I apologise in advance to all the sincere fans of my beautiful wife and her blog entries, I realize the standard that she offers and what I am about to dish up (as my new American friends would say) "Ain't even in the same ball park."
I know I have offered very little/nothing to this blog so far, but a month or more ago now I sat down and spent a whole night writing an incredible blog entry only to press the wrong button at the critical moment when trying to save it and watch it all disappear never to return. Computers and I have very much a love hate relationship!!! And it has taken me this long to get over the devastation and try and have another crack, so here we go!!
I don't really know how to put all of my recent experiences into a blog entry. Jo is so amazing at these blog entries and has done a great job filling you guys in on lots of the stuff that is going on in everyday life. But she can't really fill you in with what is happening with me and my school experience so I will try and cover that. First thing that needs to mentioned is the shock the whole thing has been to my system. Firstly my classroom is chock full of over 900 people. I have come from not having another person in over 900 acres, to 900 people in one room. AAARRGGHH!! I have found at times that I just need to find a quiet place by myself outside or even just go to the toilet to get some space to think and regroup. Its not that I am not enjoying the fellowship and the business and craziness of this school. I am, it just takes a lot out of me each day.
I found it hard at the start of school to really connect with people, you might have a decent conversation with someone one day, and honestly not see them again for a week because of the amount of people and the extreme nature of the work load and schedule at school. There is not really much opportunity for hanging out and getting to know people, which I struggled with at the start. But once I realized that realistically I was only probably going to ever meet maybe half of the people in my class and only make half decent relationship with about 10% of them it made me relax and just let God do the divine setups with the people that He wanted me connected with. I took the pressure off of myself.
After a few weeks we got split up into smaller groups of around 60 people called revival groups. I love the lingo around this place. We have a revival group pastor with around 5-6 interns that help out and we meet together as a revival group once a week for 1.5 hours. I wish it was more, it really is an awesome time and have made stronger connections from this group. And then again out of that we were split up into small groups of 5-6. Which again has helped form even deeper friendships, and we also meet once a week for an hour and a half.
Over the last month or so I have begun to make some quite deep friendships with people in school. Most of these relationships are with other Australians that I have met here. It is so exciting to see the quality of the Australian contingent that is over here this year. I have had two people in random conversations say to me, "what is it about all you Australians? You are all so mature and ready for action". To which I say "Amen!".
Some of the people I am connecting with I honestly feel it is an honour to just meet them let alone start to do life with. I really feel like there are people here who are going to be positioned in the next decade to shape and shake our nation and the nations of the world for the Kingdom of God. And I can already call many of them my friends. Thank you Jesus. We truly are so blessed to be having this experience. Thankyou so much to you all for contributing either with prayer or financially. I can never repay you for the way you are blessing us.
The other thing that has been incredibly hard to get used to has been the workload. I knew that we would be busy but don't think I realized that it would be this busy. Obviously I am at school during the day, and then I have 2-3 hours of homework a day, maybe only 1-1.5 hours a day on a weekend. Probably doesn't seem much to those at school or at uni but for me it has been a big shock, because I haven't had any homework to do for a long time. This last week I have been staying up to around 1:30am ish most nights trying to get all my assignments done on time. But then those of you with kids will know that the kids don't show you any mercy the next morning, they still get up incredibly early especially when we have to get the kids to school by 7:45am every morning.
It does help that the homework is awesome, very challenging in that it leaves you nowhere to hide. That is probably the best way to describe this whole experience. Imagine the intensity of the best camp/conference you have ever been on and do that most days of every week for months on end. Every little hang up or wrong piece of thinking etc gets revealed in the intensity of His Presence and the quality of the teaching. So it has been an amazing few months, but it has been quite traumatic and emotional if I am honest. Think how much you grow and develop in that camp/conference setting well I really feel that I have grown and matured probably about a normal year of my christian experience in two months. Don't think I am exaggerating either. I am getting some of the best teachers from all around the world every day, we worship for at least an hour every day at school, and I am hanging out with some of the hungriest people on the planet every day. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to realize that it's not a dream. The scariest thing for me is becoming complacent with what is happening in my life right now. Although it's far from normal, it is my normal now and it's easy to just go through the motions and I see plenty of fellow students doing that now and I am desperate not to do that. If you could keep praying for all of us, I would really appreciate it. We have been under plenty of attacks since we have been here, so would really appreciate your prayer covering.
There are just so many opportunities around this place. It's incredible to think that this church only seats around 950 in it's auditorium but employs over 600 staff. That might give you an idea of the enormity of activity around this joint, it's incredible. So it's a matter of picking and choosing, stewarding your time wisely, which we are walking the fine line of quite well I think. Don't want to over do it, but at the same time the opportunities at our door stop are once in a life time, and so we want to take as many of these opportunities as are appropriate to us and our situation. Which means that most mornings Jo and I are not in the same house, with Jo going to as many things as she can and obviously I am out the rest of the day at school. It is really good to see Jo joining small groups and getting some good connections with some awesome women of God, and trying new things and stretching herself. She is working hard in her fitness group in which she is the star pupil, and get's special exercises from the instructor because she works far harder than any other of them. Good to see my hard work with her has paid off when she used to be soft. HAHA!! Just jokes darling, it's more like she said the other day once you have pushed out 3 children pushing through 30 seconds more pain is nothing. That's my girl. So proud of my wife. She is the fittest she has ever been and is truly an inspiration with the shape she is in, having had three children. She has run the 6 mile journey back from school quite regularly and is doing a Thanksgiving run in a week or so called quite amusingly "The Turkey Trot." Which is a six mile "fun" run. And she has found out about a 10 mile event in January which I know she is really keen to do, and knowing her she will dominate it. For those of you that don't know 10 miles is 16 kilometres. What a woman!!
Part of the whole school experience is the opportunity is to go on a missions trip. There were honestly hundreds of options, it's quite staggering to see the effect and reach that Bethel Church is having not only here in the U.S. but in the World. There were multiple trip opportunities to every continent (except poor old antartica) of the Earth.
Now I think Jo mentioned the missions trip in her last blog entry. There have been a few developments since then. I had the opportunity to pick a top five list from the hundreds of trips offered. There was a wide variety of prices and locations. I tried to pick a mix of these, according to where I felt the Spirit was leading me. Before the trips came up on line I was telling people how I was so keen to go to Argentina or Brazil, and felt a strong desire to go to South America and always have. Especially reading over many years about the massive revivals that have been going on down there for 20 plus years with millions coming to Christ it has always had a strong pull upon my heart. When the trip options came out, Brazil and Argentina weren't even options and I really didn't feel the strongest pull towards the other South American options listed. So I wrote down 5 completely different trips with some really cheap ones, some mid range and one quite expensive trip. Quite a few friends of mine didn't even get accepted in any of their top 5 choices but I got accepted to South Africa which was my number 1 choice so I was happy and excited to be going.
One of the revival group pastors (a fellow Aussie) and I have established quite a good friendship and he has been really encouraging and sowing into my life which I really appreciate. Shortly after being accepted into the South Africa trip, he put an update on his facebook page saying that he was now officially taking a team to Argentina. So I wrote something like, "sounds awesome mate, will be an awesome trip". He messaged me straight away and said he wanted me on his team and was more than happy to try and organize moving me out of the other trip if I was interested. I was so excited. It is an expensive trip, being around $3000 and a big decision to make. I really wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing so I took a week or so to make my decision, but I really felt strongly that God wanted me on that trip hence why I was singled out to be on the trip. I knew that this part of the world had been on my heart for many years, and I felt His Presence on me when I read about the trip and felt my spirit get excited. You know how it's hard to describe, but you know when you know. That's how I felt. And this revival group pastor has gone around and assembled an awesome team, many of which I was friends with and impressed with already. As for the financial side of things, I really felt God say to me, "it's My will so it's My bill". So I trusted him and signed up.
During the trip, we will be going to a church in Buenos Aires, which has 25,000 members or something ridiculous like that.
I know this is long already but I think it's important to give you guys some insight in to what I am going to be doing and give you an idea what you will be sowing into if you choose to support me in any way.
The pastor of this massive Argentinian church came and ministered to us in our school earlier in the year through an interpreter. It was the most impactful session on me personally so far. We saw some videos of him preaching to massive football stadiums in Argentina completely full of people.
The story of his church is that he had grown it too about 1000 through 10 years of hard work and smart techniques and good leadership rather than any relying on God's power. And he knew it and started to get incredibly hungry crying out night and day for his country, for revival to come. For more anointing to flow through him in ministry to get more breakthrough in reaching the lost of his city, for signs and wonders to break out in his church to attract the lost and broken. He got an impartation from someone (who I can't remember) by the laying on of hands at a big conference in the USA and didn't feel any different. But his first service back at his church he was up the front and he noticed something that needed dealing with over in one of the corners of the church and he was trying to get the ushers attention at the back of the church by waving his hand in the direction of the issue. And one whole half of the church falls down under the power of the Holy Spirit as he was waving his hand. He was more shocked than anyone. This was back in 1991-2, before email and the internet. Between that Sunday service and the following Tuesday prayer meeting, the congregation multiplied, through word of mouth, so much so that they had to hire a 6000 seat football stadium for the prayer meeting. And so from then on it has just grown and grown.
During the trip, we are going in for a weekend of services and then going out with 500 hundred others from this church on their biggest outreach of the year into the poorest parts of the city with food, love, clothing, blankets, and power encounters with Jesus. Followed by another weekend of meetings before going home. We are also going to have the honour of just our small team of 20 or so getting to have and impartation with this guy. Sounds amazing, I can't wait. An amazing opportunity, to meet someone who has been a big part of revival in his country, city and church for 20 years, and sit and chat with him and glean information and insights how to carry something that significant back in Australia, well that's what I am believing for any way!!!
If you are interested in sowing in to this amazing trip, then just click on the link on the side of this blog and follow the links. All donations can be totally anonymous if you prefer. I absolutely hate asking for money so this hurts my feelings but the Bible says, "You do not have because you do not ask." James 4:2. I feel like it's good for my character, and something that we as Christians need to get better at - being honest when we need help and asking for it. Having said that, we have received some generous gifts from people already and we'd love to say a massive 'Thank You!' and pray that God would bless you abundantly in return.
One last thing to talk about before I finally finish this blogging marathon. You might have seen the video I posted on facebook if not have a look at the video above.This video was taken at last Sunday night's service here at Bethel Church in Redding California.
What to make of this unexplainable cloud of a sparkly, glitter like substance just seemingly exploding in mid air. Well variations of this have happened 5 times since August and 3 times in the last few weeks. I think I posted another one a few weeks ago. All I can say I can understand if it is extremely hard for your brain to understand and you are doubting. I think I would too if I hadn't been standing in the midst of it for over half an hour on two occasions. And even then it took me a while to make the connections in my brain - heart - spirit that this was God!
Is anyone seeking signs over Jesus in this church? Absolutely, 100% NO. The first time it happened it was in the middle of ministry time at the end of a conference, and it seemed to correlate to the worship of the people. Everything stopped, and people just started cheering to begin with sure. But then spent the next hour singing 'Holy, Holy Holy', simply worshipping Jesus and as we did, the cloud would swell and increase it was incredible to see. In absolute midair with nothing around it. (Video does it no justice) The next time it was in worship time, and then the last one was in the middle of the sermon. I heard it was happening a few weeks ago so I said to myself I have got to go and see this for myself so I drove up there and got myself wedged in right beside a big crowd on the stage and had this gold like substance swirling all around me. Then I had the most bizarre thing ever happen to me. This glory cloud started coming seemingly straight out of the wall two metres in front of me straight into my face for around 15 minutes. I even went and checked the wall. It is a solid wall. This cloud is like a wave of specks, I could feel them and people were just covered in a gold like substance in their hair and on their clothes, it was so strange. It did look like streamers on the video but in reality, they were tiny little flecks and there were just so many of them it made it look like and AFL grandfinal celebration. HAHA! We were just singing a song that goes, "open up the floodgates of heaven, let it rain, let it rain, open up the floodgates of heaven". And it just kept coming, there was such a sense of awe and the healthy fear of God was in the room it was amazing.
Okay can I explain it? Absolutely not. Do I have too? There are obvious biblical examples of similar things happening in the OT, but I don't feel like I have to be justifying what I saw and experienced with my own body. I like to think that anyone who knows me knows that I am not going to over dramatize something. But at the same time it was incredibly dramatic. If God can lead a nation by a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, I am not so sure what all the fuss is about really. Do I have all the answers no, but I choose to press in as a believer and live up to that name - BELIEVER. I will finish with a quote from one of my aussie mates about the issue on his facebook update.
"I was there! I have friends who wondered at the relevance of this. They ask, "How is this helping the starving in Africa?"
I don't know how, or why. But this is my response. I will celebrate whatever God is doing, and not question Him about what He's not doing. Ps 115:3 "God is in Heaven. He does whatever He pleases."
That's not meant to be harsh but it is the truth. Who do we really think we are that we get to decide what God can and can't do?
Thanks for reading all the way to the bottom of this ramble. Thankfully Jo can come back and rescue this next time! But hopefully that gives you all a bit better idea of what my life looks like as a student now. If not at least it makes me feel as though I have tried, and I can stop feeling guilty that I haven't even told anyone how school has been going and I have been doing it for 2 months,and I can just go back to doing enormous amounts of homework instead.
Love to you all and might see some of you pretty soon as I am flying back to Adelaide in late December for a week for the wedding of the decade.
Rock On Australia
Ben
