This week, Donny Zondervan (yes, he’s related to the Zondervan Publishing Company) came from New Zealand to teach us about spiritual warfare.  Probably after reading this first sentence your mind jumps to flashbacks of Linda Blair in The Exorcist.  Good news: if you are a believer, you can’t become possessed.  Possession is taking ownership of something and involves overstepping one’s will. If one is truly possessed by the enemy it is because they have opened themselves up to the demonic realm and they have not submitted their lives to Christ.  Oppression is the correct term to use if you are a believer.  To the Western church, we may feel as though we need to think of extreme examples of spiritual attacks.  However, the enemy tries to use anything in our day-to-day lives to “steal, kill, and destroy” as a distraction.  For example, a lack of sleep, unresolved anger or bitterness, headaches, depression can be the enemy trying to divert us away from the Holy Spirit.

 

This week highlighted a lot of crazy sounding stories of the spiritual war going on in Thailand; stories that include generational curses and physical manifestations of the battle between light and darkness. However, I don’t want to expand on specific examples because the enemy doesn’t deserve credit for distractions and torment. The enemy is limited and we serve an all-powerful and limitless, loving God.

 

I heard a great illustration from Bill Johnson on spiritual warfare – Light is completely superior to darkness. Where light exists darkness has no choice to flee. When you walk into a dark room and turn on the lights there is no struggle between light and dark, the darkness just leaves. When the sun rises in the morning there is no fight between night and day, night leaves. This is the reality that we live in. The light inside of us (Jesus) is totally superior to any darkness that we may meet.

 

Yet, whether you are a believer or not, we can’t choose to “sit on the sidelines” of spiritual warfare and be passive. If this topic scares you, look around you. We are in a constant battle of the heart and mind. Do not fear. God protects his kids in perfect love. You have the keys and weapons you need (Eph. 6:11, Matt 6:6) so use them.  Donny also talked about that often we shy away from warring against the demonic, but we are super quick to wage war against our own flesh and blood.  How fast do we judge and hurt our neighbors? How many lies do we believe?

 

Believe in the truth. The truth brings freedom. Freedom to walk in the light.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week, Stan Hankins, from Hawaii and Ambassadors For Christ, came to teach on the Holy Spirit. He gave very Scripturally based lectures of who the Holy Spirit is and it’s function in the life of the early church. He used the illustration of the “95% rule”. In the early church, 95% of what they did was the work of the Holy Spirit. Today, 95% of what churches do could be done even if you took the Holy Spirit away. What is that saying about ministries today? Are they glorifying God, or men?

Of course the Holy Spirit is present in all believers, but at different points in our lives we can be filled with experiences in the Spirit. My experience may look entirely different than your experience. However the holy spirit will always bring identity,unity,liberty, spontaneity, ability, an humility. There is joy. No matter how people encounter the spirit, it is always decisive. Your character will change because you are growing in your relationship with Christ. You are becoming more like his character. Never stop growing!

Mai, our friend who had a tumor the size of a potato on her ovary that we told you about before (read a few posts down) went to the doctor today to review her results. In her earlier check-up the doctor had thought surgery was definitely going to happen even though her tumor was found non-cancerous because it was so big. Much to the shock of her doctor, HER TUMOR IS COMPLETELY GONE! As in, it was there and now there’s NO sign of it!! She said he was running around trying to verify that she was the same “Mai” with this condition. He couldn’t believe it. Praise God! Mai was elated and praising God in the exam and waiting rooms. She said she couldn’t help but attract attention because she was so happy. This intrigued her doctor he he asked her who her God was. She didn’t have time with all of his appointments to witness to him but she testified to him as a walking miracle. God is so big and he loves working miracles today…whoo-hoo! Jesus = won cancer = 0

Visit <http://www.ywamthai.org/news&gt; for more updates on the situation.

PRAY SPECIFICALLY FOR:
1) for God to demonstrate a powerful movement of his love through this tragedy that also breaks his heart.
2) for our friend, Gade, who is coming to Chiang Mai for a conference but doesn’t know if she will be able to return home due to the flooding.
3) for a girl at the DNA conference who found out (on her birthday) that her home is completely submerged and all of her ministry and personal stuff is underwater.
4) for aid to be able to come through the flood to help (clean water, food, meds, shelter, ect.)
5) for hope and strength in the Thai community.

6) for ministries in and around the BKK area

22 nationalities, 38 languages spoken and over 150 YWAM staff equals 1 conference with a heart for the nations. Welcome to the DNA Conference hosted at the Chiang Rai base in Thailand. This week, YWAM co-founder, Darlene Cunningham spoke with her team of DNA staffers about the history and vision of YWAM. She is such a down to earth person. She speaks with bold authority and truth using her own experiences she faced with her husband, Loren, and how God has led them on crazy kingdom adventures over the years. Although the Cunninghams have circumnavigated the globe many times to answer their apostolic call to all nations, Darlene would just be so content to fold your laundry, make you lunch and be your adopted grandmother.

David and I have learned so much in just 5 days. We are seeing servant leadership, hospitality, visionary thinking and encouragement being modeled. We have had amazing worship and intercessory prayer. This means that we, as a body, spent time hearing from the Lord about what He wanted us to pray about. Then we focused our prayer time on the things that God brought to mind. We saw immediate fruit from the prayer when an individual from Burma asked forgiveness of the Thai people here for a 1,000 year old history of strife and war. We have met so many people and heard so many amazing stories about God’s provision and faithfulness.

God is showing Himself faithful through the people that we are meeting. I have often heard the statement “the light shines brightest in the dark”. With the stories of ministries to prostitutes in Pattaya, orphans in the slums of Bangkok and direct ministries to refugees of the continuing war in Burma, we see the truth. In some of the darkest places of earth Jesus is moving in the most incredible ways (there are many more stories, just ask). God keeps bringing to mind so many of our friends back home who would fit in really well with the vision of YWAM (ahem….Adam & Lindsay, Erin Young, Rick, Michael Parker, the list goes on …)

David Hamilton taught on “The 5-Fold Ministries” this week (Ephesians 5) and he explained how YWAM has an apostolic calling. This means they operate in many different ways with evangelism, training and mercy ministries being the focus. In fulfilling this calling, YWAM works alongside other international/inter-denominational mission organizations to reach every people group and sub-culture in every way imaginable. We have felt really blessed and privileged to have been allowed to join YWAMs leaders at this conference. The goodness continues next week as Loren Cunningham comes from Korea to speak before traveling to India.

BE PRAYING FOR BANGKOK THIS WEEK!

Not forever, but for the next 2 weeks we will be in Chiang Rai for the YWAM Thailand DNA Leadership Conference! Check out the awesome promo on the YWAM website: http://www.ywamthai.org/dnainfusion

We will have our computer with us, but we may not be able to Skype since due to time constraints. We will keep you posted! LOVE AND BLESSINGS, the Carters.

 

This week, Tom Piekarski (from South Bend, IN) came to speak about “church”. He brought his daughter, Cami Anthony, and her daughter, Lydia. It was awesome to see a family, “standing on the shoulders of the generations that went before them” for God. What Tom really talked about and affirmed was our identities in Christ because we have to know who we are in order to pour out as ambassadors of Christ. He used seven verses that we studied every morning (Eph 1:3-5, Ps 139:13-16, 2-6, Jer 1:5, Acts 17:26, 1 Peter 2:4-5, 9-10) about who God says we are. (You, yourself, should stop reading this, right now and go read these. Don’t continue until you’ve let these verses meditate in your brain and marinate in your heart.
We also affirmed each other’s spiritual gifts in our small groups and talked about unity in the Body of Christ. We, as the church, are called to actively participate in God’s plan for our lives, and share in the ministry of reconciling others to God, through Christ. We are to encourage and build up one another in prayer and fellowship. (2 Cor 5:17-21).

I, Jen, had a huge revelation this week in the area of spiritual gifts. I know that I have the gifts of encouragement and prophecy (and these were affirmed through others). What I have been struggling with over the past 2 years is that I wasn’t able to label why I was not being fulfilled by teaching. Others commented that I was gifted in teaching (it was my major and occupation) and I did enjoy parts of it (the helping and encouragement aspects), but I just could not put my finger on what my dissatisfaction was. That’s because this week I discovered that teaching is not my gift. My gift is evangelism. I get fueled up for God when I can share my faith and help and encourage others. I admit that while teaching is a small part in evangelism, it’s not my main focus. So now that I’ve identified what my main gift is, it changes the direction that I’m moving in. GOOD STUFF!

David and I know that we want to work in ministry together and I think that with my gift of evangelism plus his teaching gift that we would make one awesome tag-team!

 

On another note, we had Thai dance class all week. We learned 3 Thai dances (2 traditional and 1 “hip-hop” which is code for country line dancing in cowboy hats) to take with us on outreach to China in November. When we come Stateside, there will be a performance happening in a town near you…or not.  “In America, sometimes you need Bill Johnson or Jesus Culture to get you excited about the Lord, but here in Asia, all you need is the power of dance.” (my funny quote of the week)