Hello everyone! We have been enjoying Lebanon so very much! Thank you for all the prayers, we sure can feel them. We have seen quite a bit while in the camps as well as right outside of our apartment. The people are so hospitable here. We’ll share some stories from both in the camps and in our neighborhood.

Let’s get to it:

On Sunday we went to a little market of sorts. Our word for the day was Worship, so we took the guitar down and decided to worship on the streets. A man who was running a stand called us over and invited us to come into the shade and continue playing.

We were able to meet and encourage a bunch of Christians, as well as share the gospel with a few Muslims. When we were on our way back to the apartment, a few of us ran into a group of middle school and high school students. One of the boys in the group had a cast on and we asked if we could pray for him. When we did, all the pain left! Thank you Jesus! A few of the girls wanted prayer and we were able to pray with them as well. They said that they felt good and overall peaceful.

And now onto the camps:

Some of the girls have had the opportunity to teach English in a camp for the refugees and are absolutely loving it! The children are so receptive to us being there. The wife of the leader asked us if we could pray for her stomach and the pain went down. Though 100% healing was not immediate, we know it’s only a matter of time before she’s completely healed. It will be so hard to leave when the time comes to head back to the states.

In another camp, we have been able to distribute clothes and other items. This has open the door to some home visits.

Jesus has told us time and time again to release joy. It’s sometimes hard when all you feel is the oppression and the distress of the people there, but Jesus is so much bigger than all of that. Left and right we have seen depression fall off and joy take its place.

Take for instance Mjad, who is 7 and has been in Lebanon for 3 yrs. He had constant chest pain and shortness of breath, but we were able to pray for him and watch as the Holy Spirit fell on him. His whole posture changed and he wasn’t even able to speak because he was filled with such peace! He just smiled and slowly nodded to answer our questions.

The following day a Christian Egyptian doctor and his son joined our group. The doctor went into the home to check out Mjad, and decided he was able to cut his medication in half! Now, a few days later, he still has no pain. God is good!

Stories like these are running rapid through the camps and are happening left and right. Knees, heads, hands, feet, and most importantly, hearts, have been healed. When people are met by the love of the Father, it changes everything.

We love you all.

Until next time,

YWAM Redding Outreach

We traveled to Lebanon last week, and took a day to adjust to the ten hour time difference between California and Lebanon. We were totally blessed by the guest house we are staying in. Such a beautiful view!  We’ve been enjoying the opportunity this week to bless our host as well! We have been lending a hand to build a school for Syrian refugee children, and to help restore a building that will be used as a community center.

Friday was our first time in the city. It was an exciting, albeit harrowing, adventure through traffic to get to the Christian bookshop where our contacts have a ministry. But so worth it! They provided a huge spread for lunch, with the first shawarma for many in our group. Hummus has never tasted so fresh!

Then our Lebanese friends gave our team an orientation to Lebanon and Middle Eastern culture. The most impactful part of the talk was the caution to be vigilant of the common spiritual strongholds present in Lebanon. Our precious friends also prayed over our team and our outreach and gave us encouraging words from the Lord. One even saw a picture of our team queued up in a battle line; everyone united, carrying spears and yelling the battle cry of Jesus! Then we had the opportunity to minister to everyone in the bookshop. The atmosphere of the bookshop was thick with the presence of God and He used our team to speak right to their hearts.

They invited us to a house church that night, where we had the pleasure of praising the Lord while the church worshipped in Arabic. Toward the end of the message, our team started to feel the Lord highlight specific things He was healing in the room. This opened the floodgates for a time of healing ministry. As people were healed, more came forward for prayer. Multiple individuals with severe, long-term back pain and knee pain were healed. A woman with scoliosis was healed, and we have full faith that another woman with Leukemia was also healed! At least 6 or 7 felt the touch of God in their bodies, and more hearts were touched.

A few days ago two members of our team went to get lunch at a local restaurant, and as they were finishing their meal, they struck up a conversation with a man at a nearby table. They were able to share the whole gospel with the man. He had heard it before, but it was obvious that God was really tugging on his heart. He admitted that other people had talked to him about Christ and had invited him to church, but he hadn’t made the commitment. At first he was hesitant, but then they shared that they felt God wanted him to know that He saw him and the depression he had been struggling with. It turned out that this man had struggled with depression along with other things for 10 years. This then opened the door for one of them to share their own story of depression and how they had walked out of it with God’s help. They offered to pray for him and he excitedly said yes. They again invited him to accept Christ, and this time he prayed to accept Jesus! They also prayed for his depression, and he even came to church with us all that night!

One lady we prayed over invited us to speak at her Filipino-Madagascarian church on Sunday and to do prayer ministry during the service. So on Sunday we encouraged the church to let the light of Jesus shine through them into the Muslim world they live in. Others in the team shared testimonies of healing on outreach as well as in their own bodies, and a student spontaneously launched an altar call for healing in the church. About half of the church got healed by Jesus and some even experienced deliverance!

The school we have been helping to build is located in the same area that we will move to for the next several weeks. The students have been excited to check out the area and begin building relationships while we do this service project.

Please pray for more Arabic translators to join our team when we head to the refugee camps. Also pray for supernatural grace and energy for the team. And praise the Lord for all the people who have already been healed and set free in just the first few weeks of this outreach!

What language barrier?!

Our students got to share the good news in languages other than English and bridge the gap with people we might not otherwise reach. Two of our team members talked with a man who spoke only Spanish, and learned that his hands were swollen and painful from arthritis. As our Spanish-speaking student held his hands and prayed, she felt his fingers soften, and much of the pain left. When the pair prayed again all the pain left, and they told him how much Jesus loved him. While this was happening, it looked like the cataract in his eye was clearing. The man was so thankful!

A Russian Jewish woman we met in a park talked with some of our group over a couple consecutive days. On the second day, our student who speaks Russian was able to connect with her in a special way. The woman’s heart has been turned against God, skeptical because of her political worldview, but the student encouraged the woman to look for spiritual truth and to ask God to reveal Himself to her.

This Saturday before everyone officially gathered for evangelism, a team member struck up a conversation with a lady in the park. Her intention was just to say “hi,” but the conversation eventually turned toward Jesus. She shared the Gospel and asked the woman if she would want to make Jesus her Lord and Savior. The woman prayed and was saved right on the spot! Such amazing fruit from a short conversation. It’s easy to see that L.A. has been soaked in prayer and intercession leading up to this event.

We invited the entire community to a block party this weekend to dance, hear the gospel, and have free tacos and coffee. We loved sharing the Good News and praying for healing with those who came!

On Saturday, another one of our groups approached three young men in an apartment stairwell to invite them to our block party. The guys began to ask our team loaded questions about what happens when people die. As our group responded, one of the men had tears forming as he heard the truth of the simple gospel. It was even clearer that they were impacted when they gave the group heart-felt thanks for stopping to share with them.

During neighborhood evangelism, some of our team found a girl on crutches who lost the use of her leg in a car accident. She had accepted the fact that the only option doctors have given her is amputation. The team prayed for her leg and saw an increase in mobility! They shared with her that the Lord’s heart was for complete healing. The girl was so touched that she promised to bring friends to the block party.

Praise Jesus for all that has happened and for more to come!

Please pray for our team as some staff and students have been fighting respiratory infections and asthma complications. Also pray for God’s power and love to move on the hearts of the people we encounter on the streets; for revival to break out in L.A., with salvations, signs and wonders. Blessings!

Things went great in South East Asia. We encountered a few set-backs along the way including some items being stolen from a team member and sickness affecting many in our group during the last weeks. But we are happy to tell you we made it through with flying colors and smiles on our faces! 

Week Four

Despite what the enemy used for harm, we dug our heels in and prayed our way through it. During one evangelism time on Week Four, God opened up the door and we ended up meeting a great couple from Canada who were eager to do ministry with us. We were so excited about it!

Our community ministry time was limited that week, but we were able to go on a two-day trip and visit a children’s camp. We ministered to the children and were able to share our testimonies, disciple them and encourage them in their faith. This was a good opportunity and many of the children were encouraged and challenged to evangelize and to not to be afraid of talking to Muslims about Jesus.

Week Five

This week went off with a bang, and our new Canadian friends joined us for evangelism. They have lived in Indonesia for eight years and have set up some great ministries. The wife is actually a local-born Southeast Asian, and on week five they took us to the village she grew up in. There we were able to set up the Jesus film twice.

We showed the Jesus film with a solar-powered backpack containing a projector, screen, and speakers. That portable backpack includes the full movie from creation to Jesus dying on the cross. Showing this film opens some great ministry opportunities. The Jesus film is in over 1400 different languages, so we had no problem targeting our audience.
The village was small enough that we were able to invite everyone to come watch, and the crowd grew as we watched the movie. The film clearly communicates the message of the gospel and gives an invitation to them to receive Christ into their heart. At first we found it a bit difficult not speaking the local language and it didn’t look like many people were responding. But the following day our host came and told us that many people had started asking her questions and were showing much interest in Jesus. Hallelujah! His word never returns void!

Many had heard of Christ but did not have much knowledge or understanding of Christ as their Savior, so we spent two days in the village ministering and discipling people. It was a fun and challenging experience, considering this village had no toilets and the nearest store is a long bus ride away on a bumpy dirt road. It was an honor to bring the whole gospel to this village. When we left, they had a much better understanding of who Christ is and the price He paid for them at the cross.  

We wrapped it up in that village and then ventured on the last days of our trek. We wrapped things up with a two day crusade in villages with a high concentration of Muslim people. God moved those nights and we were able to reach many people with the Gospel. 

Thank you for all your prayers. They have been such an encouragement during this journey.

Taking a look at the past 10 weeks we have ministered to over 5,000 people, seen people give their hearts to Jesus, and many have been touched by God’s love. Please pray that the the seed of the Gospel will continue to grow deep within the hearts of each person.

Blessings from team Southeast Asia! 

Last week we spent a few days up in the mountains with a remote people group. They are one of the indigenous people groups in Southeast Asia that typically live so far up in the mountains that they have very few visitors. The village we visited is mostly Christian, and our job there was to encourage them as much as possible because they are under pressure to convert to Islam. The people were excited to see us and very shy. But the more time we spent with them the more they would open up and show how kind and friendly they truly are.

Healing in the Village

There are very few visitors to this village and it is almost impossible to get healthcare up there, so a lot of what we did was pray for the sick. The villagers gathered in one of the houses, and our team split into groups and prayed for healing. So many people got healed, but I think my favorite healing was when we prayed for a man who was blind in one eye. He said that when he was hunting something had bounced back and hit his eye and he hadn’t been able to see out of it since then. 

We prayed for him, and when we asked him if there was a change he had a shy smile on his face as he said that he could see a bit of light out of his eye. We prayed again and again. The man told us that he could see, but it was blurry so we prayed again. His sight was restored! I can only imagine the joy he must have been feeling, because I was psyched!

On our first night in the mountains our team stayed together in one house, but the other villagers wanted a share in us, so we split up into multiple houses the next night.

On our second evening in the mountains, the village held a church service so that we could participate. It was fun to worship God alongside them even though we couldn’t understand each other’s language. However, our team was able to share stories and experiences through interpreters, and some of the stories the villagers told us had me laughing harder than I have in a long time. I’m really hoping to go back and spend more time with them.

Growing in Courage

This past week our group leaders headed off to prepare for our arrival in another Southeast Asian nation. Two people from our group stepped up and displayed some awesome leadership skills in the face of some resistance we faced in openly sharing the gospel here.

Instead of shying away, some of our group members actually became more courageous, and as God moved them they preached on trains to large groups of people. After those times of open sharing, people from the crowds approached us wanting to know more; other Christians who heard us seemed encouraged by our openness.

In the middle of this surprising turn of events, the time came for us to move on to the next outreach location. The culture feels very different here, and we are all excited to try the new foods, transportation and traditions. At first we stayed with a pastor’s family, who were very kind and cooked us some traditional food. It was delicious!

We will soon travel around the country and do crusades in villages and small towns. We have been told that there is a large amount of animism and witchcraft in these areas, so we appreciate all the people who are praying for us. Please pray particularly that we would see many people come to Christ during this time. Blessings!