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I had a few amazing opportunities to teach and share my heart -
Singing over each other – Music Workshop -
We saw so many amazing animals!
South Africa… wow. Where to start? I feel like I could say something amazing about every single day I was there. There is definitely no way I can cover everything that happened on this trip in just one post but suffice it to say that every expectation I had about this trip was blown out of the water! Each city was amazing in it’s own right so consider this the highlight reel.
Johannesburg
Talk about jumping in head first, the day we landed we went quickly to our host homes for a shower and then we came straight back to the church to spend the evening blessing the worship team. I was actually feeling full of energy despite having just travelled for over 30 hours and it was so great to pour into them before the conference. The conference itself was really powerful. I had the opportunity to share about my journey from living in perfectionism to living a life of excellence. Perfectionism is who you are, excellence is something you do. I used to believe that I am worth what I can do, which is perfectionism so if I do well, then I am valuable both in my own eyes and to others whereas excellence says that I am valuable completely aside from what I do but I still do things well. Perfectionism needs affirmation whereas excellence comes from already being affirmed by God. To say “I’m a perfectionist” is a great statement because it comes from a heart that loves excellence it is saying “I have a heart to do things well” but it’s important to remember that doing things well or not does not define your worth. Anyway if you want to hear more about that send me an email and we can talk or I’m gonna wind up preaching right here.
We saw over 50 people healed both physically and mentally. We saw knees, ankles, necks, elbows, arms and so much more completely healed as the team sang or prayed for them. Robert, one of my fellow interns and I ran a workshop called A New Sound where we taught people how to hear from God and sing what we heard over other people aka “singing prophetically” and also to heal the sick through music and through singing. We ran the workshop twice and both times there were between 5-10 people who needed prayer. As we all surrounded them the whole workshop (20-30 people per session) sang over them and all but two that I can remember either had a significant drop in their pain/symptoms or were completely healed. One guy had hurt his knees in an old sporting injury and could not climb stairs without pain and after we sang over his knees he felt heat in his knees and was able to run up the stairs two at a time without any pain! A lady got healed of a two year old shoulder injury. She had injured herself building a house as well as crashing a lawn mower into a tree stump. Since then the ligaments had never been right. She said, that during the time of prophetic singing something was released in her shoulder and the pain lifted. Another girl had a growth in her neck about the size of a grape and as we sang healing over her neck the growth shrunk to the size of a pea and after singing a second time it completely dissolved! She could barely believe it and her fiancé confirmed it was completely healed as he poked around trying to find any trace of it! One guy’s left hand was crushed by a crate several years ago that prevented him from playing the guitar. After singing over his hand the feeling started to return to his fingers! These are just some of the testimonies. I believe over 15 people in our workshop alone received complete healing. Robert and I were just amazed at what God was doing! I have never seen so many people get healed as I have ministered. It was so easy too! God doesn’t need people who are ‘good at healing people’ that is His job. Our job is to just enjoy Him!
For our rest day we drove a few hours north to a place called Pilansburg Game Reserve where we spent the afternoon, evening and the next morning around looking at all the amazing animals. We saw elephants, rhinos, zebras, wildebeest, impalas, giraffes and even two lions ALL right next to the road or on it! Our hosts said that it is really rare to see the amount of animals we did! Probably the highlight though was getting chased down the road by a large male African elephant. If you want that story though you’ll have to ask me!
Cape Town
The first thing we did in Cape Town was go and get some craft coffee which I had been waiting for the whole trip! Cape Town is such a beautiful city and certain bits definitely reminded me of Australia, it’s just a similar vibe. Also Cape Town is the first place I’ve been where people half expect you to be from Australia. Turns out there’s a lot of Aussie’s moving there!
Two of my favourite stories happened as we explored Cape Town. We caught the train on our way to have lunch and no more than 30 seconds after we stepped on board, Lindy-Ann, a Bethel Alumni from Cape Town got the whole carriage’s attention and said “Hey everyone! I hope you’re having a great day today, there’s a team from America here who love South Africa and they want to pray for you so if you have any pain in your body they have seen blind eyes open, deaf ears, sore backs, feet, knees, everything healed so if you have any pain in your body put your hand up and we will come and pray for you!” About 15 people raise their hands immediately and to cut a long story short we wound up praying for about 15-20 people as the train picked up and dropped off passengers, almost everyone got healed!
We also gave out photos and prophesied over others in the carriage. I gave one of my photos to this young guy and as I told him what I felt God wanted to say to him that day, his eyes just kept getting wider and wider and he later explained that I had basically ‘read his mail’ and that what I was saying was exactly what he needed to hear right now. I saw him a few minutes later showing his buddy next to him and describing the word I had given him and I saw his friend look my way so I walked back over and said “Hey do you want one too?” He of course said yes and after I prophesied over him, he looked me straight in the eye and said “You know what man, I used to go to church but I stopped going a few years ago but after today I think I’m gonna have to go back to church and give God a second chance!”. It is moments like that that make all the long flights and a few hours of sleep a night completely worth it. When someone gives God a chance and chooses him despite past pain, that’s amazing!!
On the way back that same day we caught the bus and as soon as the bus pulled away Lindy-Ann announced to the bus that we were going to sing them a song Robert had written and after we sung that she said the same thing as the train. There was a few people who put their hands up and a few people got healed. Lindy-Ann shared the gospel with them and said “If anyone wants to receive the Jesus that just healed these people into your heart to have a relationship with Him then just repeat after me”. Basically the whole bus minus about 10 people prayed to accept Jesus into their heart!! We prayed individually with as many as we could and then the whole bus started singing songs like “Alpha and Omega” and a few other songs and just before we got off a man stood up at the back of the bus and thanked us all for coming to South Africa and that there truly is no black or white but that we are all humans and brothers and sisters. When we got off the whole bus was applauding and waving and thanking us for being there.
The conference was amazing too! We saw many many people healed both physically and emotionally. The paintings that were done were especially accurate to what was going on in people’s world. The second day of the conference we went out into several places in the community and did outreach and there were tons of testimonies about people stepping out in ways they had never tried before and a few people got saved! Many more were healed physically and emotionally. The icing on the cake came when we prayed/danced for rain. Cape Town is in a severe drought and when we were there they only had 112 more days of drinking water left! We decided to do a Holy Spirit Rain Dance as a prophetic act (where we do something physically to release something spiritually) to break the drought so the whole conference danced and prayed for rain and the day after we left Cape Town….. it rained!!
In my last update I said that I was full of expectation for this trip to South Africa but every expectation and dream I had was blown out of the water by what actually wound up happening. God did abundantly more that all that I could have asked or thought. I am genuinely blown away but some of the miracles we saw and almost surprised as I was able to minister at a higher level than I have ever experienced before, I’ve never seen so many people healed at once under my ministry as in our workshop and I haven’t preached as well as I did on this trip either, to mention only a few things. I will definitely be going back to South Africa.
All up the team collected about half an inch thick of testimony forms from people who had been impacted in some way by the conferences whether it was physical or emotional healing or an encounter with God or simply just from being impacted by the conference in a significant way. There really is so much more that happened on the trip and I could fill another entire update with the amazing things God did on this trip. Now I get to go to Switzerland this week and do it all again! If God did it in Africa, He can do it in Europe! Please pray for me for energy and for wisdom as there will probably be a language barrier. I can’t wait to tell you all about Switzerland in my next update!
PRAYER – for if you’re the praying type…
Answered Prayer
- For my time in South Africa, God REALLY did move powerfully though my team and I.
- For energy and unity amongst all three teams that are going to South Africa.
Prayer Points
- For my trip to Switzerland that God would do even more than He did in South Africa!
- For my 2017 that God would continue to mould me into who He created me to be!
- For wisdom to be able to create tools and resources that are bigger than my ability and that truly bless people all over the world.
- For continued wisdom both in building community and in general as I spend time with God.
God Bless You!
