This blog is a continuation of Village of Joy Iris Ministries (Part 1)
Gold Dust
The second night I got there, I found myself caught in the midst of a nonstop Holy Spirit Party with Bob Johnson (brother of Bill Johnson of Bethel Church in Redding, CA) and all the Harvest School students.
There were dancing – wild, free, unrehearsed and unabandoned, I've never seen anything like it. People started shaking and running and bobbing all over the place as Bob Johnson spoke. The spirit fell on the students.
And me, nothing was happening to me. I was the wallflower at this party. My mind immediately went to speculation mode until Bob reminded us not to judge the way someone else responds to the Spirit.
"Okay, I won't Lord. But what do you have for me tonight? " I had to ask You.
Michael, Nathalie and I started praying in a cluster away from the crazy dancing. And the Spirit gently moved around us. Nathalie began praying in a foreign tongue she never used before. Michael began to prophesy and exhort Nathalie and prayed for her brother who doesn't know You.
You made me open my eyes as they were praying. You opened up my hands and let me see the gold glitter dotted all over my palms.
That's right. There they were.. unmistakably glistening in the dimly lit hut, covering my palms. My eyes were deceiving me, I thought to myself. I showed it to the others and they pointed out that it's on my face and on Nathalie's face as well.
My Chinese nickname Jin Jin means gold, and that night you let me live up to my name. What a way to see a glimpse of Your glory.
Healing
At the hospital, we laid hands and prayed for every bed with a sick person on it. As we prayed, many with aches and pains were healed. "Are you still in pain." "NO." They responded. We prayed for a 10 year old boy with a heart problem for a long time, and his countenance changed drastically after we prayed for him. A Harvest School student named Peter Day had his hand over the boy's heart as he prayed and said even his heartbeat felt normal compared to the way it violently beat when we first started praying. Fatima, a woman with a bright red head covering had both a headache and pain on her side, after laying hands on her, both sources of pain disappeared. We then shared the Gospel with her through a translator and she accepted You! When we went to the Village, we prayed for a woman where the leftside of her face was completely crooked, and as we prayed you could see she began to smile and the crookedness soften and diminishing greatly.
Prayer warriors gather around the village woman.
Her crooked side began to change and soften.
Dreams & Revelations
I was told there's an anointing of dreams on the Base, so I prayed before bed the second night and sure enough I had a dream that there was a spirit of disunity I was fighting off unsuccessfully. I didn't realize this but until then I had been holding a bunch of grudges about experiences on the race that were negative. I made a list of those and it turned out to be double digits. I trust God revealed this spirit of disunity because I had taken it on due to unforgiveness. For the next few days, I felt the weight of them on me and felt the need to let go of each one – acknowledging the importance and validating my feelings of what happened but still letting each go – forgiving the people and the circumstances. I spent significant time in the peaceful prayer hut, praying, praising, and soaking in the Presence. I left the prayer hut with a new list – for each "negative" item I had a praise and "fruit from the trial" attached to it. You truly turn mourning into dancing and unforgiveness into praises.
"You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy." – Psalm 30:11
It's been 3 weeks removed since I've seen gold dust, witnessed healings, and experienced miracles, it's easy to look back and second guess everything that's happened. Did I really see gold dust? Were the people really healed? Do miracles exist?
I realized that it takes greater faith after seeing miracles to continue believing and not doubt. When we pray, something moves in the Spiritual realm, the physical realm may or may not respond immediately but it will eventually. That's when healing takes place. Healing always takes place first in the Spirit, then in the physical.
Don't stop believing in the miraculous. One day you may be the one caught in the middle of seeing something you can't believe with your own eyes for.
I pray that you will continue to pray for the miraculous in your own life and the lives of others.
