Did you miss me? I sure hope so, because I really missed all of you. This past month has been the most wild and wonderful month of my 24 years to date and it has been quite the challenge to even begin to write down exactly all that happened. I have honestly have about 10 blog drafts saved in my documents folder but I can’t seem to follow any of my whirlwind of thoughts. The best thing I feel would work out is for me to just write a list and do my best to divulge what on earth has been going on. My goodness, my gracious, my GOD, where do I even begin?
1. I spent the month of October in Haiti. Haiti is notorious for being extremely impoverished, chaotic, dark, challenging, spiritually heavy and overall difficult for all who visit there. I can honestly say that I experienced all of those cultural stigmas and am a better person for just how hard it was to be in that country for a month.
1 1/2. Erin, Phillip and I had no moments of privacy for an entire month. It is very challenging to follow through with a lot of different things when you have no space to talk about anything but God still provided us time to breath with Him.
2. My co-leaders and I got to visit all 9 J-Squad teams during October. We went from a tropical beach paradise to another tropical beach paradise to a dirty city next to Port Au Prince. Every team was going through a lot of tough stuff, from complete brokenness to having almost their entire teams computers stolen, extreme sickness that wiped out 75% of the squad for at least 5 days at a time, a hurricane that trapped our entire squad in the country for an extra week… but every person would agree that they are all better and stronger people because of everything that we went through individually and as a family.
3. I got to be an integral part of the Lord healing members of J-Squad. We were in the Port Au Prince hospital with 4 people who had 102-104 degree fevers, vomiting and severe/debilitating body pain. We were really S.O.L. and had no desire to stay in hospital all night so I called my co-leader and he started to pray for the sick people over the phone and to pray for me to find comfort in the unfortunate situation. The Holy Spirit swept through all of us, literally breaking fevers in front of our eyes, freeing people of bitterness and anger and setting people free into their identities. We all started to heal Haitians around us and we went home that night and into a wild series of recovery.
4. We had a lot of prophetic activation happen in October thanks to God’s desires moving into the hearts of so many people on our squad. I hosted a prophetic seminar and one house with 3 of our teams spent every day prophesying over one person at a time for the entire month. Our squad became a spiritual power house as we watched people grow more and more into who God says they are and what He wants for each one of them.
5. At the end of October we had a squad debrief. We were supposed to have it in the Dominican Republic but Hurricane Sandy flooded the roads and continually prevented people from moving from their present locations. After a lot of logistical push and shove, we found a baptist retreat center at the last minute in Port Au Prince. The debrief was one of the toughest and most fruitful weeks of the race so far, freeing so many people from things that they didn’t even know they needed freedom from. It was also the last week that my co-leader, Phillip, was with us. His impact on the men and women of our squad was incredible and I am so grateful that we were blessed to have him for 2 months.
6. I was privileged to have a small hand in seeing the removal of demons from someone’s life this month. Yes, you read that correctly. Someone from our squad was in the process of being freed from a lot of things from her past and really finding herself being pursued by Christ in a new found intimacy. With all of the life and light that was being spoken into her, the darkness in her life was ran out of her body forever. Mind you, it took a lot of screaming and gnashing of teeth, but our fighting woman was handled so gently by Christ. With the faith of the relationship she had with Him, she literally called the demons out of herself by the power of His blood. Our entire squad was singing worship and praise during the removal, surrounding her with an army of love and swallowing the powers of evil with the unity of the true and unbridled love He has for all of us. It was incredible to see the squad in a oneness because of Him and not because of us.
7. After a 12 hour bus ride, 10 hours wayfaring in the Santo Domingo airport, a 2 1/2 hour flight to Miami, literally running through U.S. customs and holding our flight back for an hour, flying for 6 hours from Miami to Los Angeles, hanging out and running amuck for 10 hours in L.A., flying with my favorite airline Cathay Pacific for 14 1/2 hours to Hong Kong, waiting for a few hours and then flying for 2 1/2 hours to Bangkok, taking a SongTail ride from the airport to the bus station, falling asleep in the bus station on a stack of bags for 4 hours, riding a bus from Bangkok to Chiang Mai for 10 hours and finally arriving in Chiang Mai, taking one Tuk Tuk (motorcycle with golf cart style) to a hostel in backpacker row, we are here in Thailand! 5 days of travel was worth it!
I will actually write to you all soon, just keep praying for us. This month is an integral part of Squad Leading and is the month where we choose who will be following in our footsteps as raised up Squad Leaders for the rest of J-Squads World Race. Thank you for all of your prayers so far and I am sorry I kept you in the dark for a month. Your love and concern for my heart and the hearts of those I am leading does not go unnoticed. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!
