A horse of course

Today we had no classes, it was a catch up on rest day. Most of us have been really tired lately, just from so many outreaches and different things going on. It also seems to be a season for most of us where we are dealing with personal issues, maybe things from the past or whatever. It's just made us extra tired, myself included, I've had less energy lately, so it was really nice to sleep in and have the evening off. We still all went to work and did our jobs, but it was definitely much more restful.

Picture: Roland, one of the neighbour ponies, and myself sharing a moment.

It's a good thing we didn't have school this morning because last night Scott Evelyn and his family came over to the girls house to prophecy and pray over each one of us, it was really good and really long, we started at around 7pm-ish and ended at 12:45 am! It was a long night for sure, but we all got a lot out of it.

The first thing we did though, was Scott had given us an assignment in out 202 - Advanced Dream Interpretation class, we were in 4 teams and we had to pick a story out of the bible and silently act it out, so we were practicing turning words into pictures, because the opposite is a big part of dream interpretation, turning pictures into words. So below is a video of one of the teams, I'll write which story it is at the bottom so you can guess which they are acting out...



















In case you didn't catch it, it was the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Have an amazing day, I'm off to bed.

So what about Bob anyways?

The internet at my house is working so I'm taking advantage of this rare occurance and writing a blog for you all! We went yesterday to a place called Freedom, New Hampshire to go to a Vineyard youth retreat. We left at 7 am and got home that night at 11:30 pm so it was a long day but it was good!

Picture: Myself, Dan(Scotland) and Jesse(Michigan)

There were about 250 kids who had been there since friday and we got there to join them for their first session. The worship was really good and we all enjoyed it and then the speaker talked a bit about his testimony, how he became filled with the Spirit. He was from Brooklyn so he had a pretty intense accent, but he had some really good stories to tell about when he started a church, John Wimber was their consultant(just before the Vineyard really took off) and he had stories of meetings with Lonnie Frisbee, it was pretty neat to listen to.

After that we helped pray for the kids and then it was break and lunch time. We took advantage of that and went out onto the lake behind it and slid around on the ice, it was pretty cool, I haven't ever really done that much. On the drive up you see lots of little lakes with ice fishing huts on it and trucks driving out onto the ice, it's kinda nifty. That's one thing I haven't done yet, I'd love to go Ice Fishing, we'll have to see if we can work it out sometime...

Picture: Dan teaching during one of the Dream Interpretation workshops.

That afternoon there were about 5 or 6 different workshops and we were running one on dream interpretation and one on hearing God/prophetic ministry. The sessions were short, two one hour blocks, but it was good and a lot of the kids seemed to learn quite a bit and were ministered to on different levels.

We all had fun in the courses, we'd break up into teams after a quick teaching and help them break down their own dreams so they could get kind of an understanding of what was going on. A few kids in particular when we went over their dreams were really really encouraged, it was, as usual, such a blessing to see God speaking to these people in their dreams. You can see it in them when you interpret their dreams, the realization that God speaks to them that way, it's awesome seeing their perspective shift, just like that!

Picture: Me at the site of a famous movie filming!

That evening after dinner there was the last group session and after that we took off for home. I rode with Chad(Michigan), Dan(Scotland) and Nathan(North Carolina) and we stopped at Lake Winnipasawkee(I don't think that's how you spell it...) where you guessed, "What about Bob?" was filmed, at least part of it... So I had to get a picture, it's dark and all, but you gotta believe me!

On another note, you should check out Jessica Hamlet's blog at http://jessicahamlet.blogspot.com she started it recently and I know as much as you can't get enough of my blog, I decided to outsource a little and hopefully she can help satiate (<--- That's my big word for the day! "Satiate") your appetite. There is also Jesse Matthews blog at http://journalournal.blogspot.com/ so I encourage you to check them out, but don't you dare replace me, I'll know, I can smell mutiny a mile away!

Video: The Chase



Video: The Flip Cam

Emerging Leaders

This past weekend we were off to the Metrowest Bridge in the Boston area for a conference Aaron Evan, Scott Evelyn, Recie Saunders(All from Streams Itinerant Ministries along with John Thomas, pastor of the Metrowest Bridge, for a conference on emerging leaders.

Most of the interns came early Saturday morning, but myself and a few others went Friday afternoon to catch the evening session. It was really good, before the service I stopped by the prayer room to join in on the fun, I was only there for like 20 minutes but I was so blessed, those people sure know how to attract the presence of God!

Speaking of Attracting Heavenly Attention, here are four things I wrote down from what Aaron Evans said that will do just that!

1. Spiritual Hunger
2. Purity
3. Desperation
4. Unity

Instead of giving any explanation of why, I think I'll let you just ponder it!

The first session was awesome, it was really refreshing for me to just be there, and I learned a lot as well, I'll drop a few nuggets for you all at the end.

After the evening session most of us went out for dinner to American Joe's Grill, it was pretty good, I must admit, I was little disappointed that I only got one refill of my Coke, but the food was really good, it kind of made up for it!

I didn't get to sleep till around 1:30 am, most of us slept over at the church which meant we had to get all our stuff cleaned up by 7:30 am so they could get ready for the morning session. I didn't get a ton of sleep but it worked out just fine, we ended up walking to Starbucks and hung out there for a while, the first session didn't start till 9 am so we had just the right amount of time to kill.

Picture: (Right to Left) Rebecca(Sweden), Jessica(Virginia), Sharon(North Carolina), Claire(England), Myself(British Columbia), Jesse(Michigan), Caleb(Alberta), Jon(Massachusetts) getting our morning started properly.


The rest of the interns arrived in time for the morning session, which was amazing, it was all Q & A with a panel of the four of them, there were some really great questions and even better answers!

Between sessions we were joining with the church by being on prophetic teams with them at different times throughout the day, my time wasn't till 6 pm so I had most of the day off. But when I did get of my team, we had a few really powerful encounters with some of the people who came in. Needless to say God came through and touched many many peoples lives through all the different teams that day!

At the end of the night us interns got a chance to impart and pray for the youth/young people of the church, that was really a blessing. After we prayed for them Scott Evelyn got them to activate it by getting them to listen to God and give words to people in the congregation. It was really awesome to see all those people stepping out like that, most for the first time!

After that we had awesome worship, during which I admit, I did end up getting a little disheveled.

All in all, a great weekend, I was very encouraged and blessed by what was said and what went on, so I'll share a few things I wrote down from them...


The immature person asks, "Can I trust God?"
The mature person asks, "Can God trust me?"

Man can't get you to God, and they can't keep you from Him

You need to be in the presence of love, so you can be changed by love, you you can give love away.

God pays for what He orders

It's in the realization that you have nothing to give, that you find you have something to give.

Ask yourself: "If God commissioned today, how would I handle what He gave me?"


We've been learning a lot about leadership lately, today we were watching a DVD of John Sanford teaching on leadership, it was really good too, actually, all of my classes have been good, who am I kidding?

Anyways, I need to head to bed now, so ya'll come back now, y'hear?

It's ValenTIME!

It's been a very snowy last few days. In the last two days it's snowed about 30 inches. It wasn't snowing heavy, just continually. It even hampered our togetherness. On Wednesday morning instead of getting together to do dreams in the morning, we stayed in our seperate houses and had times of prayer and smaller group dream interpretations.

Picture: Jamie(Alberta) and myself!
We didn't go to the offices in the afternoon either, instead we relaxed, read, spent time with God, it was very refreshing, I definitely needed a day like that!

That evening however, was much more exciting, as it was Valentines day and all, the guys prepared an evening for the girls. We all got gussied up and went over to the Grey House where most of the guys had been decorating and setting up. Brandon took charge of cooking and with many others help made an amazing chicken and pasta dinner.

Picture: Noah and Nathan violin'n up a storm
The guys ate earlier so we just served the girls when they came, Noah(New York) and Nathan(North Carolina) provided some violin music and I took some pictures when people arrived.

After dinner, yes, there was dancing. I know, you may be asking yourself, "But isn't this a Christian school? Is that really appropiate?" Well, let me assure you, we all stayed at least a bibles(KJV) width apart. Yet, even with Christian values in mind, we were still able to bust a few moves here and there. (At least some did, I at least made an effort...)
Picture: Shaking it, intern style.


You might be saying to yourself, "Well, there was dancing, food, live music, but I'm still not convinced it was a real party." Well let me assure you, it was, in fact we partied so hard that we even had the token guy with a lampshade on his head at one point. I rest my case.

This weekend we are going to the Metrowest Bridge Church for a leadership conference we are helping at. Most people are going on Saturday morning, but some of us, including myself are going tomorrow afternoon so we don't miss the session Friday night.

Bonus Pictures:

Picture: Dan(Scotland), Jamie(Ableta) and Anthony(Virginia) taking care of the aftermath!


Picture: Caleb(Alberta) and Myself(Abbotsford, British Columbia)


Picture: (Jamie(Alberta), Anton(New York) and Brandon(Wyoming) brandishing for the camera.


Picture:

Gathering at "The Gathering"

The results are in, and I deem this weekends outreach a success. We got back yesterday early evening from Salem MA.
Picture: Jessica(Virginia), Nathan(North Carolina) and Rebecca(Sweden) at Cafe Kushco's!

We left New London Saturday morning and got to The Gathering church in Salem at around 11:30 am. We kicked things off by getting ourselves some lunch from an amazing local Greek place called Cafe Kushco's. They have some pretty great food, it's definitely a crowd pleaser. After our little lunch break we went back to the church for some worship and prayer after which we launched right into our dream teams.

Picture: Mike and Mandy(Texas)
Around Valentines, Salem has had a Wine and Chocolate festival thing where many of the local shops have tastings and various things going on. It definitely was no where near as busy as it was when we were there for Haunted Happenings, (Look back in the November Archives to read more about that!) but with around 4-6 teams set up at all times that afternoon, we had a fair amount of people come by. We were set up from about 1-5 pm with all of us switching on and off from dream teams, to intercession, to going out and gathering people in.

It was a really good little trip, one of the things that stuck out to me this weekend was really how little we have to do with ministry. What I mean by that is, there were times that weekend where I really, really felt like I had nothing to give. That's perfect, because then, you know it must be God because you have no idea what you are doing. That's a hard place to be in though, because it meant that I had to just rest in who I knew God to be, sit back and say whatever He said.

Once we start ministering out of who we are instead of who God is, that's when we get in trouble, so I'm grateful that God does this to us. It's like, sometimes when I listen and then speak what I think He's saying to the person sitting across from me, it feels like I'm just making it up, or imagining this story and to make matters worse, the person is sitting stone faced across from you. So it's always so encouraging when after you're done they tell you that you were right on, and they give the reasons why.

Picture: Micah(New Hampshire), Chad(Michigan), Rebecca(Sweden) and Jamie(Alberta)

For example, I was on a team with Jamie(Alberta) and Jody(Michigan) and we had two guys in their late 20's sitting in front of us. We gave them words about the one guy being a builder, good at starting things, we told him he was creative and with music, etc. After, when we were done, he told us he was just building a recording studio, he was indeed a musician and that everything else we said was really encouraging.

It was so awesome because I knew when I sat down on that team that there was no way I could do this on my own, I wasn't feeling particularily holy or anointed or anything and I told God it would definitely have to be all Him. I believe that is all that God is looking for, a chance. He's looking for you to let Him out, to let God be God. That's all that we were doing, we were simply facilitating His presence and listening to do whatever he wanted.

God's good isn't He? He sure likes to come through if we only give Him a chance.

I took a bunch of pictures which I posted below, I hope you enjoy them, if you don't, well, I'm sorry.



Picture: One of the many Ice Sculptures littered around the area

Picture: Here's another sculpture, some of them were really well done, a little weird, but pretty cool

Picture: Here's Anthony(Virginia) impressing us with his piano prowess


Picture: I went out on an early morning walk Sunday morning and here are the results...

Picture: Me by the Atlantic and an ever so exciting giant replica ship

Picture: The ship itself

Picture: My breakfast Baguette


Picture: Dan(Scotland) and Brandon(Wyoming) at Starbucks for a pre-church pick me up

Picture: Anton(New York) and Myself doing the above


Picture: Now this is a book store!


Picture: Trying on some winter hats


Picture: John Harding preaching on sunday

Sweet Dreams in Salem!

Tomorrow we leave for Salem. Another weekend, another outreach. Actually every weekend, an outreach. For the rest of this section we are going to be on an outreach every weekend. So we will be very busy indeed, at least we have managed to preserve our friday off days, that's nice and good.

So far I've spent today cleaning my room, doing a bit of reading, made a little video tour of this house which will be at the bottom of this post...hopefully, our internet has been pretty spotty the last few days so I'm hoping at least...

We've been going through the 202 classes on Advanced Dream Interpretation with Scott Evelyn. It's been really good, I've really been enjoying it, and it's been helping alot as well. Also in the last week and a half I've been dreaming every night, sometimes multiple times, so that's pretty cool. I never used to dream much so it's been really cool catching up now! It does have one negative side-effect, it tends to give me tired hands from all the writing I do when I wake up! On that note, I found a great pen for writing in the dark, this way, if I get a dream and I wake up at 3 am, I can quickly write a few things down before I go back to sleep without waking Chad. Here's the link LED Pens They are really bright too, so it's a win-win for sure.

This weekend we are going to Salem as I mentioned earlier, it should be a good trip, there is a Wine and Chocolate tasting festival thing on, so we are going to be doing Dream Interpretations and giving prophetic words. As usual, I'll post some pictures from that when we get back. I'm really looking forward to it, we'll be meeting up again with Pastor Phil Wyman from The Gathering Church, Pastor Phil is a great guy, he has an interesting blog at http://squarenomore.blogspot.com/, I encourage you to check it out, he's got a lot great stuff to say!

I thought I'd post a few notable quotes that I took down over the last week for you to ponder...

---------

"To the degree you allow the Lord to change you, others will be changed around you."
--John Paul Jackson

"You are anointed by God to radically change those who come into your sphere of influence."
--Scott Evelyn

"The primary reason we listen intently to people is so we can hear God."
--Scott Evelyn

"Fear will bury your spirit."
--John Paul Jackson

"You cannot become more spiritual, but if you die to self, you will become more spiritual."
--Scott Evelyn

"We are not defined by our shortcomings, but by the glory of God."

---------


So there you have it. I hope you a wonderful day and whenever my video finishes uploading, I'll post it below.

Picture: Ali(Connecticut), Amanda(Texas), Danielle(North Carolina), Claire(England) and Jesse(Michigan) at the Jason Upton concert working our booth!


Video Tour of my house! Below!

Another AWEsome day.

It felt like a short week, well, it really was I guess, we got back on Monday, so no school, then on tuesday we didn't have work in their afternoon, and fridays are our day off so that brings me to today, feeling quite a bit more rested than I have in a long time. It's nice to have a weekend off at home instead of the last two weekends away.

Yesterday was fun, I slept in really late, until 9:30 am, which for me, is really late, especially because I normally get up at 5:40 am to go the gym before school, so anytime after 7 is a treat!

Picture: The Studio

In the early afternoon I got picked up to go to the offices to have John Paul Jackson interpret my dream! John Paul Jackson has been expanding into television and has started with AWE webTV. For some episodes coming up, he asked some of us interns to submit some dreams and out of those he picked four of us, Jody(Michigan), Rebecca(Sweden), Claire(England) and myself (British Columbia). Dreams from four nations were represented that day!

You won't see our episodes for a little bit yet, they will come up in March I'm told. Don't worry, I'll let you know when. It was pretty fun, and kind of cool knowing that I'm going to now be world famous, well, kind of...


Picture: John Paul Jackson and Rebecca(Sweden)

In other news, we finished off the 201 class in Interpreting Dreams, so pretty soon we'll be starting the 202 on Advanced Dream Interpretation. That should be really good, I really enjoyed the 201, so I'm really looking forward to the 202. Drew McGee, one of our teachers for the 201 also gave us a huge list of symbols and general meanings that his friend compiled, so that was a pretty awesome help!

Picture: John Paul Jackson and Myself

Well I'm going to go to Lebanon today to do a few things with Chad, basically I'm tagging along.

I need to go get ready, have a shower, pretty myself up, so I hope you all have an amazing day!




Picture: John Paul Jackson and Jody(Michigan)



Picture: Kurt and I just hanging out.


Picture: Kurt and Claire(England) seemed to hit off well