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