Orlando

Week Monday 20 February to 26 February
We farewelled the people from the motel on the Monday morning. We had become quite attached to the managers, and our cleaner from Guatemala, who brought in her sister for us to meet. This was quite a moving time. The sister of the cleaner had a sore wrist, which was better after prayer.
We stopped at Richmond, and spent a precious time with a relative by the name of Marilyn, together with her son James with his wife Helena. Had lovely time sharing over coffee. Marilyn came over to New Zealand and came to our wedding, so it was a great time catching up. 

We arrived on Tuesday at midday in Orlando, after a 16 hour overnight trip from Richmond on the Greyhound. There was snow on the ground when we left Richmond. This was in great contrast to the temperature at Orlando - it was like a New Zealand summer's day. 

From Wednesday morning until late Saturday night attended the “Empowered” conference – Global Awakening’s School of Impartation and Healing. There were six sessions each day for 4 full days, so was very intensive.

The speakers were Randy Clark, Bill Johnson, Tom Jones, Rodney Hogue, and Mark Chironna in whose church the conference was held. Their teaching was rich, and there was plenty of opportunity for impartation through having their hands laid on us.

Inside the Auditorium

Randy and Tom have been taking ministry teams into various countries, and the power of God has been demonstrated over and over again through healings and miracles. Even over the time of this conference, every night there were at least 60-70 people healed.
Rodney Hogue ministered mainly on deliverance, with many profound insights into this area.

We have been having an absolute feast in God. This has been the third “conference” that we have attended, and there has been a building work going on in our lives. The thing that has most impacted both of us and has been coming more and more strongly through all 3 conferences, has been the revelation these people carry of just how good God is – how much He is for us (our words are not able to express what He is doing in our hearts). We are beginning to see things that we have believed have just simply not given us a true picture of the degree to just how much God is for us and on our side. He has been renewing our minds, changing our mindset, imparting the truth and removing the lies that we have believed about the nature of God.

Our days were very full, we had to be ready for our lift at 7:30am (needed to get there early to get a good seat –each morning there were long queues of people waiting outside the church for the doors to open – and usually we did not arrive back at our motel before 11:30pm.

Queuing Up

As far as meals were concerned, we found the best way of maintaining good nutrition, was to walk across to the Walgreen’s not far from our motel after getting back to our motel at night, and there to purchase nuts. raisins and tinned fruit to take with us to the conference.Then in the mornings before our continental breakfast supplied by the motel, to walk down the road to McDonalds (which was open 24 hours) and buy a salad to also take with us.

We met up with some precious people. The motel that we stayed in had several people who were attending the conference also staying in it. The continental breakfast time each morning provided a wonderful opportunity for meeting people.
God has also been showering favour on us all week. God sovereignly bought Judith across our path, who was staying at the same motel as us, transported us back and forth from the conference which was a real blessing.

With our new friend Judith

Two other people, completely out of the blue, generously gave us money after being prompted by God. On Sunday, we went to a restaurant and ordered a little treat. When we came to ask for the bill, the waitress said to us that she would cover it! Isn’t God good. We not only have been getting the conviction of His goodness, we have been experiencing it!

Virginia Beach Week 4

Week Monday 13 February to 19 February
This week, we started off in the motel room that we have been shifted to. The room was very unclean, uncared for and smelt of cigarette smoke, (we had been in a non-smoking room). The  heater did not seem to be working very well either!
There were some positives to this experience though. In the short trip betweeen the motels, we had a lovely time sharing with the taxi driver about what we were up to. Since this motel was a little distance away, we were able to discover another part of Virginia Beach.

Lake Holly Walkway

Fountain in Lake Holly

However, we were to find out that the switchboard that had blown at our previous motel would not be fixed on the Monday so we become a little despondent and had the "privilege" to stay there again for another night!
That night, we watched tv, and were captivated by a programme called Hoarders, which showed probably about 6 different sitations where people had hoarded stuff and had become compulsive hoarders. It caused us to reflect a little on where we were at, having been accentuated by the sudden packing of all our stuff to make the rapid transfer between motels.
The next morning we arose, determined not to spend another night in that motel. We decided to return to our previous motel whether or not the air conditioner was fixed.
On arriving back, we immediately proceeded to sort through our bags and discard any items we felt we could, and cut down to about half the clothes that we came here with! It did feel good to have cut down on stuff to the bare essentials ....

Downsizing-this goes

The big highlgiht of the week was the “Catch the Fire” convention at Virginia Beach from Wednesday night through until Saturday night. We were blessed by the ministry of John and Carol Arnott, Bill and Beni Johnson, Pat Robertson and Gordon Robertson.
It was held in the beautiful headquarters of CBN – at the Founders’ Inn. We were so impressed that we have attached a short video.

Inside the Founders Inn

From start to finish, it was just WOW! The Presence of God, worship, the healings, testimonies, stories of what God is doing in places like Iran, not to mention precious times of fellowship.

Catch the Fire

On the first night Gordon activated three children to pray for people with astounding results. One of these three had an amazing testimony of a jetski incident where God had intervened to prevent a fatal accident. The minstry of these three is very inspiring especially for anybody involved in children's ministry (see website below for the Wednesday 15 February 7 pm video)
On the Friday night (17 February 7 pm video from website below), there were numerous healings, including 2 people who had come to the meeting in wheelchairs, but got up and walked which they could not do when they came.
 CBN have posted the teaching parts on the internet for any interested in viewing them. The link is     http://event.cbn.com/ctfconference/landing.aspx

Virginia Beach Week 3

Week Monday 6 February to 12 February

Over this week we have continued holiday mode, doing a lot of walking with the sea air, (and eating – jeans are getting tighter for both of us!), got some letters off .. even watched a couple of movies.

The Big Shell

In the Remembrance Square

There is a strong military presence in the area, associated with a naval base. The Remembrance Square had several bronze statues celebrating various aspects of navy life. In particular, there is a base in the area where pilots are trained, we presume for the aircraft carriers. Consequently it is not uncommon for at least 50 jet fighters to fly overhead in the day. The noise levels can at times be deafening.

Over this week we had lots of contact with family via Skype, including some of our relatives over here. We will be meeting up with them in a couple of weeks time.

We have also been having some good contact with various employees of the motel – Rod prayed for the manager, an Indian lady, and the Lord healed her headache, to her delight. Then she shared having been prayed for by her radiographer during a scan when she was having trouble during her pregnancy, when she was healed also. The lady who cleans our room is from Guatemala, and we have been building a friendship with her too.

Rod painstakingly wrote out all the prophecies that we’d recorded on our cell-phones up in Toronto These have been and continue to be a great blessing. The prophetic couple doing the teaching (they also activated us in prophesying over each other – so words from others have also blessed us also) pointed out the interesting scripture in 1 Tim 1:18, that encourages us to hold on to prophetic words, and even use them as weapons in our battle to enter the destiny the Lord has for each of us “This command I entrust to you Timothy my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that BY THEM, YOU MAY FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT.”

On Sunday morning, we got up early this morning in case we decided to attend the New Life church, which would entail a long walk plus bus trip. We had also considered watching the live-streaming of Catch the Fire up in Toronto as an option. One glimpse outside however quickly made our minds up for us, as there is a pile of snow outside our doorway!! Just to prove that it really does snow at Virginia Beach!

Our Door Greeting

Carpark Across the Road

Boys Will Be Boys

The decision was not too difficult to make … yesterday we were so blessed in our room by watching on our computer last Sunday’s service up in Toronto, then after hearing from our children of an excellent service at Hisway with testimonies from the Encounter weekend, we tuned into that. Wow! I would highly recommend it – powerful testimonies of healings and deliverances, very touching and inspiring. The testimonies start about an hour into the service: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/20381885
Our adventures for Sunday did not end there. In the afternoon, on the snowy day, the electrical switchboard for the floor our room is on blew some of its componentry. Our heater was not able to work, so the motel staff organised for us to go to another motel - more of this in next week's blog!

Virginia Beach Week 2

Week Monday 30 January to 5 February

The Boardwalk

View from Our Motel Room

Over this week, we spent most of the time relaxing, going for long walks (between one and two hours each day), and continuing to go over our notes from Toronto.



On Laskin Road

On Virgnia Beach Boulevard

Karen outside the Hilton

Swimming Pool at the Beach

One day was so warm that we came back from a walk and put on summer clothes and went out to lie in the sand on the beach.

Close to the Water

Almost a Summer's Day

Rod's Cage?

Playground South End

North End Boardwalk

Surfie

We also ventured to put our feet in the water, but it was absolutely freezing. On the weekend they had their annual Polar Plunge event where people went into the water, and the time they were in the water was recorded. They were sponsored for their time and the donations went to some worthy cause.

Karen Feasting

Rod Feasting or Just Posing?

Hired a car on Friday for over the weekend to familiarise ourselves with driving in America again. Last time, in 2008, we had an accident, so caution was needed.

The Chrysler

This was a “special deal” according to their advertisement – 3 days @ $10 per day – but when went to pick it up, with all the extra costs – tax, insurances .. even the minimum was closer to $40 per day. However it was a nice car, Chrysler convertible, though Rod couldn’t figure how to get the roof down for a photo.. We went exploring in it around Virginia Beach. A lot of the roads down by the beach are virtually deserted, so ideal to get some practice on. It’s not just a matter of getting used to driving on the right hand side of the road. The windscreen wipers and indicators are opposite to what we are used to, so the windscreen wipers went on at times when we were ready to turn corners. The main rear view mirror is on the right hand side instead of the left. When turning into driveways, there was a tendency to go onto the left hand side of the entrance way instead of the right. It is amazing how in the pressure situations, that instinct rises up and overrides the brain to revert back to habit – there must be a spiritual application here!
We also went for a drive along the Interstate (main highway) to search out the CBN 700 Club Headquarters where the next conference is being held. On Sunday we used it to go to another, very large, Hollywood-type Church on Sunday …next week the small Life Church looks far more attractive – even though we have to go for a one hour bus ride and long walk to get there.