Adopted little sister

Last week I met this beautiful Chinese girl who is now sleeping in the bunk above me in YWAM. She has just returned from three months in Mexico City. I just love her - I know God has put her across my path as a divine connection just for a brief moment in time - we have two weeks overlap before she heads home and I head to Mexico City for three months. So far I have prayed for her three times and I bought her a copy of a wonderful prayer confession book that has really helped me. She is an only child, due to the single child policy in China and her dad is not a Christian, which makes things tough. I am teaching her spiritual warfare. I feel like she is a little sister to me.

Answered prayer

God is so good. Yesterday I went to my niece's 2nd b'day and one of the couples at the party go to Without Walls - like MY CHURCH!!! It turns out the lady is a patient of Julz. That was an answer to a prayer, having asked God to bring divine friendships into her life. Praise the Lord.

Last weekend, I went to the shops at Broadway Fair with Angelina and heard the sound of praise and worship, so we went up to the top floor and it turned out to be a small charismatic/pentacostal Asian church which sings songs I am familiar with. As we walked in 15 minutes late, I felt like crying - the warmth of the Holy Spirit and His sweet anointing overwhelmed me. I held back tears and we sat at the back. The worship time was excellent, but I didn't stay for the service. I told mum about it and yesterday, I asked her if she would like to come with me next time and she said YES (to my great surprise). So today, I picked up Angelina early and then picked up mum and we went. What was truly amazing is Angelina very happily went off with a young man called Singh and joined the kid's program.

I asked the guy if she could go with the handful of kids and he said "will she not cry?" and I said "no" and then he asked if she would mind being away from me, and I said "no". As he took her in his arms, she smiled and I watched him carry her down the three flights of stairs. When he got to the bottom, I was amazed at how happy she seemed and he looked up at me and half grinned. During the service, I was kind of expecting someone to come and get me or to see Angel's face enter the door, but 1.5hrs passed and no one came into the service. Finally, I saw her little face - it turns out she had a great time. Another guy, Ben, said he was amazed how at ease she was with a bunch of complete strangers and he said she had to be the most obedient child he has ever seen. He said they taught the kids about how Jesus takes on their burdens and illustrated it with a bag that they put heavy things into. She apparently sat still the whole time and watched in amazement.

After the service, mum, Angelina and I stayed and ate lunch together. It was just so lovely to have some fellowship. I was really amazed at how mum stayed around to chat. The people were all very friendly and knew about spiritual warfare and prosperity. The pastor's wife told us that her daughter did a DTS at YWAM and the outreach was to China and she decided to stay in China a few more years and ended up marrying an American guy and they now have a 6mth old Eurasian boy who looks more Caucasian. Very interesting.

After I dropped off mum, I prayed all the way home through tears. I was reminded of my prayers and just knew deep in my heart that God had answered my prayers about my family. Somehow it is all going to be ok. Not sure how, but it will be.

Bday at YWAM

Mark just sent me the piccies from my bday - really blessed me. So these are the special seven friends that celebrated my bday with me at YWAM.

Bday party for me

After the Friday night meeting, Paddy came up to me and said that he felt God told him to come and pray for me, so he waited on the Lord, then had a vision of me doing some prophetic dancing and he said He felt God wanted to release the gift of prophetic dancing in me! ...and that it would break spiritual pride off people. He also prayed that I personally would see 250 salvations in Mexico. How interesting.

Kristin threw a party for me last night which was really cool and Isaac, James, Jill, Andrew and Nika joined us....also two other girls from YWAM who I have never really spoken to. There were quite a few people. I was very touched that Kristin went out of her way to buy nice food and a fancy caramel mudcake for me. Praise the Lord. We had a great time. We only got home around 1.00am and I went to bed about 2.00am.

My bday yesterday

So yesterday was my birthday and for the first time in a long time, I had a really great day. Funny, I was previously nervous about celebrating my birthday in YWAM style (i.e. communal, with seven friends on your table, with the traditional YWAM bday song being sung over you and the requirement to give a speech), but I had the deepest peace inside me all day and I just felt so at ease.

I decided that I would honor each of my guests (Mark, Tammy, Sarah, Andrew, Karen, Bev and Wendy) by introducing them and telling everyone a little bit about them..... so this is roughly what I said:

"Good evening everyone. Thanks for celebrating my birthday with me. I can't say I have every had a birthday quite like this one, being communal-style and it being my first YWAM birthday! I want to thank everyone on my DTS and the associated schools for making my time here more enjoyable....and I also want to thank my seven special guests who made the extra effort to come in and celebrate my birthday. They represent a wider group of amazing friends that God has blessed me with. Because they made the effort to come in today, I want to honor each one of them by telling you a little bit about each one. So starting with Mark (who was holding video camera):

• Mark had gotta be one of the most easy-going, friendliest, sociable people I know. He is part of many different social group and part of a group of friends we have called the "down south crew" who like to head down south to various country locations and have these amazing praise and worship and fellowship times. I really appreciate Mark's friendship;
• Tammy and I met at Bible college and worked in a church bookshop for over two years. Tammy is young and yet she has spiritual maturity and wisdom well beyond her years. She is one of the most loyal, faithful and sweetest friends I have;
• Sarah is currently renting the place I was living in just before I started my DTS. She has been through comparable trials and challenges than I have and so she can empathise with what I've gone through. She is an overcomer and more than a conqueror through God and she is someone I talk to what I'm going through issues - she always knows exactly what to say and what to pray. She's a powerful prayer warrior and I really appreciate her;
• Andrew is someone who many people view as a spiritual father. He is a great leader too and has an incredible ability to analyse problems, break them down and come up with solutions. He is an amazing role model and mighty man of God;
• Karen, his beautiful wife, and Bev are two mighty women of God. They are both powerful women of God. We used to be part of an intercessory prayer team through Bible College who would get together on a weekly basis and pray for students who were struggling. The way I pray today is a reflection of what I have learnt from them both. They are powerful prayer warriors who have moved many mountains and obstacles in the spiritual realm;
• Finally Wendy is one of my favorite role models and mentors. Wendy has also been through similar trials to me and has overcome them. She has a great marriage and three Godly children and I have had the privilege of sitting in her home so many times and seeing how she resolves conflicts and lives a great life with her family. When I get to that stage in my life, I want to be just like her.

The thing that I like about all these people sitting on my table is they all have the gift of encouragement on their lives. They are the sort of people who make you feel great in their presence. They build you up, comfort you, edify you and speak words of life to you. Some time ago, many years ago, i went through a really lonely time in my life and someone taught me to pray Romans 4:17 over my life. It says to call those things that be not as though they are - and I have used this Scripture to call divine friendships, words of encouragement, finances, resources, waring angels to fight the battle for me and protect me. The friendships I have in my life today are a testimony of God's goodness and His faithfulness to is promises.

...and just in regard to wisdom, I just want to say don't let age, race, gender, culture, social status or language barriers be a hindrance to making friendships because you can learn a lot from every person you meet. They all have so much to teach you.

Thanks for making my birthday so special" :-)