Taipei 101 and 101 things I'm thankful for.

Yesterday Robert, Genese and I were able to go to the second highest building in the world, named Taipei 101 because it has 101 floors. It was a great day to give thanks to God and celebrate the way he got all of us to Taiwan to be a part of the SBS.

Some of the SBS crew in front of Taipei 101

Part of our School of Biblical studies is to do a final application after we finish reading each book of the bible. For the book of Colossians, I was inspired by Paul's words: “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:15–17, ESV).

So, for my final application I took some time and just wrote a list of 101 things I was thankful for, you don't have to read it all, I mostly did for personal edification and enrichment. I deeply enjoyed it, and it gave me much for faith in what God is capable of doing, and highly encourage each one to apply Paul's words in their own way.

1. A sweet laptop
2. a comfy bed
3. salvation from the power of sin
4. salvation from the power of death
5. when I die I get to see Jesus!
6. Jesus loves me!
7. The Father loves me!
8. The Holy Spirit loves me!
9. I've never been starving in my entire life!
10. There is a fan next to my bed to cool me down when I'm hot.
11. There are many awesome people who have supported me, have prayed for and been super encouraging.
12. Alison Tenneson and my parents gave Robert and Genese money to buy a ticket to come here

13. 

    Robert, Genese and I in front of Taipei 101

    When Robert and Genese got stuck in Canada and needed more money God provided for them 1086USD in one hour through his people.
14. I didn't know how it was going to happen, but now Robert and Genese are here in Taiwan!
15. God is so much more committed to me than I could ever be to Him!
16. Gabrielle Villahermosa, my friend from Kona
17. Jared Karpa, my friend from Kona
18. Tim Kizziar, who helped me out in a season where I was struggling following Jesus
19. I've been able to spend almost 10 months of my life in beautiful and amazing Kona Hawaii
20. God is raising up a global prayer and worship movement, and soon 24/7 prayer and worship will cover the earth!
21. IHOP-KC started in 1999 with 20 intercessory missionaries and now has trained 1000s of people and inspired millions to pursue Jesus through prayer and worship
22. nothing is impossible for God!
23. There is no heart that God can't turn to him!
24. Samra Spear, who was an awesome English teacher
25. Mrs. Johnson, an amazing health teacher
26. Dan Bing for breakfast, which is like an asian pancake with egg and cheese in it
27. quesadillas
28. cheese in general
29. oatmeal
30. cheep cheep rice
31. rice and beans from Haiti
32. rice and bean sauce from Haiti
33. Patays from Haiti, which is a fried piece of dough with vegetables inside
34. All the students from the Haiti DTS, they were so amazing
35. All the money God gave us, over 100,000 USD for all the people that needed money

36. 

    Taipei 101 in the distance, it far away and very massive

    transit visas to get through the U.S. to Benin
37. Chimene Djeumo, a mighty woman of God from Cameroon, Africa
38. My parents love Jesus!
39. My parents told me about Jesus and I believed for the first time when I was 4
40. Music is so fun to play!
41. I'm so thankful that as Christians we get to follow God together, and its not good to be alone
42. I have two awesome roommates
43. I get to take a shower with hot water, and with much more than a gallon a day
44. I don't have to walk all day to get clean water, I can just go to the fridge where there is clean water freshly filtered
45. I can pay the equivalence of 1USD and get a really good sandwich for breakfast
46. Misty Edwards, amazing singer/songwriter/worship leader
47. The Jesus Culture band
48. There is live worship and intercession streaming from IHOP-KC 24/7
49. When I was in Kona last year someone gave me a guitar
50. Earlier this year in Kona someone gave me a prophetic word that encouraged me to keep leading worship
51. My parents paid for many years of drum lessons
52. My dad worked very hard to provide for his family
53. My parents took me many places on family vacations when I was younger
54. Sean Murphy was an amazing leader during the Haiti DTS.
55. Jesus has the power to raise the dead!
56. A Cambodian student had a heart attack while we were ministering in Cambodia, they probably died, and one of my friends on the team prayed for them and they were totally fine and came to class the next day.
57. Someone was healed in Cambodia of a chemical imbalance in the brain, and they were able to study much better after my friend and I prayed to Jesus for them.
58. Jesus loves to heal the sick!
59. Mike Bickle
60. Football

61. 

    An amazing view of Taipei from the observatory

    Lacrosse
62. Basketball
63. Foosball
64. Tim Tebow
65. Jeremy Lin
66. my Grandma
67. Fritos, our family cat that recently passed away
68. Having a car for 2 years in high school
69. DTS right after high school
70. A high school diploma
71. I get to be in a School Biblical Studies (SBS) for 9 months!
72. After the SBS I get to do 3 weeks of preaching and teaching training and then 8 weeks of outreach
73. God is so good!
74. God is gracious and compassionate.
75. God is slow to anger and rich in love.
76. He accepts me every time I come back to him!
77. He has good plans for me!
78. I don't have to worry about ever being lonely because he is always with me!
79. God has given me his indwelling spirit!
80. God speaks to me and tells me He loves me!
81. We have 66 books in the canon of scripture that show us what God is like!
82. There has been so many people that died to give us the bible that we have today!
83. I'm thankful that God raised up Martin Luther to restore the teaching of salvation through God's grace and faith in Jesus.
84. There is so much evidence of Jesus and who he is!
85. There are 4 different perspectives on Jesus written a few decades after Jesus died that each show the same Jesus. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John!
86. We have amazing staff in our SBS that always take care of us and teach us a lot about the bible!
87. Jesus died for me! (did I say that one already?)
88. There are immeasurable riches, wisdom, knowledge and mystery to be searched out through the knowledge of Christ.
89. God is raising up a generation that is committed to preaching the gospel
90. Loren and Darlene Cunningham, who started YWAM 52 years ago.
91. I'm thankful that there are Christians all over the world!
92. I'm thankful that there are fewer and fewer people that haven't heard about Jesus everyday.
93. God is drawing Christian leaders all across the world to come together through Call2All congresses.
94. We have Lou Engle come to the YWAM base in Kona earlier this year and prophesy that God is going to raise up 24/7 worship and prayer at YWAM bases.
95. There is going to be a 2 week training school called the Circuit Riders in Kansas City this summer that is going to call people to faith filled proclamation of the gospel and train in basic principles and application. I believe this is going to a huge convergence of prayer and missions, filling people with fire for the great commission even more!
96. For all of eternity we will get to gaze upon God and cry “holy, holy, holy!”
97. I will get to be friends with angels one day
98. God has filled me up with joy in his presence!
99. When I had Dengue Fever in Haiti there were lots of people to take care of me.
100. According to Lee Strobell, a journalist who investigated the claims of Jesus, there are currently about 5,646 extant greek manuscripts of the NT. Thats a lot!

101. 

     This was an advertisement that says "How far would you go for love"
     Jesus went to the cross. There is no greater love!!!

     If anyone has read this far in the list, I want to thank you as well :). Thank you reading, and may you be blessed in your thanksgiving as well!

Robert and Genese in Taiwan

"O LORD my God, you have performed many wonders for us. Your plans for us are too numerous to list. You have no equal. If I tried to recite all your wonderful deeds, I would never come to the end of them." -Psalm 40:5 NLT

Robert is now in Taiwan studying in the SBS! We have seen God provide money and opens door in ways that were impossible and unthinkable for us. Along this 8 month journey God has really challenged my faith and shown me that He is capable of all things! God is so good to help me when I have have so little faith! This is a journal entry from March 1st, me basically telling God how little I believed that Robert that get to Taiwan, but still praying for it. I included this journal entry because it just shows where I was at, and the way God answered my prayer despite my unbelief in Him:

Journal entry from March 1st, 2012:

"I have no idea how Robert is going to get his money, and his plane ticket and all of those things. Thank you God you completely understand and totally know what's going on with him. God I honestly don't have the faith to believe that Robert could actually go to Taiwan. Jesus give me faith.

God I honestly have no idea how hes going to get to Taiwan. But its now that we will truly see a miracle. Thank you Lord. That is just so much money to sow into a plane ticket when I'm not sure that he will really get a visa through the us. God I don't want to walk in unbelief, but I also want to be honest with you I don't know what to do! Jesus help me God! I know that he needs the visa from the U.S. First he tried earlier and he got denied. Thank you Jesus for your ridiculous love for Robert, that while he was still a sinner you died for him. Thank you God that you said ask and you shall receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you. So I'm asking God that you would pour out your spirit in a powerful way and move in power to give Robert everything he needs to get to SBS! Jesus we need your power so bad! Thank you for getting us in a perfect position to see an undeniable miracle. God you're so good! Thank you so much for your ridiculous provision in the past, that he had all that he needed! Thank you that all of the students in our DTS had everything they needed to go on outreach! God you're so good!"

So then Robert didn't end up getting his transit visa through the US, but the Lord provided all of the money so that he could go through Canada! God is so good to do what we're not capable of doing on our own. He is now in Taiwan, studying in the SBS!

Here is Robert to tell the story and say thank you!

Highlights from the past 2 months

The Lord has been doing so many things here in Kona in the past 2 months. I got here January 8th and it has been non stop excitement ever since. Sometimes its hard to sleep because there is so many exciting things going on, sometimes is so easy to sleep because I'm so tired.
So here a few quick highlights from the past 2 months, and then a short video with some of the best prayer room moments, along with a healing testimony. Thank you all so much for your prayers and support, my time here has been phenomenal!

• Getting to run with about 10 other wild eyed lovers of Jesus and pray and worship together almost everyday
• Seeing the students in the schools flourish and lead out in bible studies, prayer meetings and outreach
• Seeing over 45 people choose to follow Jesus in a 3 week period in the streets of downtown Kona. That's a lot, way more than the past!
• Seeing God touch and heal people physically, making short legs longer to free people of back pain, healing the emotional wounds of the past. God also healed someone of Carpal Tunnel, which you can see in the video
• Being able to grow in the skills of worship leading and teaching, and serving on the base 

The book that tranforms the nations

I just finished an amazing book that was talking about the bible called The book that transforms the nations. Written by Loren Cunningham, the book describes the tangible modern day evidence of what God said: “if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14, ESV). It contains many stories about how God would stir in a few key people that would study The Bible and preach it to others, and then the whole society around them would be transformed.

One of the amazing stories is about a little island in the pacific. The story starts with nine sailors that took over the HMS Bounty, a British ship, and settled on the Island of Pitcairn with a few other Polynesians they had abducted. They burned their ship to evade detection by the British, who were seeking to give them justice at the end of a hangman's noose. After starting out relatively well, they soon descended into a hell of their making. One of the men discovered how to make liquor, and soon had everyone drunk. Then there was lots of fighting, death and disease. Finally there was just one man alive from the original sailors, who became known as John Adams.

Then, in an act of sovereign intervention, Adams found a Bible in the chest of one of his shipmates. He started to study the book, and it wasn't long until he decided to follow Jesus. He then taught the word to the entire island, and everything changed. Later two British captains came to Pitcairn and said the culture on the Island was like a Golden Age. Since Adams had begun teaching them from the Bible, no young woman had been seduced. Theft was unknown. They lived in order and peace. That totally shows the power of God's word to change an island!

In the book you can also read many more stories, such as what happened in South Korea, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway and others, when people decided to obey God's word. Therefore I highly recommend the book title The Book That Transforms Nations by Loren Cunningham. Check out this link if you're interested in getting a copy of your own: The Book That Transforms Nations.

This is another reason why I'm so blessed and excited to be able to spend 9 months straight reading God's word in a very intense way, because I will be more equipped for what the Lord has in the future. Just to give you more of a taste of what I'm going to in about a month, here is a video made from the SBS program in Kona:

Don't forget Haiti!

About 2 years after the devastating earthquake that killed 250,000+ beautiful Haitians, there is much joy to be had about this nation, as well as much sorrow and anguish.

Even now many people still live in tent cities, devastated by extreme poverty, resulting in suicides, rape and much more evil as the enemy preys on the weak and broken.

At the same, the Lord God Almighty has done powerful things over the past 2 years, including causing President Preval, who was in office in 2010, to call for 3 days of prayer and fasting to Yahweh, aka Jesus Christ, our beautiful savior and God of the bible! This certainly is an incredible time for the nation, as the 200 year commitment of Haiti to Satan has ended in 2004, and it is very clear the Lord is on the move!

When I was there this past year I experience tremendous open hearts to Jesus, as I met the hungriest people ever. It truly is an incredible opportunity to partner with God as he transforms that nation.

May the Lord stir your heart to continue pouring yourself out for this beautiful nation as you watch this film. If you wish to respond by supporting a Haitian called to go to a School of Biblical Studies in Taiwan the same time as me, click here: Robert going to SBS.
Also, please send up fiery prayers for Robert as he currently needs:
1. Transit visa through America
2. Favor for visa to Taiwan
3. Supernatural provision of about $11,000 for tuition, airplane tickets and food

Since DTS and a little of the future!

After the DTS ended on November 14th, I flew to visit some of my dad's family in Florida for Thanksgiving. It was a great time to look back at all the Lord had done and be very thankful. I have so much to be thankful for! Thank God for awesome family, 3 meals a day, being able to go to the sink and drink the water... the list goes on and on and I'm sure yours does too.
One of the highlights for me was getting to spend time with my dad's mom, who is 86 and has many memories of working in Haiti. She spent about 25 years working with CrossWorld, a missions organization in Haiti. She now lives in a retirement community with many other missionaries who went to Haiti as well. During my stay I was able to hear many stories of the testimonies of those that have gone before me, which was very encouraging. I was also able to connect with my dad, as we enjoyed the tasty tangerines, warm weather and beautiful beaches of Florida.

After staying in Florida until Thanksgiving Day, I flew to Los Angeles to a global missions congress named Call2All that had about 500 leaders of international missions organizations coming together to pray, partner and strategize to finish the great commission better and take the gospel of the kingdom to the whole earth. I had the incredible privilege of being a volunteer and at the same being apart of all of the teaching times as an usher.

There was lots of worshiping together, preaching and teaching, and round table discussions about how to better do what God called us to do.

Before the congress was over, everyone was challenged to ask God what kind of commitments He wanted them to make with His help and His grace. This list is what leaders have committed to do by the year 2021. And here is list: 70,301 new consistent prayer meetings or House of Prayer, 1,807 Unreached and Unengaged People Groups reached, 46,448 new teams committed to take the bible to new locations through oral teaching and story telling, 217,789 new churches planted, 584,345,463 new exposures to the gospel, and $36,524,466 donated to factors involved in fulfilling the great commission.

 The last day of the congress was committed to 8 hours of prayer and worship, as we prayed for the ending of abortion and revival in the nations among other things. It was awesome!

Here we are praying on a giant map of the world

So for now I'm spending time with my family in Sisters, Oregon. I would be happy to figure out a time to spend time with anyone that is interested in hearing about all the God has done in Haiti, or just to hang out! On January 8th, I will be flying to Kona Hawaii, and I will start staffing again, committing 20 hours a week to Student Services, and the rest of my time to staffing the prayer room, which consists of leading corporate prayer and worship, as well as discipling others in the life calling we all have of loving God with all of our hearts! From Kona I plan on going to a School of Biblical Studies in Taiwan, which starts March 23rd.
Please partner with in prayer for the following areas:
1. Deeper revelation of God to my family, my town Sisters Oregon, and to America
2. All the funds needed for my 3 months of staffing in Kona (at least $5,000), and at least $10,000 for SBS in Taiwan
3. My Haitian friend Robert is also going to the school in Taiwan, and will be needing at least $11,000 for everything he needs.
4. A deep refreshing restoration in my life after a good long year of ministry that would cause me to pursue God and love people even more next year.

Thank you!

DTS is over, God is so faithful!

Worship from our room in Port-au-Prince

Thank God for an amazing DTS!

Starting June 11th and ending November 11th, We have seen so many testimonies of God's faithfulness!

Here are some of my favorite photos and favorite testimonies:

-Over $100,000 raised throughout the DTS for the cost of lecture and outreach phases for needy students.

Working at Mission Riscate in Port-au-Prince

-Visas through America are difficult to obtain for a Haitian, but God gave us all we need to get to our outreach team through America to Benin

Worship at Mission Riscate in Port-au-Prince

-7 Outreach teams from Haiti going to other parts of Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Benin in Africa, Brazil

Haiti is beautiful!

-We didn't know where the water for our house was coming from, we didn't have a well, but God provided by sending lots of rain, helping us concern water and providing through our neighbors

- 1 church getting planted during lecture phase, along with 30 people saying with their mouths they wanted to follow Jesus

- about 20 physical miraculous healings during the lecture phase

- 9 water tanks that can constantly supply water to about 100 people for a person's lifetime

At Morri working with an orphanage

-Many foreigners finished the school speaking Creole well enough to translate between English and Creole

-A staff member is now on his way to China with a School of Worship for outreach

Praying over Port-au-Prince

-We are seeing Haitians awakened to Jesus with hope for the future, many of them continuing in YWAM to staff or study

-An outreach team and their work in Brazil was filmed and put on national news because of Haitians being a blessing to that nation.

Prayer and worship in our prayer room

-80 people staying in one house, 5 bathrooms, 1 gallon of water to shower a day, and still having incredible relationships that will be remembered a lifetime.

-And so many more lives transformed, so many more little things that we'll only hear about in heaven.

Words can barely do justice to all that God did in us and through us during the DTS. Enjoy some pictures and a video about our outreach.

Thanks again for all of your amazing prayer and financial support to partner with me in establishing God's glory to the earth!