Back home...

We left Redding just before 6 to drive to Vacaville. When we arrived, we had a couple of hours to kill so I was able to get the rough mix of the project onto my iPod so that I could listen while we travelled. It is going to sound amazing when we've tweaked a little - but Rob has done an amazing job in a short time!

Rob and Michele then dropped us off at the airport - we had to move some luggage around to distribute the weight better! We then had a last cup of coffee and boarded to fly to London.

We then spent about 10 hours in Heathrow - I bought a cover and armband for my iPod and we got some other small nick-nacks. We managed to find a couple of seats that we could lie down on and napped and walked Nia in turns.

The London-Joburg flight was uneventful - I managed to get some shut-eye. Then we were saying goodbye to Pat, paying extra for too much weight (20kg over) for the domestic flights and flying to EL.

Nia did amazingly - she is such a special girl! She took the whole trip in her stride and still managed to be cute and friendly - she is gorgeous!

Carol, Lauren and Carmen were waiting for us at the airport and Nigel arrived a little later (bearing biltong and Cadburys chocolate - what a champ!). We then got a shower, did some shopping for milk and bread and other necessities and then it was off to bed.

I can't believe the trip is over - it has been life-changing! I am excited to see what God is going to do in the next couple of months and beyond - life for the Dembovskys will never be the same!

Thank you Jesus for everything!

P.S. I will be posting the address of the next blog soon - as well as details about the Project!

Fini!

Just a quick note to say that we are finished with BSSW 2009! Ah, boo! We had a great day - some amazing worship followed by a time of impartation (some firebombs headed home - from Dano to Corne especially!). Then it was gift-buying and cleaning up and then back to Bethel for the graduation service. They made a band of worship school students and we had some great worship. After that they called us up one by one to give us a certificate and let us say final goodbyes to the staff. We were the 10th class to graduate! Yeeha!

So now we are packing (how do we distribute the weight so that none of our bags are over the limit? Hmmmm) and we leave very early tomorrow to head into Vacaville. Rob will then take over driving and drop us off at San Francisco airport and we fly out 14:30 (11:30pm SA time). We have 10 hours or so in London before our Sunday evening flight from London to Joburg and we arrive in EL just before 1pm on Monday - so pray for us!

Bye bye Bethel - we love you and we're ready to spread what you've sown into us! Whohoo! I'll catch you bloggers for a wrap up post when we get home. Thanks for riding along!

Barbeque

This morning we slept in a bit and only got to Bethel at 10:45. Dano preached in the morning session again - it was amazing! He continuously blows the socks off of everyone! I feel really priveledged to have spent so much time with him recently.

We then headed out to the Vallotton's farm for a barbeque and hang out - a School of Worship tradition. Their house is amazing - they even have an "African Room" which has all sorts of African nick-nacks.


This picture shows the sign above Kris's office door... hmmm...

This is Tanya with Katie Wheeler - she played bass in the band that I did band session with the other day. She is from Seattle!

This is me and a guy called David Schuster - I gave him a prophetic word in the 2nd week of school and we have been friends since. He is a great guy! (Jenn Johnson is in the background with the purple top facing into the house - Brian was sitting on a rocking chair with a bunch of adoring students surrounding him - he looked like a grandpa sharing stories!)

This is a pic of Sarah and Gail - we sat with them at a table in the 1st week of school and have been friends since. Sarah is also pregnant - about 6 months, though you'd never guess it! They are really great.

I can't believe we only have 1 day left!

Tanya and I then went shopping at Walmart and I got a new iPod, Pat got an iPod shuffle and Tanya got a Nikon Coolpix camera. Yay!

Some Studio Shoot Pics

Here are a few of my studio pics - I got permission to post them from Heather once we had given her all our pics.

This is Amanda Manwarring - she is Paul Manwarring's daughter-in-law.

This is Danielle - she is in her final year of high school.

This is Carter Armstrong - Heather's oldest child. He has a great destiny on him!

This is Heather's oldest daughter, Kira. She is really beautiful and was lots of fun.

Yesterday when we were giving Heather our pics, she had some cards for us - she asked that if we have prophetic words for the models that we should write them down. So I did - you know me, I never pass up and opportunity to practice the prophetic!

I have been inspired to start doing some prophetic photography - to ask the Holy Spirit to enable me to capture the gold in someone through photography. So don't be surprised if I ask you to do some modelling...

Sundial Bridge

When Nia, Pat and I collected Tanya from her Sozo, we decided to pop out to Sundial Bridge. The sun was just setting and it was a very pleasant evening. Here are some pics (including Nia sucking on a piece of dried mango). At the bottom of the dial, there is an amphitheatre and a group of worship school students were worshipping there - just to change the atmosphere. We joined them for a song or two before heading back.

We then had some coffee and cookies with the Overstreets - they are such a great couple! They are planning on coming out to SA again in Feb or April next year and they absolutely loved East London so much that they are definitely going to come again. Yay!

Carl's Junior

After school, I left Tanya at Bethel for her Sozo session. I then went to collect Nia and Pat and we did some shopping and went to Carl's Junior for supper (I had the Teriyaki burger - just a burger with a slice of pineapple) and fries. Pat had a grilled chicken burger with chips. Nia had chips. I also had an orange milkshake - yummm!

Wednesday

This is Tanya with one of our friends - Alecia (or, as we affectionately call her, Alice in Wonderland). We sat next to her in one of the main sessions and I gave her a word about her being an Alice in Wonderland and since then we have been friends!

Dano preached in the main session and was amazing (of course!). After lunch I went to the final photography class where Heather showed us some of her secrets in Photoshop. She is so cool! I really liked her - here is a pic of us.

Band Session

This morning instead of worship, Brian Johnson had us all cram into the centre of the sanctuary like a huge choir. They put up a few mics and recorded us singing to some tracks from the next Bethel CD - so we will be on it! Yahoo!

They will mix our voices into the tracks that they have recorded to add some atmosphere and "crowd singing" - even though they have recorded this CD live, they wanted more "in tune" crowd singing! Even though we were "faking" a live congregation, the anointing on our singing was amazing! I have gained some ideas for our next live album - hint hint!

In the afternoon our instrument classes combined so that we could do a "band session". The grouped us into bands and we had 15 minutes to choose a song and create an arrangement. Then you get up and play the song - no rehearsal, no nothing. It was fun, but not terrribly useful. Here you can see me on the electric and "our bassist" Katie behind me on bass. The guy with the bokkie sitting just behind me is the Bethel bassist, Brandon. We did "The Revelation Song". It went pretty well considering!

After that, a guy called Jeffrey came to share. He is the guy that worked with Dano to create those sound experiments that Dano showed at our Supernatural Lifestyle Week earlier this year. It was amazing to hear and see all his experiments and research again. Only 3 days left - ah, boo!

Prophetic Drawing

Here is the picture that was drawn for me yesterday by a lady called Christina. The word was very accurate for me, but I feel this is a word for His People in East London too! Read Psalm 130 - and hear the phrase, "out of the depths..."

Here is the prophetic interpretation:

"I drew a well - this is what God has done in you. It is very deep. It is purple - purple represents the Royalty of God. The water in the well is deep, but God is stirring it up and it is just below the top of the well. There is the Glory of God (the yellow at the top) and the Glory is revealed as He brings your water - the deep things that God has built in you - out to the surface. He sees you as a gem - precious and shining, reflecting His glory."

Now read this over yourself and believe that this is what God is going to release in you and through our church. Interestingly one of the words that God gave His People East London for 2009 was that we are a well for the refreshing of others... hmmmm... also, the water in the well is blue - blue often represents revelation.

Monday Rocked!

Today after dropping off the rental car, we went to my favorite place in the whole world - no, not church - Starbucks! I was in heaven... oh why, oh why are there no Starbucks in South Africa? Sigh...


After grabbing some beans (and a cool mug!), a coffee-of-the-day and a latte, we headed to Bethel for school. Kristene Mueller led worship - she has been my favorite worship leader the whole time we've been here! She was amazing and the presence of God was intense.

Jenn Johnson then shared her testimony and some thoughts - she is very intense and I was quite exhausted afterwards! During lunch Andrew Sevright spoke about starting an internet marketing campaign for musicians - I got some great ideas, so watch this space!

After lunch I went to the photography class. Heather Armstrong had brought in all her studio equipment and her kids (for models) as well as Paul Manwaring's daughter in law and a senior (translation: "matriculant") for modelling. It was great to use some proper studio equipment (AlienBees lights and massive diffusers). I can't show any of the photos online until I have consent from Heather and the models, but hopefully I can post a couple soon.

In the afternoon session Kathy took Trisha's class (Trisha was sick) and she read Ps 130 and then did 3 exercises: get a phrase from the psalm. Then ask the Lord why He is highlighting that phrase. Then paint in watercolour. I haven't painted since I was in primary school, so it was far out of my comfort zone. I painted an idea I had and the picture just ended up looking like a funny carrot. I was really discouraged! Then I started messing around and just dipped my brush into water and started "smudging" all the colours and this amazing swirl appeared - when the picture dried it was actually not too bad! We then paired up and had to get a prophecy for our partner (specifically about the future) and sketch it for the person using pencils or pastels. That was fun! We're going to do some of this in cell. My drawing wasn't too bad - I have been sketching in my journal over the last couple of weeks and some of my sketches are getting quite good!

In the evening we headed to the studio to hear the final mix of the song that we have been tracking for the Recording class. We took a detour via Taco Bell for dinner. The song is sounding amazing and it was great to hear the evolution from the initial idea to the finished product.

My Last Day in Vacaville (Part 2)

Melody came into the studio again - with her husband Chris. Chris is an actor and model and is going to be in a movie called "Singularity" later this year (I'm just dropping names of all the famous people I am meeting :-)

Zack joined us again to help with engineering. We got Melody to finish off some backing vocals for the English songs, and then had her singing in Xhosa, chiBemba and Shona! She did an amazing job and was dripping honey all over again - we were really priveledged to have her on the project.

At one stage she was doing backing for Sweet - the line is "... with your sweet water" and I was joking with her saying that in South Africa, we speak English (as opposed to American) and that it should be pronounced "wor-ter" not "wah-der". Everyone was cracking up and I got a pic of Melody doing her "wor-ter" face!

We left the studio at 5:45 or so and went to Dano's place to put some marimbas onto one track (Nigel, you'll have to guess which one when you hear the CD!) and then after grabbing my gear at Rob's place I drove back through to Redding. One week to go (ah, boo).

The project is now almost completely tracked - Rob needs to add a couple of bass lines, but my work is done. Then there's just mixing and mastering and it'll be finished! I am going to have to think about how to distribute the CD's - will do when I get home.

My Last Day in Vacaville (Part 1)

This morning I went with Rob to the Mission at around 8:30 - he was playing bass in the band. I ended up playing percussion during practice and worship - I had such fun!

Dano had done a rough mix of "Jika" without lead vocals so that I could sing it at church. During the offering I did just that (with Rob helping me on vocals). I was jumping and spinning around and everyone had such a great time - I had so many people ask me when the CD was coming out so that they could buy one! That's a great sign!

We then went to a restaurant for lunch - I ordered a pizza (pepperoni, italian sausage, peppers, mushrooms - oooo, yum!) and I couldn't even get half way through! At 2, it was time to hit the studio again (we were going in to meet Melody for some more backing vocals).

4th of July - in the Studio (again)

Saturday was the 4th of July - Independence Day. We were holed up in the studio again though - the project is AMAZING! I know you guys are all going to love it. Dano has said that he would listen to this - and considering how many project he works on where that is NOT true, that's an amazing compliment!

We were treated to a barbeque at Dano's house that Dano's wife, Regina, cooked for us. Michele also added some salad and bratwurst (she is Swiss, after all) and Regina's home-made apple pie topped it all off. Yummy!

We finished at the studio around 1o and got to see some fireworks. I then went with Dano to his place again to do some tuning on the project (learning all the time!) and got back to Rob's place at around 12. Not too bad, considering how much work we did! We have 13 tracks for the project.

Friday in Vacaville in the Studio

On Friday morning I took Tanya, Nia and Pat to a rental place where they could rent a car for the weekend since I was taking the truck (Rob's Mighty Whitey) back to Vacaville. The girls decided to stay and chill out in Redding while I was recording in Vacaville.

I got into Vacaville at around 12 and after some lunch and a short rest we hit the studio at Father's House again. We did more lead vocals and some guitar. We then had steak rolls for supper and headed back to the studio. More lead vocals and harmonies (by me and Rob - he was born African, I am sure!). I also got to do some mandolin - yay, yay, yay! We finished at around 11 and after chilling in front of the TV with Rob till 12 before hitting the sack.

We needed a backing vocalist for a lot of the tracks and God was so faithful - Dano went into reception and happened to see a girl called Melody (!) who is on staff at Father's House. He knew she has a great voice, so he asked her if she would be willing to do some backing vocals on my project (she doesn't even normally work Fridays, so it was a God moment!). She agreed - and from the first note, in Dano's words, she "poured honey all over the songs"!

Thursday - Prophetic Photography

For those of you wondering if my hands have broken off, don't worry! I haven't been able to post for a couple of days - but I'll catch up now!

Joseph and Tosha from Father's House led worship again in the morning and Joseph shared again - I bought his book "Lessons for the Worship Team" to go through with our bands - he had such practical advice!

There were artists doing some prophetic art during worship, and when Tanya asked me to take some pictures of Ralph while he did some flagging, I thought, "Hey, if they are doing prophetic art, then I can do prophetic photography!" It was fun, but I only realised half way through that my lens was on manual focus (instead of automatic) so I didn't get too many decent shots. Here is on that did come out rather well though.

On Thursday evening I went into the Soundhouse again. Jeremy had made some amazing suggestions to the song we were tracking, but Kyle needed some more lyrics. However, they recorded the final drum and bass tracks. On Friday night they did keys, electric guitar and vocals and on Monday night we'll see them mix the song.

So after that late night, I didn't get a chance to post!

Wednesday was amazing!

This morning Joseph and Tash Zwanziger from Father's House in Vacaville came to lead worship and chat during the main session. They lead worship at their church (it was their studio that we were using this weekend for my project). Joseph was selling their latest album, but decided that most of us didn't know him that he would give every student a free CD (Eternity's King). What an amazing gesture!

Joseph co-wrote a book called "Lessons for the Worship Team" which I purchased after his session. I am looking forward to working through it with our bands.

In the afternoon I went to the photography class - there were only 4 of us and Paul Manwaring came to share a brilliant message called "Beauty and Glory". I was really inspired and challenged and am glad I went even though I didn't get to take any photos! I am trying to switch with someone next week Monday for the band session so that I can go to the shoot on Monday - we're going to be doing a studio shoot with Paul Manwaring's daughter-in-law as the subject.

After school Tanya went back home and I stayed at church. A group of us who signed up for the Recording Class waited till we had car-pooled to get to a studio in town. Adam is the sound engineer for Bethel and he works half his time at the Bethel Studio and half his time at Jeremy's studio (The Soundhouse).

We got to set up the studio (including 15 mics for the drums alone!) and then do a rough recording of a song that is going to be recorded. It was an amazing space and really inspired me to pursue sound engineering a little more - I have the musical background and technical inclination to be a good engineer (well, I think so anyway).

The pics below show the drum setup as well as the control booth (Adam on the left, Jeremy on the right). If you go to the Soundhouse website (link above) you can see the video that was filmed in the Studio with Third Day recording a Rick Mullins song (click the "Featured Project" link on the home page). Amazing! Also check out the video for Myriad (that's Jeremy's band) for an awesome song and video combo!

Brian Johnson teaches an acoustic class

(This is Brian Johnson teaching the acoustic guitar class).

There were so many guitarists at Jeff's electric guitar class last week Tuesday that they decided to let Brian do an acoustic class. Still it was a big class - about 40 people. Brian just talked about his tone (he has a custom micing system in his guitar) and the effects that he runs through to get his live guitar to sound good. The other stuff he spoke about was very basic guitar stuff. He's going to do a basic course on Thursday for beginners, so I am going to try to catch Marc Cooper's electric class.

I am going to go to the photography class tomorrow instead of voice just to see what there is to see and to do something different.

In the main session this morning Kris Vallotton spoke - it was an amazing word, and key for the musicians and worship leaders at the school - but for anyone in general too! He shared that he had mentored this group of 11 people - poured his life into them - and today only 5 still serve the Lord. He has been grieving over the others and asking the Lord what the difference is - and his answer was basically this: you need to remain teachable and flexible and be able to receive correction if you are going to still be serving the Lord in 30 or 50 years time.

Just before he started sharing, he prophesied over some people. He gave a prophecy for one girl and then asked anyone who had a tingling sensation in their right forefinger to stand. As he was asking I had that sensation so I stood up - there were about 10 of us standing. He prophesied that the Lord was releasing a prophetic voice through us and that we were like equipment keepers that can hand weapons to people. There was some other stuff too - it's in my journal.

Raina

Last week during the conference, there was a girl doing prophetic painting during worship. We had seen one of her pieces from the Sunday evening service the week before, and we really liked the way she painted. Anyway, she ended up painting an amazing piece of yellows and reds - the red is a huge flame. When Tanya got a bit closer to the piece, she saw lions in the yellow light! She immediately fell in love with the painting and she approached the artist to chat.

There was immediately a connection between Tanya and Raina - she told us a little about how she ended up doing prophetic art and how she and her husband got to Redding and Bethel. We told her we wanted to buy her painting, and she said she would get back to us. Tanya also arranged to get together with her this week.

Last night after school we drove to Raina's place and met her husband, Brian, and her 2 boys Elias and Kendrick. They invited us to stay for supper and we chatted stacks! She had agreed to sell the painting to us and was really excited that we got it. We're going to hang out with them again next week.

Kim Walker shared during the main session at school yesterday - she is amazing! It's great to hear the story behind the person!

Recording Vocals and Guitar

At 5 on Saturday, Rob and I drove over to another church in town called The Father's House. They have a very cool studio with some amazing equipment. Dano had a speaking engagement, so Rob and I were joined by an intern at The Mission (Dano and Rob's church). Zack has done quite a bit of sound engineering and engineered for us. He was like a kid in a candy store because all the equipment was so cool (especially the Avalon compressors).

Joanna Finchum was there - she had been doing voice lessons all day and so she stayed on to do some backing vocals. We did the vocals on a couple of songs and worked till about 11. Joanna left and then we decided to mic up a guitar and lay down some guitar tracks - Zack's wife Destiney brought his Taylor 215 around and we mic'd it with a Neumann 103 (which we were using for the vocals) and an Audix SCX One. The tone we got was amazing!

The Project is progressing very well and I know that it is going to be a blessing! I have been learning so much and seeing one of my life dreams coming true is really awesome! Thank you Lord!

Editing in Rob's Studio

After the barbeque, I finally got to hear what Rob and Dano have been doing on my album - I haven't finalized what I want to call it yet, so I'll just call it The Project for now. They have been working with the scratch tracks that I sent them and it was amazing what they have been able to do - lots of percussion and some drums and bass and Dano did some piano - the arrangements are fantastic!

Rob and I recorded some traditional songs (just a scratch track that we can later erase, but it'll give us something to work on for now). We then did some minor tweaks to some of my songs.

On Saturday, after a breakfast of eggs, sausage and muffins, Rob and I hit the studio again. Dano joined us and we worked until about 4. I was again blown away at how cool The Project is sounding!

Vacaville with the Harrises

We attended the morning service for the conference on Friday and Tanya and I ushered (the BSSW students are helping out at the conference). After the morning session (worship led by Kim Walker) we went home and gathered some stuff and left for Vacaville at 2pm.


We arrived in Vacaville at the Harris's place at about 4:30 - it was so great to see them again! Michele broke her arm while they were in Fiji and Rob wrote "It wasn't me" on the case!

They returned from a trip to Fiji on Monday last week and are just about caught up on sleep (the time zone difference is 17 hours!).

Rob then treated us to a California barbeque - it was delicious! They have really treated us like royalty! Rob is coming to Africa for 40 starting in August and will spend quite a bit of time at our church helping me to get a recording studio going. It's really exciting to be partnering with the Sounds of the Nations team.

Lunch with Amy!

I forgot to post a picture of us with Amy on Thursday last week - she is from the States and is in the Every Nation family. She has been doing missionary work for a number of years in Latvia, Germany and South Africa! She has been at His People in Cape Town and even visited our church in East London when Dano was out for the Supernatural Lifestyle Conference. She was attending the Kingdom Culture conference in Redding and she treated us to lunch at an Italian restaurant called The Olive Garden. She is coming to visit our church again some time this year.

Thursday Evening

Wow! Well I should have known the night was going to be good - there was a prayer meeting before the 7pm service at 6pm - and about 200 people showed up! The Presence of the Lord was amazing.

Brian and Jenn then led worship and Bill Johnson gave the message. It was awesome! Then he started calling out words of knowledge for healings and we saw numerous instantaneous healings - I saw a girls femur grow about 3cm and a guy was healed of irritable bowel syndrome (he said the muscles in his gut just loosened after we prayed for him). This was in the overflow room!

In the main auditorium, ankles and knees were being healed - a lady whose discs had been fused (c5 and c6 in her neck) was "loosed" and got mobility back. Numbness in hands and feet disappeared. It was awesome!

Bill also shared a story - some members of Bethel went to LA for holiday and as they drove past Disneyland one guy thought, "I wonder what revival in a theme park would look like?" So the next day he is given a free ticket into Disneyland. Him and some friends go in to the food court and pray for a young guy with a sling around his arm - he gets instantly healed! His friends are all stoked cos he is their football star and couldn't play that season - so the Bethel guy leads about 9 youths to the Lord. Next thing they are getting the new believers Spirit-filled and getting them to lay hands on their friends who need healing. Soon kids are running to get friends to be prayed for - by the just-born-again kids! One girl comes up and she is really scared, so the team say "God loves you! Don't be scared". She is still a bit wary, so they tell her, "We won't even need to touch you." They pray for her (without laying hands on her) and her scoliosis is immediately healed - she gets saved and Spirit-filled! Soon the kids are saying, "Can you pray for the sadness in me?" and the team prays a group prayer to break off depression - soon the kids are crying and laughing and shouting, "Jesus!" The team saw 100 people get born again and about 140 instant miracles in 4 and a half hours in the food court at Disneyland! Whohoo!!!

Nia turns 1!

Today is Nia's birthday! We got together in the living room and gave her some pressies to open - she got a cute outfit from the Williams, a book and a CD from the Kumms and a talking dolly from Gran. We haven't gotten her anything yet - we tried some stores but only found cheap junk, so we'll try in Vacaville this weekend.

She really loves her dolly - she hugged it and kissed it and then after putting its dummy in its mouth, she tried to use the dummy herself! It was very cute!

Kingdom Culture Conference Starts

Ray Hughes finished off his teaching at the BSSW with a bang! He was speaking about the story where the young prophets tell Elisha that his style is cramping them, and they want to take some wood and build a bigger place. Then while one is chopping down a tree, he loses an axhead and Elisha makes it float. The point was that the young guys still honoured Elisha and asked him to come with them - the new generation needs to honour the old generation and carry a deposit from the old with them as they walk into destiny!

Elisha then prophesies at the siege - "this time tomorrow, everything will be changed" - and as he did, the Spirit of God moved in the auditorium and we all stood up and spoke change over our nations - that in 24 hours everything would be different! It was an amazing and powerful moment.

I then bought tons of Ray's teachings! We also found out that he is coming to East London in April next year - we are friends with a friend of his - Steve Lincoln from the UK - and Steve is going to arrange for Ray to come to HP! Whohooo!

We had the afternoon off and in the evening the conference started - it's called "The Kingdom Culture" conference. Steve Thompson from MorningStar is one of the guest speakers (along with Kris Vallotton and Bill Johnson) and Kim Walker is here to do some of the worship.

Kim led worship last night which was awesome - and then Steve busted a whole bunch of our Western Theology that isn't biblical - it was powerful!

After the service I asked Kim Walker to pray for me and my recording - which she did. (I have had Jenn Johnson and Ray Hughes pray for the project too, so I am pumped!!!). Kim introduced me to her husband (who was playing guitar while she led worship).

Word for the Body of Christ in East London

During this morning's session, someone asked Ray Hughes a question and she quoted out of Deut 11:11. Yesterday Ben Armstrong was speaking about numbers and 11 is the number of Mystery and the number of Jesus (I'll have to ask him why). So 11:11 is Mysteries of Jesus!

Anyway, when this girl read the scripture, I knew it was a word for HP in East London (in fact, this is for the Body of Christ in East London).

Deut 11:10-15 "For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden, but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven a land for which the LORD your God cares; the eyes of the LORD your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year. 'And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the LORD your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, then I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be filled.'" (vs 11 in italics)

• The land is not watered by foot, but by the rain of Heaven - God's promises to us are not accomplished by our effort, but by His Divine Grace
• A land of hills and valleys - every place, high or low, good or bad, rich or poor will experience the rain of God's presence
• The Lord cares for our land - yes!
• Our job is to love and serve Him with everything in us - then He will send the early and the latter rain
• We are going to be gathering grain (Harvest - souls), experience new wine (new outpourings of His Presence) and oil (Healing)
• The Lord will send grass in our fields (fruitfulness - especially in spreading the Gospel)
• We will eat and be filled - He is going to provide supernaturally and abundantly for us to do His will

If you're reading this, then partner with me in faith to see God accomplish what He has promised! Whohoo!

Whacked at home...

Ken has a bunch of guys come round to his place for a "Core Group" meeting once a week or so. His core group met this evening and when they had finished meeting they offered to pray for me - so what could I do but say Yebo Yes!!

They layed hands on me and the Presence of God came thick and HOT and I started getting whacked! Then they started prophesying and this is what they said:

• Tanya and I are like 2 giraffes: we can see above and beyond to get Divine Strategies
• One guy said he was reminded of the Church Father John Chrysostum ("Golden Tongue") and that my tongue and throat would release the Healing of Heaven
• God is digging wells in me
• God is sending out waves of healing and revival from me
• I am an "Ancient Gate" - there is something in the heritage of the Ancients (or Church Fathers) that God has for me
• I have the mantle of William Brannum (healing and supernatural ministry in South Africa)
• God is opening up in me the wells of John G. Lake (Healing Rooms and supernatural signs in South Africa!)
• Every deaf ear I pray for will be healed
• My Golden Tongue will bring healing to spiritually deaf ears too
• God is giving me new instruments

Wow! Am I pumped or what?!?! Yay God! Do it and have Your way in me! Jesus is sooooo amazing!!

Tuesday - Slay the Giant and Wake the Angels

This morning we had another session by Ray Hughes - he imparted to the class as well as taught. He spoke again about us being the person God created us to be - that living out our destiny is a tool in the Lord's hand for power. His prayer of impartation was that we would slay the giants (Goliath means "soothsayer" and he had been discouraging the armies of Israel till David slew him) that keep us from our destinies. We pretended we had a sling and 280 of us were "swooshing" around and around - the sound was awesome! Then after we had "slain" the giant, he spoke about how after a fight there is dust on you... the Lord wanted his rain to wash away the dust. 280 of us then were clicking our fingers making raining sounds - the presence of the Lord was amazing!

I had guitar class with Jeff from the band and Tanya went to Joanna's voice class.

In the afternoon Benni Johnson spoke - she shared some stories about her prayer journeys in Wales and in Alaska and in the US. In Wales, a friend of hers was at Moriah Temple and the Lord said, "I want you to wake the angel here." She said softly, "Wakey, wakey". The Lord asked her if that was all she wanted - so she shouted at the top of her lungs, "Wakey wakey!" Then she saw an angel get up (its foot was as big as the whole temple) and she asked the angel - are you here to bring the next wave of God? The angel replied, "No, I am the angel from the 1906 awakening - the one bringing the next move is even bigger!"

So Benni was in the Mojave desert and she saw hundreds of angels, and she and her friends took a side road to go to the desert and were in this tiny little town and she suddenly said, "We're going to wake some angels!" As she looked up, she was passing a general store called Moriah! She also showed us her sword (she has lots of "prophetic toys"). She ordered this sword online - it was an 18 inch dagger. 6 weeks later, a 7 foot 2-handed Claymore sword arrives (the shop had made a mistake) but it is amazing, so she kept it!

She then got us to do some soaking and she also spoke about William Seymour who said that 100 years from now (this was in 1909) there would be an outpouring that was greater than Azusa street - yes Lord!!!

I got to chat to Ben Armstrong a bit and invited him to come do a Revival conference at our church if we could work something out. He has some other churches in South Africa that he is in relationship with, so he'll let me know when he is coming to SA to see if we can get him to EL! Yay God!! He has a passion to restore some mysticism in Africa (the good God type!)

Monday a blast at the BSSW!

Wow, what a day! We headed in to our 4th day at school. After worship, Ray Hughes spoke about the restoration of the Tabernacle of David - he is amazing! He is funny, and poignant, and very knowledgable. I am going to have to get the CD of his session - there was so much and it was too much to write down.


Then after lunch (leftover roast beef on rolls - yum!) we had classes - Tanya went to dance again, and I had another vocal session with Joanna. I could actually sing this time, so it was great.


After classes, Ben Armstrong spoke. He is a mystic and actually teaches mystic classes! His main point was that we need to get some Divine Comedy back into the church - the church needs to be fun (and/or funny) in this serious day and age. He also told some amazing stories and prophesied a bit. He was great!


We then did some shopping and had burritos at the Burrito Bandito. They were HUGE and we actually all left half for lunch tomorrow. I had a steak burrito with black beans, sour cream, jalapenos, cheese, avocado and some other stuff. Yummmm!

I then had a private voice lesson with Joanna - it was great, since I've never had voice lessons before. My main problem is that when I sing I tense up and constrict my voice, so I have some exercises to help me relax. Here are some pics... 1st Joanna and I and 2nd Joanna "weighed down with all her accomplishments"... a bit braggy to show all her certificates, but hey, she ROCKS, so she can!

My First Father's Day

So Sunday was Father's day, and I got a little spoiled. Pat cooked a beef roast with roast potatoes and roast butternut (from Mexico). It was sweet! And Nia was an absolute darling!

We went to the 1st service at Bethel and Bill Johnson preached. Then after lunch and a snooze we went to Clover Creek for a quick walk before heading back to Bethel for the evening service. I was really glad we went - Ray Hughes preached and he was extremely funny! (Ray is here for BSSW).

Tanya and I prayed for Ken, Tiffany and Hudson - Tiffany and Hudson head for Texas on Monday for holiday - Ken is going next week. I prophesied over them and they said I had some really accurate words, which was great! We really love the Williams's and are so glad that we got to spend some time with them in their home. They have really been generous and accommodating and we feel right at home with them.

Whiskey Town Lake

That's right campers - we were are Whiskey Town Lake. In fact, we were are Brandy Creek at Whiskey Town Lake. Sheesh.

It was amazingly beautiful, though it was a bit windy. We'll go back there after school in the evenings when it heats up again. It's a bit cooler now, and even rained yesterday.

Tanya was showing her "whatever" face when I took this pic! Hahah!

I have added a pic of Nia in her "ducky" bath. She loves it!

We got to the early service at Bethel this morning. It was great to see how things go here on a "normal" Sunday. I met Paul Manwaring and got to prophesy over a couple in the School of Ministry from New Zealand - they were really blessed!