BONAFIDE MIRACLE…

Jesus Christ is amazing. He’s real. He’s alive. And His ministry of the miraculous continues today. I’m a little overwhelmed at the moment with what I saw happen last night. It’s actually hard to get my mind around.

So here’s a little bit of the set up. This week is YouthWorks’ (www.youthworks.com) first week in Cairo, so we’ve got our first group of high school youth here on a mission trip. The YouthWorks staff are exceptional, they are passionate about Jesus and bold in His name, and it has been AWESOME to see how God has used them this week to minister to the church that’s here. The church here is a Lutheran church, very traditional, from Minnesota, and they are super hungry for more of the Lord.

Tuesday night a girl gave her heart to Jesus!! And another fellow rededicated his life. It was awesome, and honestly that’s the biggest miracle of all….but just to delight His children and be faithful to his promises, God didn’t stop there…

Last night Melissa, Stacy and I went to Club (evening worship service that YouthWorks holds every night for the visiting youth) and Amanda, the program staff for YouthWorks asked if we could stick around until after their programming was done to be available to pray with people. We love praying, so we said, “sure”.

So we are waiting for a while, praying for the group as they meet and process through their day and then two adult leaders and a student walk in asking for prayer. One of the adult leaders tells us about one of the high school girls there this week who that night had walked into the sleeping room and kind of collapsed onto her bed in severe back pain.

A few moments later, this young woman walks in. She is teary eyed because of the pain and her whole body is stiff as if she is wearing a back brace, which she was not. So she navigates her way to a chair and tells us that she has very bad scoliosis- something like a 28 degree curvature of her spine. She lives with pain and she is scheduled to have back surgery this summer. We ask if we can pray for her and lay hands on her. She says yes, and the whole group gathers around her (including the church members who came into the room). We start praying for her healing, breaking off the pain…she also had two pinched nerves in her neck. About 15-20 minutes later, we close out the prayer and ask her how she is feeling….with tears rolling down her checks she says “the pain is gone.” At which point the whole room bursts forth in shouts!!! God took away her pain. She could move around like normal again….oh but it gets soo much better )…..

So her friend steps into the hot seat and we pray for her. She is the one who gave her life to Christ just the night before and she has recently had surgery on her neck/head. She’s been suffering from horrible headaches this week and yesterday her incision area began to swell. So we pray for her, and her friend who’s just been healed prays for her…and the pain is gone and so is the swelling!!!

but…it gets even better…

So we head home around midnight after praying for a few more people (which was also awesome).
I wake up this morning and have a voice mail which I check. Amanda, the program staff, called me at 1 a.m. She said Chloe (girl who’s back was healed of pain) wanted to update us about what happened an hour after we left. Apparently Chloe was heading to the bathroom, reached around and felt her back…AND IT WAS COMPLETELY STRAIGHT!!! The other girls gathered round her in the bathroom and just started screaming and crying in excitement and joy!! The girl with the back was a little hysterical with emotion because her back was whole again!!! She got on the phone and left me a message saying that she knew the presence of God was in that room tonight and that her back was straight!!!

Can I get an amen!?!!

It is such a joy to serve Jesus.

welcome to the shire…

Today some of the ladies and I went up to Carbondale to experience the wonders of the Farmer’s Market up there, including a stop at the local organic grocery. It was pretty wonderful. I love picking out fresh veggies from the local farms, seeing the beautiful flowers, shopping in the open air, and finding cheap quality produce. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much joy shopping for groceries ;o). There’s just something about picking up things that are natural and fresh and even talking to the farmers who labored for them. I just love it. God is kind of shifting some things in my heart concerning taking care of this temple He’s given me and though I know it will take some discipline and extra work, I’m excited to be walking down this path.

In addition to the food and flowers, there was also a stand for organic kittens. Melissa, having been on the look out for a kitten of her very own, felt a strong magnetic pull to this stand and into her arms leapt a very adorable fully organic, free kitten, who’s name is now Chloe and who now lives in her room.

As I was driving home, I had an epiphany of sorts that made me chuckle out loud. I was thinking of how Kristy is turning our front yard into a garden of veggies, herbs, and fruit; how we’ve acquired now 2 cats in the past week, bringing our house pet total to 4; how we’re all a bit enamored by the thought of ‘living off the land’; and how we’ve got plans to build a community out of cob…and it struck me that we may in fact be turning into hobbits. Which isn’t a horrible thing…they are kind of heroic and all, and the shire is pretty sweet, let’s admit it. So there you go.

Heather and I finished our day by attending our aerobics girl’s dance recital. I loved being there and seeing kids I knew throughout the dances. The girls did a great job, it was fun to be there to support them and to see a fun show.

Are you going?

Summer Theme songs

At least they are for me ). Not all the videos have picture, some are just music.

What I’ve been up to lately…

So, it’s been a while since I’ve written what’s actually going on here in Cairo, so I figured it’s about time….here we go.

Got back from Florida Outpouring.
Prayed a lot.
Prayed for people, some got healed.
Took the Clubhouse kids to the nursing home and saw the generations bless each other through tears of love(very moving and cool!)
Attended the end of the year “Thank You Volunteers” party in Melissa’s classroom – pretty smashing.
Threw an end of the year partay for the Clubhouse kids with cake and games.
Hosted a fancy progressive dinner and sleepover with our aerobics girls – we got all dolled up in old bridesmaid dress and prom dresses to hit the wild and crazy town of Cairo. (Yay for getting use out of the dresses again!)
Went on a staff retreat to the Ozarks including a fabulous canoe trip down a river. We also rented an ocean kayak which we took turns using, and I have to say, ocean kayaks are the bee’s knees. Loved em.
YouthWorks staff has arrived for the summer, and they are wonderful. Keep Nyesha, Whitney, Amanda, and Dishon in your prayers!
We hosted a mission trip for the youth from First Free in Springfield, MO. Awesome youth, servant hearts, good times.
Spent a lot of times in meetings praying and planning for the summer…..

If you are an avid reader of my blog (I think that’s about three of you…) you may remember me posting about “The Siege” 50 days of prayer and fasting here in Cairo. We sent out the call and were praying for a ton of people to show up. We spent hours planning for where we’d put them all and what we would all do to cover Cairo in 24 hour prayer for 50 days. Well, in a rather miraculous turn of the Lord – not one person even inquired about it. We made a website, a video, and talked to a lot of people, but no one signed up. And this really is an act of God, because we have always had a few people inquire about working with us during the summer. So we know it’s the Lord, we just aren’t quite sure what He’s doing.

So the past few weeks have been a lot of praying about where to go from here. We still feel called to pray and fast for this community for 50 days. So we’re going after it, even as a tiny little tribe. We won’t be doing 24 hour prayer, but we will be praying and worshiping out in the community and at various churches in town.

In addition to this, I’m also going to start teaching some kids guitar, which I’m REALLY excited about. I love the thought of raising up new worshipers and getting to share with the little tikes God’s precious call to worship. We’ll still be running the Clubhouse in the projects, doing an aerobics class with the teen girls, and we’ll began a volunteer corps for these same girls – where we’ll go out into the community doing random acts of kindness/service.

Keep us in your prayers if you think about it, we could use them as we begin a new season of walking in faith!

thoughts.

What if the words I sing
never rise again
lost into the realm
of my audience of One
Uniquely plucking the heartstrings
of the Creator
And forging the keys of the kingdom…

here i am Lord…

Again I stand at the edge of the sand
an old familiar place of wondering
if the next step I take
will suddenly awake
the kingdom within
as the waters part
for this ark

can I again find myself in that place beyond time
beyond fear
beyond doubt
beyond reason and rhyme
in the midst of the water
around me

I desire to stand in the midst of the grand
symphony of divine possibility

where the unseen is real
imagination too small to fill
all that exists in His majesty

So I stand at the edge and He bids me come in
and dance on the hills of expectancy.

Smitten with Cob

As I manned the computer lab this afternoon I was reading some book on “Living Simply”. It had a chapter about how to build your own house out of natural materials for really cheap. One of the subtitles in the chapter was “Cob House”. Essentially these are homes sculpted by a dirt/sand/hay mixture. I didn’t really understand so I did a little web search…and quickly fell in love with cob houses. Here are a few pictures to maybe make you a little smitten too….
I think I would love to make one someday. I’ll put it on my list of possible dreams out there. But I thought maybe this summer I might start with a cob doghouse ). Check out more pictures here.

the power of adoption