Back to the blog!

It's been awhile since I've posted on here, so this is my step towards getting back into it. I took a break for Summer and have been pretty busy with Second Year at BSSM, but I'm learning to manage all that better now and I'm excited to write again. 

This post will be about my upcoming trip to Thailand and Cambodia this March!

I'm going on a two-week long mission trip with Bob and Kimberly Johnson, a wonderful couple who have a heart for the poor and broken. Our team’s main focus will be bringing the solutions of Jesus Christ to the issue of sex trafficking. We will work alongside Destiny Rescue in both nations to pour into their staff, the rescued girls and at-risk children. We will also have the opportunity for nightly street ministry in the red light districts. Because of the sensitive nature of the ministry, we’ve been taking weekly classes on trafficking after-care and learning more about this injustice.

My heart flows with compassion for these women and children that are taken advantage of, but also for the traffickers who perpetuate this cycle. They are in just as much bondage, held captive by lies about who they are or where their identity comes from. They are all just one encounter away from receiving the Father’s love and living as sons and daughters of the King. I long to see restoration and purity abound in these nations, and I would love for you to be part of that!

We’ll be in Thailand and Cambodia from March 18-31. Please pray that my whole team is able to raise the needed support and that these nations are forever changed. If you would like to support me, I need to raise $3,150 for the trip, but $200 has to be in by tomorrow morning as a deposit. The easiest way to give is online, by clicking this link but if that doesn’t work for some reason you can search my name at trips.ibethel.org. 

You can also write a check to Bethel Church (with a note that has Thailand/Cambodia and my name on it) and send it to:

Bethel Church
ATTN: Short-term Missions
20 Lake Blvd.
Redding, CA 96003

I'm also on the worship and media teams for the trip which means I'll get to bring the creativity of heaven into these dark places and document it all through pictures, video, and blogging. I've had words spoken over my life about leading worship around the world and this is part of that being fulfilled! I'm so excited to see all that God does!!

Homework - Where is your sting?

We learned in school that making memorials of what God has done in your life is necessary to properly steward what he has given you and to keep your faith alive that He will do it again. The Israelites did this by piling stones on top of each other after they crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land, so that when their children ask about the stones they can give the testimony of God parting the waters and providing for them. When my children ask me about this blog post, I will get to tell them how God supernaturally empowered me to read 16 books over the course of 8 months at BSSM (and 1 the preceding Summer).

Yes, you read that correctly - 16 books. To graduate, you have to read every book. And there are no Cliffs Notes (you have to sign that you read it anyway)! So I'm not trying to brag or anything, but this is kind of a big deal. When I was a freshman in college, I read the Lord of the Rings for an English class (great class btw, so many metaphors to explore). I'm pretty sure this takes the cake. I also remember when I was researching BSSM, I could NOT find the book list anywhere. I realize now that all of the books are covered in tuition so they probably don't want students buying them beforehand, but I figured I'd post the list here just in case anyone is wondering. 

So here is the book list for the 1st Year of Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry:

My top 5: (in order of awesomeness)

1. Culture of Honor by Danny Silk (the bread and butter of Bethel culture!!!)

2. The Supernatural Power of Forgiveness by Jason Vallotton (read it!!)

3. The Supernatural Ways of Royalty by Kris Vallotton (all about identity)

4. Strengthen Yourself in the Lord by Bill Johnson (short and sweet)

5. Moral Revolution by Jason and Kris Vallotton (buy this for any teenager you know)

6. God's Generals by Roberts Liardon (so good I couldn't stop at 5)

Here are the rest: (in the order we read them)

-When Heaven Invades Earth by Bill Johnson

-Hosting the Presence by Bill Johnson

-30 Days to Understanding your Bible (I was one of a few people who liked this book)

-A Practical Guide to Evangelism Supernaturally by Chris Overstreet

-Basic Training for the Prophetic by Kris Vallotton

-Experiencing the Father's Embrace by Jack Frost

-The Supernatural Ways of Royalty Workbook by Kris Vallotton

-The Happy Intercessor by Beni Johnson

-Spirit Wars by Kris Vallotton

-Grasping God's Word by Duvall and Hays (loved it; hated it.)

-Christian History Made Easy by Timothy Paul Jones

So now we're down to our last week of school, with graduation on Friday. What a year it has been! So much growth, revelation, and experience. So many awesome relationships built. I can't wait to see what 2nd Year holds (officially got accepted last night!!). Here's a pic of me and Raj outside the Civic (I'm gonna miss it next year):

After a city-wide Good Friday service

And here's the one picture I took at our revival group party today. I love these people who have become family this year. Young and Hannah Kim took us under their wing, whispered softly to us at times, slapped us into reality at times, and never stopped loving. This picture captures the moment right before Andy (in the pink) is thrown into the pool (I was next).  

They're not hugging; that's an ambush.

If you're reading this, I care about you (not because you are reading it, but because you are amazing). So keep doing what you do, because nobody can do it better than you (honestly not sure if I came up with that or took it from Dr. Seuss)!

The featured song of this post is Wonder by Amanda Cook of Bethel Music. It's a spontaneous worship song (i.e. she made it up on the spot, led by the Spirit)

Pics or it didn't happen

Hey everybody, we're back from Korea and here are some pictures to prove we really went :)

Thanks again to everyone who donated to send us; you should be getting a letter soon!

The trip was a huge success, thanks to all your prayers! Our team got to speak and minister to people at many different churches and conferences, mainly focusing on unity and family, while empowering the people at each location. Unity within the church will be a key to revival, but we also got to focus on the unity of North and South Korea. We went to the demilitarized zone (DMZ) one day and got to look into the most closed-off nation in the world and pray for reconciliation and peace. Then we had lunch with the vice-mayor of a city right on the border which is pushing for the reunification of Korea. It was a very powerful day. Overall, we did a lot of battle through prayer and many people were encouraged and activated in ministry! We got to love the people of Korea and tell them how much the Father loves them and who he created them to be. 

No more pain!

That lady, holding up the peace sign, owns a shop in Daejeon. We found out she is a Christian and had pain in her back. After we prayed twice, all of the pain left and she was all smiles. She gave us free handkerchiefs and when I tried to buy a framed picture for $30 she gave that to me for free too.

Barriers turn into breakthroughs

This was my first prophetic painting ever! It's a vision I had before we went on the trip, of a chain dissolving over Korea and watering the revival that is to come. I feel like it means that God will use the things that used to keep us down to actually propel us forward. When I was praying for the lady on the left, I felt like it was for her, so I painted it that night and gave it to her. 

That's North Korea out there

We got to climb a small mountain and look out over North Korea. We had an amazing time praying, declaring freedom, and worshiping at the top.

Grill right in the table

This was at a Korean BBQ place where you take the raw meat and cook it right in front of you. It's buffet style so we got to try a little bit of everything. I even ate a little baby squid!

He who is skilled will stand before kings. Prov 22:29

This is Dustin with the vice mayer of Yeoncheon, a city right on the border of North and South Korea. Before we went on the trip, Dustin was given a piece of Korean currency by a homeless man at Starbucks. Random, right? Maybe not…the money was from 1953, the year that the demilitarized zone was established and the Korean War ended. As a prophetic act, we gave this note to the vice-mayor , declaring that finances will come for all of his plans to improve the area and foster peace.

Adorable and powerful

These kids are student at Little Heaven English school. They pretty much learn all the same stuff we learn at BSSM but they have the child-like faith that Jesus said was so important. They're also bilingual and cute. This was the honeybee classroom, and we got to teach, sing, and play with them. 

Here are some other testimonies that I don't have pictures for:
-A lady had back pain because one of her legs was shorter than the other. God grew her leg out and the pain left. Pain can’t stay when it meets the Kingdom.!
-Shoulder pain was healed when a lady’s daughter helped pray for it.
-One man came for a prophetic word but left with a relationship with Jesus! He had said a salvation prayer before, but not in his own language, so he was still unsure. Not anymore!
-A lady had cartilage restored to her knees when one of our team members sang a song over her, which she had never memorized but remembered on the spot.

It was a great trip with a great team! Now just 1 month until graduation. Here we go!

To the Core

Hey everyone, it's been a few weeks since my last post, so here's the scoop! (As to the weird highlighting of the text, I am not sure what happened...)

I leave for South Korea in 12 days! Trip paid in FULL (for everyone), and we have one more team meeting before the launch. I probably won't blog while I'm over there, but I'm in charge of recording stories and testimonies for the trip so I'll definitely have a lot to share when I come back! We're praying HUGE for this trip, so please join us in that from March 22 - April 4. 

My best bud Chris Harris visited for a week so we explored Redding, shot some guns, played ultimate frisbee (oh hey cardio!) and ended the trip in San Francisco. Here's the crew marching up the ridiculously steep Lombard Street:

Aaron's doing his famous long jump ski pose

Here's the view from the top! With part of the Bay:

Part of it looked like pictures of Brazil or Central America

So since that week, I've applied for 2nd Year here, gotten caught up on homework, looked at some apartments, and enjoyed the bits of sunshine we've had (February seemed to be the month of rain). Today I found this awesome flower:

Spring is coming!

As I prepare for South Korea, I've been thinking about my core values and why it's important to know them before you need them. Decisions aren't as hard in the heat of battle when you've already decided beforehand how to act. As my venerable small group leader, Ron, said to us, the best soldiers can risk it all because they've already died to themselves before the battle. When we get to this point with Jesus, where we consider ourselves crucified with him and no longer living for ourselves (Galatians 2:20), it really frees us to be brave. Dead people also don't care what others think of them.

So what are your core values? We have a bunch here at BSSM, but I have 4 simple ones that I think about almost daily: Love, Honor, Purity, Power. I try to do everything with these in mind. Even though every situation is different, I can usually make a pretty quick decision about whether something fits in with the character I want to portray by thinking about these words. They might mean slightly different things to you than they do to me so here's a very brief explanation: Love means caring for and helping people through sacrifice. Honor means seeing everyone like God sees them and treating them likewise. Purity means fleeing from sin and keeping my eyes and thoughts on Christ. Power means taking responsibility for myself as well as displaying the full gospel, revealing the God of the universe to humanity.

Don't let every situation sway your values, but rather establish your identity in Christ and many will flock to the security that you have in the Father. 

Here's a new song from Hillsong United's new remix album, the White Album: Like an Avalanche

Shine

I don't have any new pictures for this post, so if you normally just look at those, see ya next week.

I got a job!!! Praise Jesus, Bankers Life and Casualty hired me as a recruiter (so Redding people, if you need a job, hit me up). I started Friday, and I'm still learning the ropes and the computer system that we use. I wasn't going to be able to do 2nd year if I didn't get a job, and I've been looking since I got here in September. So in the first 5 months I got zero job offers and was wondering what's up. Then the DAY that applications opened, I got this job offer, and the next day I got another offer as well. What. A. Coincidence (wink wink, nudge nudge, Jesus).

This past week in school we learned about the glory of God, and how we all carry it throughout the day, even if we don't feel like we're doing anything spectacular. We also learned about the power of joy, and laughed at a ton of lies together. When you laugh at lies, they don't have any power over you because you are putting your hope in the truth instead. Let's try one together: "I'm too busy to experience God's presence". BAHAHAHAHA He's inside of every person He's in relationship with, and we can experience Him with every movement, every thought turned towards Him.

Festival of Cultures was last night, and it was awesome! It's a night to celebrate all the amazing people from all the amazing countries in the world who have come to Bethel. They dressed up, made delicious food to pass out, and entertained in various other ways, including some pretty cool dances.

Earlier I mentioned that my sister gave me the word "power" for this year, and then I also got the word "shine" during a worship set. I have 2 things to say about the second word. First of all, we should give thanks for our God-given talents and not think less of them. When I was younger I was very prideful and so as I matured I think I started to associate being good at something with being prideful. But excellence is not pride. Daniel and Joseph are two Biblical examples of men being promoted because of excellence. They used it for God's glory. Proverbs 22:29 says "Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men."

Also, God is all about that shine. He loves the radiance of beauty that His creation emits. Paul says that through purity we are to shine like stars in the midst of a crooked generation (Phil. 2:15). Nobody lights a candle and then puts it under a bowl (Matthew 5:15). God lit you up when you entered into relationship with Him, and he intends to show you off. That doesn't mean being in the spotlight all the time, but people will want the gospel if they notice a difference in you. I'll end with this quote from Kris Vallotton - "True humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less."

Here's an old pic, but it shines

Wow wow wow this song! Mount Zion by Jonathan Hesler. He and his wife led worship at Bethel this past week. 

Countdown to Korea: 34 days! I still need $650 by this Tuesday to make the deadline. If you would like to donate, click here :) 

My first vlog

It's a video blog, about South Korea!

Song of the week: Beautiful Exchange by Hillsong

What do you agree with?

Hey everybody. Or "Hey everybody!" I think I feel slightly in between those (getting sleepy).

Hey everybody-

It's been an interesting week. On Monday my Indian roommates and I wore traditional Indian clothes to school to spice things up. We (at least I) got plenty of weird looks but it was so fun and quite the cultural experience. 

I'm the white guy

Then Tuesday we welcomed Randy Clark and his team who were here for the rest of the week for a healing conference. He spent a couple days just with us students and then a few with anyone who registered or showed up for the free evening services. SO many people were healed in these few days (as in hundreds of miracles). Most of them involved pain from an accident or surgery but we also saw deaf ears opened and people were even being healed through phone calls and texts. Randy would call out different problems and said that if anyone knew others with those problems, they should call them and release the healing over them. I only know about 1% of what happened so I wish I could share more testimonies, but we would praise Jesus even if only 1 person was healed this past week. 

Wednesday I got to meet with my core group (20 or so) at Westside Pizza. The pizza place is owned by Bethel people so they let us come worship and pray in there while they ran their business as usual. They even joined in on the worship in between making pizzas. We got to ask and answer some deep questions in groups of 4, trying to learn more about the hearts of these people I'm in community with. It's so easy to see them every week without truly knowing and being known by them. So that was fun. Speaking of fun, I made this sandwich a couple minutes ago: (Got the idea from the Internet somewhere)

Grape and strawberry jam, honey, Nutella, and peanut butter

My thought of the week is about what we consent to and how our thoughts are powerful. I have an example to illustrate! Some amount of time ago (to be specific), I was listening to music on my phone via Google Play. In the middle of a song a message popped up that said "Google Play has stopped working." It had a big Okay button at the bottom of the message. BUT the music kept playing. Nothing was wrong. I listened for a bit longer and then decided I didn't want the error message on my screen anymore so I clicked Okay. Of course, right then the app crashed and in came the empty silence that follows a song ended before it's proper time. 

I think many times Christians get bombarded with false accusations and lies from the devil which literally have no power to change us. That is, unless we agree with them. If our identity is rooted in Christ and what he did for us on the cross, then nothing can move us. But the enemy would love to get our help in taking us down. Ephesians 1:4 says we are "holy and blameless in His sight." Philippians 3:16 says "Only let us live up to what we have already attained." That means the hard part is over, we just have to agree with the victory. So sometime you might get a negative message in your head about your life, and it has a big Okay button attached to it. Feel free to ignore the message (even better, reject it) and keep believing what God says about you!

Another song from Bethel music this week: Fall Afresh featuring Jeremy Riddle

50 days until I leave for South Korea! $1350 to go in fundraising. Click here if you want to give. 

Jesus, You have won me!

"Jesus, You have won me. You have broken every chain with love and mercy."

These are the lyrics from the song at the end of this post, and right now they are the cry of my heart. I find myself feeling an overwhelming optimism for the future and for what God is doing on Earth right now. Jesus has won me, and I'm living from His victory instead of for my own victory. Nothing seems like too bad of a situation anymore. He made a way for us to have joy, peace, and righteousness in every part of our lives. This past week has been filled with singing, dancing, and rejoicing at His goodness. I've also been writing this paragraph for over 20 minutes because I'm listening to worship music and can't do both at the same time. I really should commit to one or the other.

We hit the ground running at school after break, and now it feels like we have a huge amount of momentum pushing us forward. The metaphor one staff member used to describe the teaching so far is that the first half of the year was spent building a car and the second half is spent putting in the engine. So the topics for our first week back were servitude, sacrifice, and surrender. Like everything else in the Kingdom, these values seem backwards in our culture. Why would we go low to be raised up? Why would we serve to lead? Why would we die to live? (hint: Jesus already won it all)

So here we are nearing the end of January and I haven't really said anything about 2014 as a whole. I made a list of goals for this school year before I came (climb a Redwood tree, CHECK) and a new list for 2014, so want to keep pushing towards those and live with a mission. My wonderful sister, Roo, gave me the word "power" as a one-word prophetic goal for this year. And I also felt like the word "shine" was going to be a big part of my life this year. I'll write more about that another time.

SHINE with POWER

Right now I'm thinking I want to stay here another year and try out for the 2nd Year school worship band. One factor in the decision is whether or not I can find a job. I've been looking for QUITE a while but most places are looking for day-time work, not another student who can work evenings and weekends. Please pray for a job :) I also hear there is less homework in 2nd year, which will be good since I may have gotten locked out again this past time (let's be real here). But even THAT won't get me down because it won't happen again.

So let's make this an amazing year. We'll start with another amazing week, as Randy Clark is coming for a conference and we get to go or help out with most of it. It's gonna be a good time.

From this point on, I won't remember if I'm repeating a song I've posted on an earlier blog, but this is one of my favorite songs from Bethel Music: You Have Won Me

Short Update

Hey! Here's a short update of the last month since my last post:

Hiking: Did that at Whiskeytown.
Christmas break: Awesome time with family and friends; tiring.
First week back: Heidi Baker came. Her film, Compelled By Love, is amazing.
Homework: Relentless
Job: Still looking
South Korea: Still going ($1,460 to go in fundraising. Click here if you want to help out :) )
Weather: Sunny and 70's. My kind of January.

We climbed a mountain!

Longer update in the next post!