Month: April 2017

I love the feeling where God has shown me and taught me so much that I don´t have a clue how to put words to it yet alone process it. That´s exactly where I am at the moment. Jesus is chasing His people here in Cyprus and its so beautiful to be a part of seeing that unfold. To see God touch His precious children is something that will never grow old. This week has been a full week of ministry. It has been breathtaking to watch people become overwhelmed by the love of God.

Last Sunday, we did an evangelism event on the boardwalk right next to the Sea. Just thinking back to this day brings chills to me because the Spirit moved in such mighty ways. We partnered with the other YWAM team that we had ran into. We saw numerous healings starting with someone who´s shoulder had been injured. Some members of the team prayed for him and he was healed instantly. We watched him walk away testing out his fully restored shoulder. Hallelujah am I right? We watched left and right as the gospel was being spread, the Holy Spirit was touching many many people, and more people coming to Jesus than we could keep track of. I got to talk to a young woman siting in Mcdonalds and simply spoke life and her identity over her (which she had never heard before), shared the gospel, and told her my testimony. I could see on her face that the Holy Spirit was moving. I got to pray for her and watch Jesus meet her right where she was. It was such a precious moment. I love getting to watch Jesus meet His people when they least expect it.

 

 

Yesterday, we did some street worship by a Greek Orthodox church, and man was God on the move. Most people we talked to had of course heard about God but they did not know Him as a personal savior who wants a relationship with them, rather they were stuck in religion and rituals. My heart broke for these people because they did not understand how simple the gospel is and God´s heart for them as individuals. I got to pray for so many people and watch them be filled with the Holy Spirit. There were some powerful encounters. We saw a girl who could barely put weight on her ankle walk away with almost no pain after my team prayed for her. We also saw a woman with a very rare bone disease who had always been in constant pain, be completely healed in minutes! THANK YOU JESUS!

 

God is teaching me to make this ministry a lifestyle: sharing the good news of God´s love with everyone I interact with. It´s too precious of a gift to not share. I have been blessed with this truth and now it is my responsible to bless others with this truth. It goes back to the beginning of Genesis, we are: blessed to be a blessing. God´s heart for the nations can be seen at the very beginning of the bible, not just in the Great Commission. The great commission is actually a reaffirmation of the Abrahamic covenant, it has always been about the nations, God´s heart has always been chasing after the gentiles.

“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing… and all peoples on earth will be blessed by you.” Genesis 12:2-3

He blessed me by revealing Himself to me, redeeming me, and giving me salvation, and now I have a responsibility to share that blessing and revelation of Him to the lost, whether that be in America, or in the Middle East. This is my call. This is every Christian´s call. Yes it is uncomfortable at times, yes it is almost always challenging, but thank the Lord it is not about me anyways. So who cares if I look crazy, cause the most of the time I probably do! There are lost people living without God´s perfect love and that breaks my heart. I cannot imagine living without Jesus. I have stayed quiet for too long. I have a free gift that they do not know that they need. Wherever I am, my call is to make disciples, to reach the lost, to love like Jesus.

God is also teaching me to let Him interrupt my schedule. Wherever I am, whatever I am doing, if I feel Him telling me to talk to someone it is my duty to obey; where they spend eternity could be on the line. I´ve also learned so much about stepping out in boldness and praying for healing. God does not want us in pain and my leaders have inspired me by reaching out to hurt and sick people no matter where they are and watching God bring His kingdom by completely restoring people´s bodies. Its so insane. One day one of them was walking back from the coffee shop to our flat and she saw a man with an injured leg. After praying for him, he could walk on it like normal! PRAISE THE LORD! We´ve had encounters like this daily, it so unbelievable! I am learning to be in tune with the Holy Spirit and really just listen and obey. We have seen multiple people come to Jesus because we hear His voice, feel His love for His people, and obey.

 

“There´s a yes in our hearts, and it carries through eternity. Simple obedience, it changes history”

 

God brings the harvest to ripeness but He wants to use His people to reap it. Isn’t that so neat? He could easily do it on His own but He wants to spend time with us and partner with us to reach His people. He wants to rule with us. God has really given me His heart for the unreached people. He breaks my heart for what breaks His, time and time again. I am growing to really enjoy reaching people on the street and in everyday encounters! It is so exciting to never know what Jesus is going to do next. Life with God is never boring- it is a true adventure.

“So Barnabas and Saul were sent out by the Holy Spirit. They went down to the seaport of Seleucia and then sailed for the island of Cyprus. There in the town of Salamis, they went to the Jewish synagogues and preached the word of God” Acts 13:4-5

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On Saturday, March 25th, we got to the airport in Norway at 4am and opened an envelope telling us we were going to Cyprus! Cyprus is a small island off the Mediterranean Sea, in the Middle East. The envelope told us we had a place to stay for two nights and after that we would have to figure out where to live by ourselves. Getting to Cyprus we had no contacts, no ministry planned, and no idea what our purpose was there, but we had such a peace that God would without a doubt take care of His kids. We did know that Paul´s first mission was to Cyprus and he began by connecting with the local church, so after God told us that, we found a church about five minutes away from where we were staying and went to their service the next morning. After going to church we got connected with YWAM Cyprus along with a YWAM team from Scotland on the last two weeks of their outreach. It was awesome to see how God guided us to that specific church to find these fellow YWAMers and to connect with the Scotland team for their last two weeks of outreach. By God´s grace we found a place to stay within our budget for the remaining two weeks we have here. After much intercession, worship, and prayer walks, our team felt like God brought us to Cyprus to refresh and support the long term missionaries and the Scotland team who have been here for 2 months. We were excited to join forces with them and work alongside what they have been doing, motivating them and doing the dirty work they did not want to do or did not have time to do. As a team we gave up our rights to do ministry the way we wanted and our rights to see the fruit of what we were going to do because we were expecting to be behind the scenes.

We started working with a group called Oasis which is a Christian organization who reaches the refugees and migrant workers in the area. We have been helping them fix up the yard of their facility by doing yard work for hours at a time, but because God is awesome, He has given us such a joy and a heart for doing the dirty work, the stuff people normally do not want to do.  We so enjoy helping and supporting these inspiring long term field workers. After helping with them we quickly got connected with the YWAM Scotland team. We partnered up with them in intercession, prayer walks, evangelism, and worship all around the city. One cool thing that God has blessed us with is connections and friendships with some African refugees and Indians who were either hindu or muslim! We had a day in the park with them where we did some worship and some people shared testimonies. Then the next day we continued with these connections by doing a sports day on the beach with them. After playing for a while we all gathered and worshipped together and then more people shared testimonies. Mind you, at this point my team and I are fully okay with not seeing any fruit because we gave up that right and we still had confidence that we are doing God´s work here whether we see the fruit of our work or not. After some of our team shared testimonies we asked the Indians and Africans if we could pray for them in any way: healing, to receive Jesus, for peace, and to our joyful surprise many asked for prayer! Almost instantly one African man was healed of a knee injury and then I heard a group of Indians praying to dedicate their lives to following Jesus. The Holy Spirit was there so mightily and He was just touching each heart there in such a unique and beautiful way. It was incredible to see God reaching His beloved children with refreshing peace and love. Everywhere I turned I saw our teams praying for them, people getting healed, people accepting Jesus,  people feeling God´s presence, and people sharing the gospel. It was indescribable. God is so personal it´s insane. I got to speak to an African man about Jesus and our lives for about half an hour and it was so special to hear his story about how he got from Africa to Cyprus. Some of the refugees wanted to know more about Jesus so we will be holding bible studies together with them for the remaining time we have here. It was just so astonishing to see so many people meeting Jesus and His beautiful life changing love. He met them personally right where they were. So good!

“For The Lord your God is a consuming fire” Deuteronomy 4:24

God is insane, is He not? He is bringing His kingdom here in Cyprus in such a breathtaking way that I cannot help but be in awe of His glory and wonder all over again. My heart is to see the lost and hurting meet the Perfect Love that changed my life forever. I have something valuable in me called Truth and it is such an honor that God has trusted me to relay that message to His precious people. God has been so faithful to take care of us from giving us a place to stay, to finding the other YWAMers, to ministering with His people and even getting to see some of the fruit from that! God has taught me so much this week but one thing I think that He has constantly been reminding me of is the importance of being completely reliant on Him. It´s so insane that due to our circumstances we have become fully dependent on God because we had no plans, no connections, and no where to stay when we got here, so all we could do was seek God first and let me tell you, He is taking care of His children more than we could have ever imagined. He is truly such a good Father.

Someone told me upon leaving Norway to expect more of God and to ask for bigger things, at the time I did not know what that meant or looked like, but now I do. I want to bring God´s Kingdom wherever I go with the unique story and giftings He has given me, whether I see the fruit or not, whether it´s the way I expected or not. I trust God will be working every step I take, with every heart I encounter, and with every country I go to.