I
am still in Sweden and I'm finally coming to terms with it! I've been
working with a youth camp called 360. We have lectures, devotions,
activities and night sessions for a week and than the students and
three staff will go on a missions trip to Latvia for one week.
At
the beginning of the week we were asked to give expectations of what
we wanted from God this week. I asked for a comfort in knowing HE IS
HOME for me and not where I want to
be! And so finally, after almost 4 months of being here I FINALLY
FEEL AT HOME IN HIM. Which is BY FAR more important than feeling at
home in Sweden. Although, this country (and it's people) are growing
on me! :)
Tonight
I heard an amazing story. There is a Swedish man named John. Last
year he went to Israel. While he was there he met some Brazilian
people. After a few months of being back in Sweden the Brazilians
invited John to Brazil over New Years.
Mean
while, in Brazil there is a lady named Anna. Her father was a wizard
and her mother was "jewish" but apparently worshipped the
devil. Anna was dedicated and trained to be a witch. One day she met
a man and he asked her if she wanted to be free from her problems.
(she had been getting sick, depressed and just didn't enjoy life) She
said yes. He told her to go to this spa where she could get a massage
and relax. When she arrived at this "spa" it turned out to
be a christian camp. (haha…I'm not sure if lying is the best
evangelistic approach.) Anna tried to run away three times but ended
up sticking around and accepted Jesus.
For
TWO YEARS Anna attended a church trying to get freedom from the
demons that had been possessing her life up until that time.
The people in the church, knowing from what kind of family she came
from, didn't really accept her. But she continued to go because she
was looking for the "Owner of the house" and not at the
"people in the house". There were, however, a few people
that believed her and would take pictures of what marks "invisible
hands" would leave on Anna's legs and arms. Through that people
started to believe her and accept her.
Once
Anna was free from the demons she started a prayer group in her
house. She wanted to help people who had become believers from her
similar "background". During one of these meetings the
whole group had an open vision. (where they could all see the same
thing)
In
this vision there was a mountain and a group of people were standing
in a circle holding hands. Anna was holding the hand of an African
woman and the hand of a French woman. Across from her on the other
side of the circle was her pastor's daughter. The pastor's daughter
was holding the hand of a Korean woman. They group could identify the
nationality of these people because of the languages they were
speaking. The recognised the sounds of them.
Now,
the second hand of the pastor's daughter was being held by a tall
blonde guy speaking a "funny language". That "funny
language" turned out to be Swedish!! Anna felt like God told her
"pay attention to what he is saying" and she was like "God,
I can't understand Swedish". But God told her again to listen to
what he was saying As Anna listened she started to understand
everything that this guy was saying in PORTUGUESE! He was speaking
Swedish but she was understanding what he was saying in Portuguese!
Then the vision ended! All the people in the room kinda looked at
each other and was like "is this for real?!".
So
a few weeks after this vision Anna started to feel very ill. She went
to the doctor and found out that she had a tumour in her intestine.
The same type of cancer that had killed her Grandmother. She thought
she was going to die from this tumour within a few months.
A
little bit after this discovery Anna received a call from a friend
that didn't normally call her. When Anna answered the phone the
friend said "you know that I don't normally call you, but God is
'bugging' me to tell you something and I can't sleep until I do. He
wants me to show you a person. So go on Facebook and look up John
Whateverhislastnameis". Anna got on Facebook and looked up this
John guy. IT WAS THE SAME GUY FROM HER VISION. So Anna began to call
all of the people that were in the room that night! She said that she
didn't want to be "crazy" alone! And once everyone that had
seen that vision saw this John guy's profile they all realised it was
the same guy!
Another
few weeks later the same friend called Anna and told her that this
same John guy was coming to Brazil over new years! So once again Anna
called all of the people that had seen the vision and they all were
blown away! At this point they didn't know what it all meant but they
were still so amazed!
Fast
forward another few weeks…John is in Brazil and Anna's friend calls
Anna once more and asks Anna to take John to see some sights because
the friend's boss won't let her have the day off! Mean while, Anna's
cancer had gotten super bad and she hadn't been feeling well for a
while. But Anna agreed. The morning of the day that Anna was supposed
to go with John, she felt like she had no strength and didn't think
she could muster to take john anywhere. She picked up the phone to
call her friend but she heard a voice that said "put the phone
on the bed and you should go". Anna is a "tester" so
to say and so she tried to call her friend once more! :) And AGAIN
she heard a voice that said "Put, the. phone. down. you, should.
go." and so she put it down and went. It took probably 2 hours
to get to her friend's house to pick up John.
After
that two hours they had to travel another while to get to a mountain
where they were going to a specific place. (I'm not sure what it was
and it's really not relevant to the story! :) ) But they ended up
taking the wrong bus! So instead of getting to the top of the hill,
they were at the bottom of the hill of which they had to climb!
Remember that Anna is feeling beyond weak. But they climb anyway.
They get to the place they were trying to go but it's closed. So
Anna's brother decides that he wants to take John to the highest
point of the city. So they continue to climb.
On
the way up Anna still hasn't told John about the vision and stuff.
Anna feels like God says "ask John if he believes in
supernatural things". Anna said "no thank you I don't know
this guy!" and God again tells her "ask him!" so she
does! And john responds "well, yeah I do!" So Anna tells
him the whole story about the vision and the Facebook stalking and
everything! John's response was "we should really pray about
this together".
They
get to the top and John and Anna's brother start to do tourist-y
things. And Anna falls to the grass because all of her strength has
left her. She started to feel the life leave her body. She started to
cry and talk to God. She honestly thought she was going to die atop
that hill/mountain thing. Once her brother and John were done with
the tourist-y thing they came back. Anna was trying to hide that she
had been crying. But the guys noticed and they decided to pray for
Anna.
John
asked Anna if he could pray for her in Swedish because he was more
comfortable with that. She, of course, said yes. So he started to
pray in SWEDISH BUT SHE UNDERSTOOD HIM IN PORTUGUESE! She thought he
was pulling a joke. But she understood that he was asking for healing
in her body! Then Anna's brother prayed. After they were both done
Anna started to feel a warmth in her body. (it was over 30c that day
so it was even warmer in her body) The she felt something like a
fountain coming from her stomach through her body. And her strength
began to return! She didn't get back to her house until after
midnight that night! (please remember that she felt like she was
going to die. just before these prayers)
Anna,
as previously stated, likes to "test" these things because
it just doesn't seem real. So she started to stop taking one of the
many many medications she had been taking for her cancer. With each
medicine that she stopped taking she gained more strength! Pretty
soon she stopped taking any of them! She went to the doctor and one
said that "she has been such a good patient taking all her
pills" but another recognised that only one word could describe
the LACK OF CANCER THAT THEY FOUND….which was "MIRACLE".
John
invited Anna to come to Sweden for the summer and share what God has
done. Anna didn't have ANY MONEY to get a passport, visa, or plane
tickets because all of her money had been spent on doctor bills. But
pretty soon money started coming into her bank account from believers
and non believers alike! She had the EXACT AMOUNT NEEDED TO COME TO
SWEDEN!
Anna
stood there tonight and said "God did all of this because he
loves me. I believe that he provided all of this money for me to come
to Sweden and say that God is ALIVE. He loves me. He loves you. He
loves all of us. He is ALIVE AND IS WORKING! He wants people to know
that he is alive and working because he loves us!"
Seriously….this BLEW
MY MIND!
After
Anna shared this testimony I felt like God spoke to me clear and said
"I AM faithful".
Then
he challenged me to ask him for a miracle. The deepest, most secret
miracles that I long for. So I wrote them down.
-Healing
for each of my family members. Specific to the needs of that precious
individual.
-Healing
for my family as a whole.
-My
eyes to be opened to my FULL IDENTITY as a child of God and the
ability to have confidence in that!
-A
partner to live life with, to challenge, encourage, laugh, and bring
glory to God's kingdom with.
What
is your hope? What is a miracle you want to see in your life?
ASK
HIM!
Another
HUGE thing that I learned from Anna's story is how important
SURRENDER IS! During the 360 camp we talked about the concept of
"surrendering all to Jesus". Some of the responses were
"because He knows what is best" and "because he loves
us". I realised that yes it's both of those, but also…he is
giving us the opportunity to be apart of something bigger! When we
surrender our lives to saying "yes" to Jesus we get to help
him redeem and restore creation to the intimacy that he wanted
from the beginning. And
the way I see this in Anna's story is that if John had decided not to
go, or if Anna decided to give up and not trust God would provide the
finances I wouldn't have heard this, I wouldn't of had revelation
from her story, the people in Sweden wouldn't be hearing it from her,
being blessed!
How
cool is that? God WANTS US TO BE APART OF SOMETHING BIGGER. He's
pretty cool. I like him.
