On Revival; For Belize

“You are your own revival. You don’t need to wait for anything. You need to learn how to live from the inside to the outside. Revival is not about thousand of people getting saved. That’s reformation.

Revival happens when you and I start living in the way that God wants us to live. You can’t revive something that’s never been alive.

So revival is not about unbelievers. Revival is about believers coming back to the place they should never have left. It’s about believers coming to live in the place, living the way that God intended them to live. And when that happens, you are your own revival.

Something flows out of you that starts to connect with humanity in a big way and nothing and no one can stop it. Because nothing can stop goodness..except fear.”

-Graham Cooke

... here is something that is EXACTLY what we are fighting for in ourselves and in this country...

Dangriga, Independence And Beyond!

To sum up last week, we drove from Belmopan to Dangriga, where we stayed with pastor Caleb and his wife Barbara. We were able to pray for Barbara's arm which was great - it felt better after we prayed. Anyway, they have a very energetic granddaughter named Samaya, who woke Tati up by licking her face and tickling her feet (if that tells you anything). She was super cute, but like most of the kids we have met, energy energy energy!! Woo! Anyway we got to meet with a slew of pastors in the Dangriga area, and then we left and headed towards Indpendence. Along the way there are some villages such as Trio and Red Bank. The drive to Dangriga first of all, is beautiful! We drove through the mountains, over bridges, through villages, and saw cattle all over the mountainsides, but basically the view is breathtaking.

Anyone want to go to the mall?

Samaya

Purple book / inner healing time we had by the ocean!

So Tati knows a really poor family in Trio, and we were going to surprise them and bring them ham and cheese sandwiches, which Tati says they go nuts for :) and so we bought all the stuff and headed down this extremely potholey road, and once we got to their house, it was all boarded up! They were out of town (we think, by what spanish we could interpret from a neighbor). By this time it was dark and around 9ish. We didn't have a place set up to sleep at, so we ended up calling a pastor named Arnold Ramsey, who is a pastor of a church in Independence, and we stayed at his church . . . . we met him and his two kids, Areyn, and Zion, and we saw two scorpions as he gave us the tour of his church and where we would be sleeping . . . We ended up sleeping on 2 big tables in a children's classroom, and Tati had a fancy bug net tent thing, and well, since I didn't have anything like that, I improvised and made my own tent! (It was probably more a mental thing; I highly doubt it would have kept anything out)

nice little duct tape sheet string tent haha

Areyn - cluuung to me

Don't be mistaken (as I was) the baby is a boy! (Zion)

Looks like this church plays CORN HOLE!

Chickies!

Red Bank

The next day we left Independence after sharing with Pastor Ramsey's congregation about the conference, and speaking to a few other pastors in the area, and headed back to Belmopan. On our way back, we stopped at Red Bank, which is a grass hut village, with about 200 families. We met with Pastor Edelberto, told him about the conference, and before we met with him, he had to be called away from meeting with a woman named Luciana, who was on her deathbed. . . after our talk with him, we learned that the lady who was dying, was in her thirties, and dying from breast cancer. I asked if we could pray for her, and off we were to go and drive to her house. We got to her house/hut and it was amazingly powerful, as death hung in the air, and as her 70 or 80 lb body was struggling to breathe, we got to pray for her, I got to hold her hand, and Tati anointed her head with oil. She was barely conscious when we got there, but as we were praying she became conscious enough, and pulled up her shirt and had us lay hands on the side of her body. It was an amazing situation where in confidence of the Lord and His perfect will, us knowing that we know that we know that we know that HE IS GOOD, and as her family was wailing in the background, and as Tati and I were able to lift her up in prayer into the Lord's presence, Pastor Edelberto prayed in Spanish and her husband prayed in an unknown tongue. When we left, her family was so grateful that we came, but as we drove away, Tati and I kept talking about how the Lord ministered to US through that unexpected encounter and intense but awesome experience. It also revealed to me certain victories in my own life, with at one point fearing death and being very confused and unsure of what I felt or believed about it all. Working in the ICU, seeing death in full character, it forced me to delve into the facts, observations, and challenged me to truly figure out what I believe. A supernatural dream I had pretty much took away any and all fear I had left in me after working at the hospital for a year, but praise the Lord! I was able to minister to this woman, up-close-and-personal, and meet her where she was at with confidence that the Lord would comfort her and bring her close to Him whether in healing or in finding peace and rest in saying goodbye to this earth. We heard a day later that Luciana went to be with Jesus. 

Pastor Edelberto bicycling back from Luciana's

Wheelbarrow from my picture 

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Red Bank Village

Skinny horses!

Pastor Edelberto's wife and grandboy

Pastor Edelberto

Conference talk

I-see-U !

Anointing oil - we have used it 3 or 4 times so far

Violets. (Happy Birthday baby Violet Scaffe! today *Feb 17th*)

Jubilee

So, while we were in Belmopan, we also met a very important man by the name of Scott Stirm. We kept hearing his name, and people kept saying, "Oh, you need to talk to Scott Stirm!" . . . well we didn't know who this Scott Stirm was, but Tati got his number and tried to call him, but he would never answer. AS IT TURNED OUT, we had his wrong number, and another man named Richard Smith, who is on his campaign trail, running for some office during this election season and owns Refuge Radio, who we had met the same morning we met Louis Wade (tv network guy) - *I promise this all comes together* - basically I happened to be driving the car, and went down a one-way road accidentally, and someone honked at us, and it was Richard Smith! And he recognized us, and got out of his car and told us to follow him to his radio station! crazy! So, we were just starting our day and returning the church keys to Pastor Maganya - and all of a sudden we were on a wild track following Richard Smith up this steep mountain to where his house and radio station is! So, we met with Richard, hung out with him for a while, then he called Scott Stirm (his correct number) and told him we were on our way . . . .

SO, then all of a sudden we find Scott's house, and we knock on the door, and are blown away by our next experience. Scott is an American man who has lived in Belize for the past 30 years. His heart is the same as ours for unity and revival in Belize, and when we later visited his church Sunday night, we felt like we were at The Awakening church! At his church (Jubilee) he had Tati and I go up and speak to everyone about the conference and share what we are doing, which was awesome, and lots of people afterwards asked us questions, gave us advice and even offered to help us with whatever profession they are involved in (marketing, graphic design, etc). Supposedly Belmopan is the spiritual hub of all Belize, or so they say.

Scott Stirm is a key figure because he is not only known by just about everyone, but he is a key leader in the country, and has a contact list of THOUSANDS of pastors around the country. He is coming alongside us and will not only be at the conference and helping us along the way, but also sending out all of the info and invitation to all of the contacts he has!! Nuts!

Something Scott preached on really touched my heart, and was awesome because if confirmed and echoed what I have been learning, so I will just share . . . .

Basically I have been learning, seeking, asking for and studying HUMILITY.
In Numbers 12 it sys that Moses was more humble than any other on earth, and of course it talks about how Moses was a friend to God, and they spoke face-to-face.
The main verse Scott used that ties so much together when studying humility is this:

James 4:6 - God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble  -

You could study (and I am) God's grace, and man's humility or lack thereof.
But basically, Humility attracts God; Humility attracts Grace.

Something awesome that I wrote down about Moses' conversations with God that I want my words with Him to be like:

Moses: "Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight"

God: "My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest"

Moses: "If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here"

God: "This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name"

Moses: "Please show me your glory"

Scott also shared that his vision for this year 2012, he felt like the Lord was saying that HIS PRESENCE IS GOING TO ROUT THE ENEMY..... therefore Scott was saying that he feels strongly about dealing aggressively with anything that hinders the Lord's presence . . . and it was interesting to hear a myriad of situations the enemy is trying to throw at him, his congregation and even Belize as a whole.

He shared about how the root of all conflicts = pride . . . . which is cool because in a book I read, something that struck me very deeply is this excerpt:








"All this is to make it known the region of eternity that pride can degrade the highest angels into devils, and humility raise fallen flesh and blood to the thrones of angels . . . evil can have no beginning but from pride, and no end but from humility . . . The truth is this: Pride may die in you, or nothing of heaven can live in you."

"If you could see what every stirring of pride does to your soul, you would beg of everything you meet to tear the viper from you, though with the loss of a hand or an eye. . . . if you could see what a sweet, divine, transforming power there is in humility, how it expels the poison of your nature, and makes room for the Spirit of God to liv ein you, you would rather wish to be the footstool of all the world than want the smallest degree of it."

and BOOM goes the dynamite! I love this so much.

 

Scott Stirm is super awesome, but I will admit he reminds me a little bit of the dad on the show The Wild Thornberries :)