew there was a serious connection there from the first time we met and that it was a very God-ordained meeting; but we were about to discover exactly just how much of a life changing moment it was about to be! I think one of the main parts of this story is her 13 yr old son, who is very appropriately named, Josiah Samuel. When we showed up at the house Saturday night he really didn't want anything to do with God or Christianity or anything like that, and I don't really blame him. The secular world was far more interesting to him. Jesse won him over instantly him over when he said 'pissed' at some point cause apparently that's a cuss word over here! Josiah was very intrigued by these tatted, pierced Christians who say 'pissed'. So from then on we had a captive audience! hahaaaa...it doesn't take much! In all seriousness though, kid had a lot goin on. Since God has called him to be a seer prophet he has a gift of tapping into the Spirit realm and seeing stuff in the natural that most people don't see. At least a couple times a week he was seeing some pretty gruesome stuff manifesting to him just as real as you see the computer screen in front of you. To the point where he hadn't slept in his own room for 6 months. I'm not going to go into much detail but he was really on the fast track down a very very dangerous path and all the while not really wanting God. But God was definitely after him! God opened the door one night to talk to all 3 of her kids very openly about the spirit realm, open doors, and the fact that the only way you have authority over the demonic is Jesus. They pretty much sat there wide eyed for a few hours as we answered all the questions they had about what they had been experiencing. As we talked you could just see the different demonic spirits being broken off of Josiah and by the end of the conversation, even though he didn't say anything out loud you could just see it all over him that he really wanted to change his life. By the next morning, he was a completely new person!! He walked different, talked different, was respectful and kind. When he walked out the door to go to school even his friend who was waiting for him at the front door looked at him like he had lost mind!! She had just seen him the night before but it was obvious that something had changed!!
This is just a tiny, tiny, tiny part of what all God did that weekend in this family! To top it off this weekend there is an awesome group of people coming from Wales to minister in her town, Justin Abraham and the 'Wildfire team' for the Wildfire Islands Tour. Definitely all God's timing! So we are all going there, even her 3 kids who are super stoked about it. Especially Josiah who since last weekend, has apparently gotten rid of a lot of stuff from his room, cleaned it up (spiritually and physically) and moved back in! After 6 months of sleeping on the couch he is finally comfortable sleeping in his own room again! Her oldest daughter a few days ago saw a demon manifesting outside the window to the backyard (they can't get inside anymore!) and just told it to leave in the name of Jesus and it left! She learned she had authority in Jesus and didn't have to put up with that nonsense!
Its been so much fun just letting God bring us to people and the mutual encouragement that comes from that! Yesterday was pretty cool. We went to Hillsong London for church that morning then went exploring. First the British Museum, I'm gonna have to go back one day and just spend the entire day in the Medieval Europe exhibits! Saw the Rosetta Stone and a 4,000 yr old mummy which was honestly kinda creepy. Then we went to China Town where they were having their New Year Celebration, yay for Year of the Rabbit! Lots of people were walking around with Kung Fu Panda burger king type crowns on. Then it was Piccadilly Circus or the 'mini-Times Square of London'. Its also where a lot of the theatres are. We met up with one of my mom's friends from Costa Rica and her husband for an Italian Dinner. It was sooooo nice to just relax and hang out with them. It was an added bonus that they were ticos!
God has been so good to us on this trip, and to think we've only been here 3 weeks! We still have about 5 months to go!! Its gonna be awesome!
If you'll hold onto me for dear life, says God
I'll get you out of any trouble.
I'll give you the best of care
if you'll only get to know and trust me.
Call to me and I'll answer, be at your side in bad times;
I'll rescue you then throw you a party!
I'll give you long life,
give you a long drink of salvation!
--Psalm 91:14-16--
Bravo!!!
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