Week 2, The Father Heart of God

This past week was the 2nd week of the lecture phase of DTS and we were blessed to have Claude Bonjour come and spend time with us and get to know us and bless us with his lectures on the Father Heart of God. We talked a lot about our relationships with our own fathers and we were all very open and it was amazing. We discussed how our views of our earthly father plays a huge roll in our views of our heavenly father, and God really spoke through Claude to a lot of people this week. During one session we each shared about our own personal relationships with our fathers and I was surprised how sad some of our stories were. It made me weep and I know God was weeping as well. Such heartbreak for so many in the group. It got me thinking that maybe we need to look at having more guidance programs for Fathers - new and old. Fathers play such an important role in a child's life and many of them don't know what it's like to be a Father or how to really love and show it b/c of the experience they had with their own fathers and so on and so on. We have programs for mothers but besides Peace Keepers, I don't think we really disciple the men in our church on being fathers that resemble the Ultimate Father of all, Our Father God. I just want to put it out there that I am not talking about ALL fathers. I'm pondering these thoughts and will probably come back to them in the future.

There were many emotional times during the week and when making a comment to Claude, he said, "And this is only the beginning, the first week, just wait!" Which is soo true. God is shaking us all up, there is a movement going on here. It's exciting but also very emotional at times.

I'll share one personal story that happened to me, a hard one. It was during intercession prayer that we have each Thursday morning for the various countries we will be going too. During orientation we were first introduced to "The Principles for Effective Intercession" by Joy Dawsen. A kind of guideline of 10 points on intercession prayer. We split into small groups to pray over Venezuela and the issues there. One of the girls in my group mentioned she had trouble with the guidelines because she grew up being taught how to be open and really communicate with God in prayer (through tongues and various other ways). She struggled with feeling like she was being "told" how to pray. I explained that though she has been blessed to know these, for some of us, including myself, the guidance is very helpful. I never really considered how important it is to ask God to reveal any sins left on my heart that I haven't confessed so that the devil will not take hold of them and this became revealed to me as you will read.
So we began in prayer, myself and a few others praying what was on our heart...then that one girl was overtaken by the Holy Spirit and began praying louder and louder then in tongues. It was amazing but sadly at that same time I felt the devil take hold of me and turn my thoughts of goodness into harsh criticism, feeling all of a sudden that everything I say and do is fake. That I don't really mean what I say and it just went on and on. I froze and could no longer concentrate on anything but selfish and awful thoughts. I had to get out of there...Thankfully Claude happened to be just outside so I got up and went out and spoke of what just happened to me. I am so thankful God put him there for me as I just started to shake so hard from crying so hard. He prayed over me, telling/revealing truths to me to rid of the lies that were going through my mind, praying Gods love on me.
I tell this story because I just want to show how Satan works so hard in situations where he knows that he doesn't have control. He grabs onto anything and everything, twisting things all around. When we first arrived we were told that great things are happening here, a manafestation. God is really speaking here...and he is! This really is an amazing time, we are learning soo much and God is surrounding us here...but that doesn't mean Satan isn't trying to work his magic because he is. Our self-esteem issues are high on the rise. So I just ask of you to pray for each of us here, students and staff. Pray that we can stand strong in God's love and in his truth and to close our ears to lies.

I have just been enjoying so much what we have been learning and I wish I could just tell you about it all, explain everything in full but of course that would take a very long time :P While learning there have definitely been times where various people from back home pop into mind of how much I wish they were here to hear this or that I could be where they were to share what I was learning, but hopefully in time.

Friday afternoon we went to a beach called Foul Bay to worship. That was really neat that we could take our worship outside the classroom and on the beach. Then we all went off for 10 mins to have time to let God speak to us through his creation. I saw a storm coming in (which didn't end up reaching land) and felt God saying that he was going to be shaking things up here and shaking up our lives and our thoughts. It's exciting. Afterwards we came together and shared what we had heard. As usual Alef always has something hilarious happen to him that creates another funny story. He was sitting at the Ocean talking with God and what comes up out of the water right at his feet....a PHONE!! That's right, a telephone! So he said he heard God say, You can call me (talk with me) anytime! lol. Love it! Afterwards we had the opportunity to go into the water for a bit. The waves were insane and I just stayed at the edge of them but it was funny watching others get bowled over and rolled up on the beach.

Friday night we went out to Cafe Sol for some Mexican food which was a good time, it was nice to hangout together away from base, time to bond more and eat some different food! Celina took a bunch of us to Miami beach for the afternoon on Saturday (after spending the morning working on my book report). The water here still amazes me, it is so beautiful. It was 5 pm and we were waiting for the bus which was supposed to come at 5:30 so we decided to walk to the jetty by the Oistins fish market cause you can see turtles there in the evenings. Finally we discovered how to get on the jetty, after some wandering (we had to cut through a building where they brought the fish to gut them...it smelled lovely). There were some men on the jetty and as we were walking by they said "you want to see the turtles?" They were throwing the fish guts into the ocean and there were 4 turtles eating there! They were so huge. It was awesome. We are going to go back one of these days cause Solomon promised to take us swimming with the turtles :-)

Sunday we went to a Community Center where we ran a children's church program for the community children. The kids had so much energy, it was so much fun. We sang some fun songs with lots of actions, one that Solomon taught us. It is sooo hilarious but hard to explain. Hopefully I'll be able to share a video of it at some point or at least once I am back home. We separated into age groups and my group focused on the Fruit of the Spirit. We started with a bunch of repeating fun songs to get to know eachother (songs from our camp childhood days). After our lesson we played simon says with them. They are such a good children, so darling. It was a great time.

In the afternoon we once again had the opportunity to go the beach, back to Crane beach, my favourite. The waves are just right there, a bit large but not enough to be sucked out by the undertow but large enough to body surf them in :) Fun!

Well we have already started week#3 now but I will tell you more about that later. Almost already a third way through the DTS, crazy! :)