Books, Hammocks, Percussion and Bug Spray

*my good friend and little bro Drew training me how to use my new ENO hammock*

(I think the Lord is going to teach me some lessons in this thing)

So I prayed that the Lord would bless me with specific books to bring and read during this trip, and I am ecstatic about the one I have started as well as the few others I will be bringing and meditating on. The book I just started is by John Sandford, and it is called Healing the Nations. John and Paula Sandford received a vision from the Lord for their ministry and life, and were told to write 7 specific books. The first five related to their inner healing prayer ministry "Elijah House," and the other two have to do with bringing healing to a macro level and less introspective. After about two years of learning more and more about EH, and being set free in ways that have changed my life, I am so excited to learn about how to heal a nation, and not just myself! I love what John says in the Introduction:

"Each of the first five books, which have been written and published, concern the maturation and sanctification of individual Christians. The last two books present a departure from individual (perhaps even self-centered) concerns to corporate, altruistic, others-minded service to the Lord, to mankind and to earth. These call for forgetting about one's self and one's own sanctification and laying down one's life for others. The earlier five books direct our gaze inward, then outward. This new book and the next call us to look inward only when we find our flesh interfering, and then merely enough to get the flesh out of the way. Those who come looking for something for themselves had better put this book and its sequel down until they are ready to serve others unmindful of their own needs . . . "

I love that because of how amazing and intense personal inner healing can be, but it is easy to get so into the process of dying to one's self that you look for ways to be sanctified and transformed - it can become distracting and even heavy, but the process is what is important to know, for when it is time to deal with sin that comes up, but I am thrilled to learn more about applying myself to the larger body and standing in the gap for a hurting world.

Anyway, the other books I am bringing are: Humility, The Journey Toward Holiness - by Andrew Murray, and The Inner Voice of Love, by Henri J.M. Nouwen. I'm sure I will also bring my favorite books The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis, and The Alchemist by Paul Coelho, but we will see :) The books I brought came to me in very interesting ways, one through stumbling upon, one through revelation, and one as a gift from a wise world traveler who happened to come through Athens.

As I continue to prepare for this trip here is what I am up to externally:

• I am in the process of purchasing/gathering a Djembe Drum, maracas and a tambourine so we can party all the way down and back (and lead worship of course) - Tati will be on the Gee-tar, while I will be focusing mainly on my voice and obviously the percussion just mentioned
• I have dyed my hair dark brown, in order to remove any target of attention that being blonde may have put on me

• I am learning how to download and operate iMovie, so that I can create HD movies from this trip and put music to them and do the whole splicing editing thing (last resort I email them to my friend Phil and see if he will do/fix them for me) *I can't WAIT to make videos of baptisms and healings and miracles and everything else
• I am in the process of purchasing either an Iphone or an Ipod touch, and being able to skype/face time while I am out of the country - so send me your skype name!
• I need to find the strongest bug spray possible (have you SEEN the bugs in S.America?)

you just go ahead and see for yourself :    

http://www.richard-seaman.com/Arthropods/Belize/Highlights/index.html      aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Preparation H . . . . (holyspirit)

So, our proposed leave date is Jan 18th, a week from tomorrow- and we will be roadtripping to Texas, stopping at Convergence Church in Forth Worth, then meeting our people in Houston to cross Mexico. The Lord of course has provision to a degree beyond what our minds can conceive - He has set it up for us to be able to drive through Mexico with 2-3 spanish speaking men of God, each will be driving a bus to Belize, so we will have walking talkies, and have a bus in front of and behind our car :) Psalm 91 protection baby! Thank you Lord!

My blog will hopefully get cooler and cooler over time once Tati shows me some tricks haha, and I have pictures and videos to actually add from our trip. The title blurb that says: Leaving.Meeting.Seeing.Leading, I thought I would explain. . . Last winter/spring 2011, I was in a place in life where I had been stripped of every idol I had bowed down to in my life; in a place of major breakthrough, of rising from the ashes and learning who the Lord is, who I am in Him, and how to be His beloved. . . anyway, as I was learning about the Lord's voice and His plan for me, and one night I drove home from Elijah House, which is an inner healing prayer ministry that continues to change my world, well anyway - I was on my way home, and I very boldly heard the Lord tell me to put my name into a text message, and read what different words would come up under the T9 application, where I would enter 528736 which were the number combination for l-a-u-r-e-n, and anyway, the words in that order came up: leaving. meeting. seeing. leading.  no kidding! it was crazy. I know it sounds silly, but I know it was from the Lord. Anyway, I feel like the freedom I was living in in that time has now returned, as the Lord has set up a plank for me to walk down blindfolded and dive into the waters beneath. I'm not just leaving the country, I'm not just meeting new people, I'm not just seeing new places, and I'm not just leading my life - it's way more. It's so much more. Leaving the old life, meeting with Jesus, seeing the truth and leading others, through loving others to life and setting others free in Christ!