Highz n Lowz

We have a tradition that you will likely find at many a 614 cell group meeting worldwide - highs and lows. Each participant shares a Highlight of their week and a Lowpoint in their week.

The highs and lows shared end up becoming prayer fuel for thre group each other as well as enriching the fellowship by making discussion real and tangible.

Some highs and lows from my Jpod (cell group) tonight broke my heart .....

High - playing Football tonight as Jpod activity.
Low - My Mom has not been home for a month and I have to just get food however.

High - I have a big brother now. He let me move in with him since his Mom hasn't com home for a month.
Low - I do not know where my Mom is.

High - Football.
Low - I have not seen my Dad for years and I do not know where he is.

High -Football.
Low -I came home yesterday and all the adults at my house were gone out of town, and they didn't pay any bills so now all the power is cut off.

Those were just a few, but you can see the trend. The average age of these kids is 13-14, and they are orphans. Not necessarily in the 3rd world sense, but even amid our modern society many children live day to day without parents and basic services.

This is when the enemy comes to prey on them in the form of Drugs, Prostitution, and Larceny. The root of all this is the abandonment of entire generations of children to the streets where opportunist criminals become their big brothers and sisters. Their family.

It truly is a reverse Gospel. A false community that allows the rejected to become accepted and provided for. The reason why it works is because it is because this 'street family' is based on relationship not programs, so as long as the Church continues to fight injustice and oppression with programs alone, whole generations will continue to slip away.

The reality is that that hungry, cold lonely kid can either go up to the corner 24-7 and get "help," or on the other hand get hooked up with some church, in some place, who will sometimes offer his Mother a bag of broken lasagna and canned green beans that nobody else wanted between 1pm and 2pm every other Thursday. That's assuming she's got all her proper I.D., of course.

If we begin to value community building over 'the building' it would make all the difference in some kids world.

If we left the building and went to the community we would change the world.

I know that God is going to win, and that He has already, I just don't want to lose anyone along on the journey to the victory party.

Part 1 of 3

I ripped this off of armybarmy.com's blog and dug a little deeper online and was just SO inspired, that I couldn't help but post it up here for y'all to see and be fired up by too...

This excerpt is drawn from a book called The Life of General William Booth, by Harold Begbie. These are William Booth's words, spoken at a missions conference gig about 130 years ago.

What is a Mission Station?

"To this I reply, that, as I understand it, it is not a building, or a chapel, or a hall; it is not even a society, but a band of people united together to mission, to attack, to christianise an entire town or neighborhood.

When an Evangelist receives an appointment from this Conference, it is not contemplated that he shall deal merely with those who are already within the walls of certain buildings, or with those who may be induced to come inside them; but it is intended that he shall be an apostle of the Gospel to all those who live around.

When you reach the station assigned you, if it has not been done already, you should take your stand in that hall, or theatre, or tent, and draw a line around the breadth of population you can hope to reach, and make that your parish, and aim, with tears and prayers, and the trumpet-blast of the Gospel, to christianise every soul within it."

"Never lag in zeal and in earnest endeavor; be aglow and burning with the Spirit, serving the Lord." Romans 12:11, Amplified Bible

This counsel speaks volumes to me...as my comrade Leo would say, "that right there is FIRE" and it's true - words so piercing that they puncture the flabby bubble of monotony that buffets my spirituality...

It speaks of ACTION. It reeks of PRACTICALITY. It demands FERVOR.

and it awakens me to something...exciting.


stay tuned...

Okay, pray for these folks...

because this is some SERIOUS spiritual warfare...

I received this email today from Heidi and Rolland Baker, Americans living in Mozambique, who run Iris Ministries, an interdenominational mission located in Mozambique. They have really wild, supernatural God things happen there all the time...check out their website to see for yourself.

http://www.irismin.org/p/home.php

Skim the list below, and even if you just grab onto one thing to pray at, you'll be doing them some serious good.

Prayer Request for Mozambique and Iris Ministries

From Heidi Baker
October 22, 2007

Psalm 18:33-34 (All Scripture is from the NKJV.)
33. He makes my feet like the feet of deer, And sets me on my high places. 34. He teaches my hands to make war, So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

We are posting this special request to our family in Christ around the world with the hope for stronger prayer covering. We have faced intense spiritual warfare, some of the most difficult months of our lives, and severe physical attacks. We are so grateful for those who have been
praying, fasting and crying out to God. We thank Jesus for each of you.

We are absolutely trusting the Lord with the situation and confident that His ear is not too dull to hear nor His arm too short to save (Isaiah 59:1). I have never felt stronger in my life. Jesus is helping us. He is setting our feet like the feet of the deer on high places. He is teaching our hands to war.
I feel like a weight lifter who has built up muscles over the years of past trials so I am now able to face greater challenges. In this time of heavy attack, we would like to solicit your prayers as we push through tremendous spiritual warfare.

Here is a partial list of the trials that have occurred in the past few weeks:

1. Rolland has been very sick, lost forty pounds, had heart trouble and flew to Amsterdam for treatment. I am leaving today to take care of Rolland. Please pray for Jesus to move in powerful healing.

2. Last week, the head of the transport department, Pedro Simbini, had an accident and totaled our administrator Julio's new car while driving it up to Pemba for him.

3. Julio, our head Mozambican administrator in Pemba, drove down with his girlfriend Rachel to deal with the accident.They rolled their car on the way there and were hospitalized. We have been told that the third person riding with them is in serious condition. Rachel is not in
very good shape either.


4. Dr. Don Kantel, Associate Pemba Base Director alongside the Bakers,
has just had violent malaria since last Monday and is in the hospital
with a critical infection. We had to emergency fly him to South Africa.
(The good news received a few moments ago is that once Don got to SA,
the infection began to respond. Don's wife, Elizabeth has just spoken
to him at the hospital while he was visiting with the Wheelers and Dr.
Eric who accompanied him. Don was so encouraged to hear that he may be discharged tomorrow and be able to fly back on Tuesday.)

5. The same day another missionary hit a child with her Landrover. I
also had to take an emergency flight out last week due to an accident.
My face was split open and needed stitches. I'm recovering well.

6. My Mozambican secretary recently had an accident with her motorbike, as well as Luciano, our associate pastor to Jose, who is our provincial leader over the Iris churches in Cabo Delgado province.

7. Pedro Langa, the head of our Pemba kitchen, just broke his foot by
falling off his motorbike. He is in a cast.

8. As we all prayed together and warred in the tent, a large construction truck weighing four tons tipped over inside our new church building under construction. We had to war and literally push the 4-ton truck out of our church.

I, felt the Lord told me to stand on a pile of rocks and proclaim the
victory in Jesus' name, draw a line in the sand, and tell the enemy
that he could not cross it anymore. I felt led to tell the crowd
gathered that I was going to push the truck up and out. I asked,

"Who would be with me?"

Hundreds gathered around and we pushed the four-ton
truck, which in the natural world would have needed a crane or large wrecker, as we celebrated the victory with shouts of joy.

9. Witch doctors tried to poison Pastor Jose and me in a village. God kept us from eating the witch doctor's poison.

10. Surpresa Sithole, one of the four international directors of Iris Ministries, had to attend the tragic funeral of his brother Pastor Sithole and his cousin after a group of radical religious
anti-Christians cut him up into pieces because he was preaching the gospel. Pastor Sithole will be greatly missed.


In Pemba, we are currently doing a corporate 21 day fast, as well as organizing times to pray and worship together for the next 21 days. After that, we will launch our next 24-7 prayer week.

We earnestly request that you stand with us, covering those those who have been in accidents and the sick, especially Rolland, as well as praying for protection for all of us here. Jesus purchased the victory and we know He has amazing plans for Mozambique beyond anything we have seen so far.

In the middle of all these trials, God spoke to me to rest in the boat even in this storm. In the past few days, I have been meditating on Hebrews 4:9-16:

9.There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. 10. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. 11. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.
12. For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any
two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and
of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of
the heart.
13. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are
naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
14. Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through
the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
15. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our
weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
16. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may
obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

We recently received a prophetic word that if we would enter into a
season of rest, God would release a revival that would never end. Weare clinging onto Him, this High Priest. We are holding onto His
promises in our time of need. Thank you for standing with us for full victory.

In love with Jesus,

Heidi Baker with Melissa Stanton and Shara Pradhan

Sight for the blind...

November 1/06

Today was SO awesome. I got to do something a bit different in practical ministry by taking one of the teenagers in our community to the optometrist. Which was so amazing because this girl is like seriously almost blind. She got a voucher from her school, but had no one to book her appointment or take her to the doctor.


We were able to help her with that – everything from getting her eyes tested to helping her pick out beautiful, brand new glasses, which she’ll receive sometime next week.

She got to pick whichever frames she wanted and add every feature she could get for the lenses. Just like a ‘normal’ kid.

Having glasses changed her life dramatically for the better...no longer mocked for always peering and squinting at people, places and things, her grades improved markedly, and she began journalling, which soon led to writing poetry.

The picture above was taken at one of our corporate worship gatherings, where she chose to stand before the congregation of almost a hundred people and read aloud a poem she had written about her life. An unthinkable task only a few months beforehand became an opportunity to share her creativity and her story with her community in a really positive way.

"Jesus came to Nazareth where he had grown up. As he always did on the Sabbath, he went to the meeting place. When he stood up to read, he was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written,

God's Spirit is on me; he's chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor, Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, To set the burdened and battered free, to announce, "This is God's year to act!"

He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the assistant, and sat down. Every eye in the place was on him, intent. Then he started in, "You've just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place."

Jesus said that He was sent to bring sight to the blind and bring good news to the poor. It's not rocket science, my friend was blind as a bat, and now she can see. She used to feel shy about reading in front of others, and now she's testifying about God's presence in her life. It's not rocket science, but it's got JUSTICE written all over it...

Luke 4:17-19, The Message

Things you wouldn't hear at training college...

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

I think I have lice.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

False alarm. No lice here.

Pie Anyone?

November 23/06

Jesus is so faithful and amazing.
We received a phone call from a lady we met at a Church, like nine months ago, and she shared that the Lord had led her to spend the day baking a pie for every family in our neighborhood. Her only question was " how many should I bake? "I tallied up every family we minister to and so last night 30 pies showed up at The War College residence, complete with a tub of Cool Whip for every pie.

It was great! So we all grabbed some pies and just began heading out to deliver them. There were attempts at organizing the whole endevour but everyone was so blessed up by these pies we couldn't help ourselves but to keep grabbing more and running out to pass them around.What a blessing to see the body working together, one family baking all day, another family passing out the pies, and another one eating the pies knowing with every bite that Jesus is the kind of guy who wants to be part of the little things, that he simply desires to be a part of this years thanksgiving meal; and he'll use a pie to get there!

One thing that I know is that the real big eternal difference we are making here does not come through the sermons and apologetics, they come through a cup of cold water given in Jesus' name.(Matthew 25)

We have one family of five kids here, 10, 10, 13, 14, 17. Their Mother left two weeks ago and just never came back. I felt very humbled when bringing them their pies because they were truly thankful. The two little guys hugged me so hard I thought that I would drop the pies.

What did I ever do to deserve such a blessing of being loved by orphans and the forgotten?

I am truly thankful that I am not burdened with the nice things, the pretty things, the useless things of Man's striving, but am surrounded by Jesus' most precious treasures; children with no hope at all but him.

rd

As we approach our 2 year anniversary here in Carolinas, we've been reflecting back over the blogosphere and reminiscing. Sometimes with a smile and sometimes a grimace! So in honor of what God has done at 614 Charlotte, we'll be featuring excerpts from the online journals of our missioners, celebrating the events from our inception right up to the present, for your enjoyment, intercession and sometimes, amazement.

grace,
Heather & Rob

Love Capital

I was thinking about capital, not money, but virtual capital. Politicians gather political capital, religious leaders gather moral capital, and all to spend in the marketplace of influence. I would like to dedicate myself to gathering love capital all to spend in revealing a faithful loving Father to a lost world. How rich we would all be.

This past weekend, we were at a Jason Upton concert. As usual, between the music, he was edifying the body of Christ with words of instruction, revelation and exhortation. And as usual, I was doing my best to scribble them down so that not one of them would fall to the ground in front of me and be wasted - or forgotten....

This is one of them.

"God didn't create for human approval, He created for human discovery."