Cincinnati, Ohio!

April 16, 2014

Hey guys I just returned from my last ministry trip of my IHOPU career! It’s so crazy how fast it’s gone. I am just a little over a month from graduating! I wanted to do a quick recap of my trip. Thank you for everyone that was praying for us. We truly felt your prayers!

One of our main focuses during our time there was a juvenile detention center called the Lighthouse. This is a place that houses boys between 14-20 who have committed felony offenses such as assault, sexual abuse, etc. Basically if they were of age they would be in the normal prisons. There is a very precious couple who have a ministry there and they have been faithfully leading church services for the boys for over 20 years! That particular Sunday morning we got to lead both services. It’s totally voluntary for the boys to come or not and we had about 30 out of the 60 in the facility that chose to come to our events. The next night we put on two worship concerts for the boys. The boys are really hungry for God and they have really desired to learn how to do prayer meetings so we showed them a bit of how we do it at IHOP with the harp and bowl model. That may have been my favorite night. I love how the Lord just loves to meet us where we are at. The boys love a Christian rapper named Lacrae and so we all started rapping one of his songs and the boys loved it. Then one of our team got up and did a spoken word and started rapping the Bible. The boys ate it up. They all wanted a try. There we were in the middle of Podunk nowhere with a bunch of hardened criminals (scared little boys who have had a hard life) and they were all rapping the Bible. They were doing the model except instead of singing, they were rapping. It was so cool to witness and I have to admit I teared up a few times because it was just so precious. I think the most impactful part of the Lighthouse was the night we prayed for the boys. We had a night of prophecy where we just asked the Lord what He wanted to share with each boy. They were all so moved as they could feel and see that God saw them and loved them. Several even committed their lives to Lord that night! It was a very fruitful week.

There was a wonderful couple who hosted us for meals and the husband owns a painting company. Some of his employees are saved and some aren’t. We were given the opportunity to go and prayer for all of them in small groups. Again it was so cool to see how the hearts of the guys were touched when they heard how God felt about them and how He saw them. The most impactful one was the guy’s business partner grew up Catholic but wasn’t really walking with the Lord. After our time praying for him he asked the boss if he told us anything about him because there was just no way we could have known the things we were saying. When he said no he said how can I not believe there is a God after all that? So exciting and encouraging!

The rest of our trip was kind of sporadic. Some of the church leadership in Cincinnati really felt like we were to go to strategic places and just worship and bring the presence of God to those places. So one day we went on the top of Carew Tower, which is one of the tallest buildings there and also to a park and just had some sweet times of worship and praising God.

One of the days we had the opportunity to lead worship in the middle of the campus of University of Miami. Those that were not on stage got to go around and evangelize. I got to talk to a lady who loved Jesus and was having a really hard time in her life. I prayed for her and she was really encouraged and edified. We saw quite a few salvations as well. One guy was a violin player and while we were worshipping he came over and joined us. After we were done a couple of our team members started sharing the Gospel and he got saved. It was so fast! I was sitting next to him the whole time listening to the conversation. After he walked away I was like how did that even happen so fast?

Our last day we went to the Cincinnati house of prayer and did an Encounter God service like we have here. One of our team shared a really powerful message out of John 13 and Jesus washing our feet and then we did more praise and worship. I even got to sing on the mic this time. It was really scary but I did it. Baby steps…

Oh and the craziest thing happened the last night. We went to a gas station for some ice cream and afterwards we were all standing outside in a circle eating and debriefing and this woman walks up randomly and goes, I was just driving by and I saw you guys standing here in a circle and I was wondering if you are a prayer group? I just gave my life to the Lord today. What in the world?! That’s how it was the whole trip. It was like they were just drawn to us. So we got to pray for her and encourage her. It was such a sweet end of the trip.

Overall I would just say that I had so much fun on this trip. We only had 14 people which is way smaller than the past trips have been and that made it way easier to get to know everyone. I don’t think I have laughed that much in a really long time. On a heart level I didn’t feel like I got as much personal breakthrough as past trips but I had a really enjoyable time.

Check out this Instagram link for pictures and short movie clips!
http://instagram.com/cincymissions#
 

Safer Than a Known Way

April 16, 2014

I have just a little over a month left until graduation. This past 4 years has just flown by! This quarter has been so busy but I wanted to send ya’ll an update and even ask a prayer request. In my last blog I mentioned I might go to New Zealand for a bit. As seniors, we are given the opportunity to do a senior capstone project which basically looks like a group of us going to another house of prayer somewhere for about a year and serving and strengthening the house of prayer. I initially signed up for New Zealand because it sounded super exciting and I had just gotten my passport, but after a couple of Skype meetings with them I realized that I just wasn’t excited about it. Sure it’s pretty but I think the beaches would only keep me for about a month and that wasn’t a good enough reason for me to go. New Zealand didn’t have a nightwatch or a CEC and it made me realize that I definitely want to be somewhere that has both of those things. Those are the 2 main things that cause my heart to come alive- singing to Jesus in the middle of the night and teaching kids about Jesus! The day after our last Skype session, IHOPU had a ministry fair where a good number of ministries from all over came and we had an opportunity to connect with them and see if we felt led towards a certain location.

So I decided to go to the ministry fair and just feel it out. My main desire in going was to find somewhere that was excited about children’s ministry. I walked around for several hours and nobody even brought it up. I was actually a bit discouraged and kinda figured it was a lost cause. But before I left I decided to stop by the booth for the Orlando house of prayer. I wasn’t really expecting anything given the response I was getting but I was curious to see if anything was there because they just went 24/7 and I’m sure they would welcome someone coming to help strengthen the nightwatch. I started talking with one of the guys at the booth and he asked me to share a little of my journey and I told him how I did FITN and then have done the nightwatch basically my entire time here. He got so excited and told me that they just went 24/7 and had like 5 full time people for the nightwatch. But here’s the part that threw me for a loop. After chatting for a bit he goes, "you know Amy if you were to come to OHOP you would be paving the way for the next generation." Now my ears perked up because I hadn’t even said anything about kids yet only nightwatch. And what he said was word for word a very significant prophetic word I received last year for my birthday when I was really seeking the Lord for vision for my life. Of course he had no idea what he was saying but as he was saying it he was like man I’m really feeling the Lord. So then I asked well speaking of the next generation do ya’ll have a CEC? And he said they did and shared their heart for raising up the next generation. My heart got so excited! He said the 2 areas where they probably need the most strengthening would be the nightwatch and CEC. So the next week I connected with the associate director on the phone and now I am emailing back and forth with the guy who leads the CEC just to get a better feel for what he may need.

This is where the prayer request comes in. In a few days I will be starting a 21 day fast. A few of my friends and I decided to do it a couple months ago and set the dates for later in the quarter. But here’s the cool part. Some of the sophomores were feeling like they wanted to do a fast and not knowing anything about ours they called it for almost the exact same days, just off by like a day. So now it’s like a school-wide invitation. The coolest part is that the main goal of their fast is confidence in the love of God which I have been praying over my class and myself for at least the last year. I felt like it was a sweet kiss from the Lord to show me He hears my prayers. I am fasting for several personal heart things but I am also going to be asking for direction. When New Zealand was out of the picture I was planning to stay in Kansas City and go on staff here. But now this other opportunity may be surfacing. The thing about it though is that I’m not even sure if anyone is planning on going to Orlando and the exciting part for me in thinking about the capstones is going somewhere with a group of people that I’ve been running with 4 years. I wouldn't be super excited about it if I was the only one going. So needless to say there are many fears I have in going somewhere I don’t know anybody. And let’s be honest, it’s way more comfortable to stay here than go to a completely different state where I won’t know anyone. So yeah if ya’ll could join me in praying for direction and for my heart that would be awesome! Remember the more prayers that go in the faster those bowls get filled.

I have to admit that graduating is very bittersweet. I have absolutely loved my time here at IHOPU! I don’t like change and transition is super scary. I recently read a book called Safer than a Known Way. It was a really random find and it’s an autobiography about a woman named Pamela Rosewell Moore. Basically this chick was 21 when she prayed her life over to God--with contingencies. She didn't want to leave her home country (England), she wanted to get married young, and she didn't want to speak in front of people. One by one, God leads her to surrender her expectations and follow His plan. She ends up serving in many countries, speaking to large audiences, and marries in her forties.

She shares this poem as a reflection of her experience--also her inspiration for naming the book:

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year,
"Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unkown." 

And he replied, "Go out into the darkness
And put your hand into the hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light
And safer than a known way!" 

-Minnie Louise Haskins, 1908

She put her faith in God, her hand in His, and trusted His way really would be the best--for her and for reaching others for Him. And it was. Her experiences smuggling Bibles, learning under Tante Corrie (who we might better know as Corrie ten Boom), and so much more are proof that God's way was best.

The book had a really big impact on my heart and I have been gradually relinquishing my rights to the Lord. The biggest and ouchiest one is I relinquished my right to write my own story. Instead of telling God how He was supposed to be doing things, I now say You’re will be done. It’s a slow journey but I am learning to trust that He really does have an adventurous story for me. In one of my classes one of the teachers was talking to us about graduating and figuring out life and how scary it all can be and he made a comment that really stuck with me. He said at our core we believe that if we really follow the Lord wholeheartedly that our lives will be hard and not enjoyable. But he told us that his experience has shown him completely the opposite. I’m asking the really hard questions like do I really believe you satisfy? Are your plans for my life really good? Can I really trust you with the desires of my heart? Do you really know what will make my heart come alive? Is God’s way truly safer than a known way?

Pamela said at the close of the book "God knew how to write my story far better than I could have imagined.” Now my question is, am I brave enough to trust that the same is true for me?