FRIENDS. BOY do I have a lot to tell you. India has been such a wonderful month. We are finishing up our time here and on our way to Nepal soon, but before I get into the CRAZY things God did this month, I need to share about our conference we attended.
Our first week in India was spent taking part in a Christian conference called Awakening. It’s a conference put on by World Racers themselves held sometime in the middle of the race to meet together, encourage one another and share stories, uplift and teach one another, and hear from the Holy Spirit through a keynote speaker. We met up with another squad (G Squad) who’s mission is the 10/40 window and have spent most of their time in Asia.
I have to be honest for a minute and say I was apprehensive about meeting another squad and had a pretty bad attitude about it. The idea of small talk and making new friends seemed exhausting and I wanted to stick with my people and get on with our time in India. BOY did God smack me right across the face! Because of G Squad and our time in Awakening, I am changed.
G Squad LOVES Jesus. There was a time during worship when I was watching them pour their hearts out to our King and I was so inspired just watching their love for Jesus. At meals I sat across from them and heard their stories of ministry and their hearts for the world. I made connections and friends and pretty quickly my bad attitude and judgements melted away (G Squad I LOVE YOU).
Because we put this conference on ourselves, each person was put on a “track” to help lead each part of the conference: storytelling, hospitality, worship, and prayer. I signed up for the worship track and I sat in those meetings pretty confident that I wasn’t going to lead worship at all. I didn’t want to lead, didn’t feel lead to lead, and planned to sit in on the meetings and then leave and let others take the reign. However, God doesn’t leave me in my bad attitudes but chases after me and pulls me out so that He can use me.
And use me He did.
One evening before dinner the worship facilitator for G Squad, Mary, came up to me and said “God put your name on my heart this morning to lead worship tonight.” I laughed because I had said to God that I would only lead worship if He called me out; and here we are. My next thoughts swirling around in my head were that God told her in the MORNING and here she was telling me about an HOUR before worship began. “How am I going to plan a whole worship set in an hour? Will I have time to practice? What about guitar, drums, bass? Harmonies? What songs? Do they knows the songs we know? Should I pray about what songs to lead?” These stupid worries plagued my mind and she gave me a name of a worship leader, Tyler, on her squad that God also put on her heart and then she was gone.
“Okayyyy, here we go God. What you want from me tonight?”
I made my way to Tyler and another worship leader Jake and came with all the intentions to plan and practice and frantically cram it all into an hour before session started. But when I came with questions and concerns, they came with peace. What? They had such confidence that the Holy Spirit would lead and that we need to make space for Him to lead worship, not us. I was kind of dumb founded. It made sense that God didn’t allow Mary to come to me in the morning because all day I would have been worried and planning and doing things my own way and not leaving room for the Holy Spirit to work. God also put Tyler and Jake on my worship team for a reason too- they lead me to be not only someone who can sing and play the guitar and “lead” worship, but be a worshiper WITH the Holy Spirit. We picked a few songs, practiced for maybe 10 minutes and headed out to lead.
Now honestly I didn’t know what it meant to leave room for the Holy Spirit in worship cause I’ve always been in my head about strumming the right chords, singing the right note, good transitions, etc. What Tyler and Jake helped me do was to have a few songs as an outline for worship and then continue to play those chords and allow the Spirit to work through us to sing whatever we need; whatever He needs us to sing.
I’ve never done that before. But Tyler kept the music playing after the song and we created lyrics right there on the spot. I sang what the Holy Spirit wanted me to sing. It was amazing. What a beautiful moment of worshipping the Lord in a way where there was more of Him and less of me. I sat down just baffled and incredibly grateful that God would use me like that. But it didn’t stop there. After our speaker finished his talk, he asked people to shout out needed prayers and then came right over to me, looked me right in the eye and asked me to prophetically sing for everyone.
Um. Wut.
But I felt in my spirit the push to step forward and be bold even if I didn’t even know what that meant and I’ve never done that before. This time there was no structure at all but just Tyler on the guitar and our voices. We then proceeded to sing in the Spirit for over an hour and prophetically sing over our squads what we needed to sing. The Spirit’s lyrics and worship through me echoed over the room while people came forward to receive prayer and renewed faith. I watched us encourage each other, prophecy over each other, pray for each other, cry with each other, all the while my voice sang of God’s goodness. I was brought to tears.
Our speaker (who is my new best friend by the way) came up to me after and said “Thanks for singing! Normally when I ask people to prophetically sing they don’t know what that means. Where did you learn?”
“I’ve never done that before” I laughed shyly.
“What?! You’ve NEVER done that before? Why did you do it?!” And then I showed him the word I wore around my neck.
BOLDNESS.
I’m learning what it means to walk in boldness for Christ, to die to myself and step out in the unknown. It’s been a crazy ride, but that’s another blog for another time.
And this was only one evening of a whole week folks! The Awakening Conference was life changing. I was able to teach two breakouts on two topics I was passionate about and could bestow truth and knowledge onto others. A lot of people don’t like public speaking but I LOVE it. God has shown me a lot about my character and about how I love to develop and pour into people. I love using my knowledge and truth I’ve learned and help others grow- that’s my leadership coming into play. I had SO much fun speaking and helping others DREAM BIG and FUNDRAISE the crazy amounts they still need to be a World Race missionary. It allowed me to dream big dreams with God of one day speaking to thousands and being someone who travels and speaks and encourages around the world.
One of my favorite times was put on by our prayer track team who allowed space to proclaim victories over the darkness, both big and small. I got to shout out some huge victories that God has accomplished over the past year for me and my family. To hear the supporting victory cheers from my brothers and sisters in Christ was a moment I’ll never forget. I heard victory over shame, brokenness, addictions, healing, and so much that I truly believe we lived out Romans 16:20 and crushed Satan under our feet!
Our final night together our speaker spoke about how God wants to give us the keys to His kingdom! He challenged us to ask for the keys for the areas of the world that we have a heart for. I heard people ask for the keys to orphans, to the sex trafficking victims, for the hurting alcoholics, for the health care system, for inner city children, for single mothers, for insecure teenagers, for leaders of the nations, from the directors and producers of Hollywood to the slums of India, I heard it all. And God is going to give us those keys! Imagine the change that these World Racers are going to bring to the world! I can’t even imagine. It was such a powerful moment to be a part of.
Our final morning was a message about the power of the Holy Spirit and our speaker commissioned us and sent us out with power. I watched both squads step into prophecy, speaking in tongues, and healing. This is the kind of stuff I only dreamed about. I never thought I would see it in my lifetime much less take part in it.
We left that conference filled to the brim with the Holy Spirit and ready for whatever God had for us in India. I came in negative, numb, full of shame, and a bit empty and left encouraged, forever changed, and walking in the power of the Holy Spirit. You can only imagine the crazy things that God did through me the next few weeks as me and my team backpacked around the rural villages of India…
