“It was a crisp clear morning when we arrived at Burnham Park for the weekly Street Church. We bought a small sound system, song books, hot food and drinks and a love for the people who were gathering. Burnham Park is the central park in Baguio and boasts a lake with little boats for hire. Tourists visit, locals exercise, vendors sell and others live there in survival mode. The Street Church basically caters for the latter 2 categories.
The crowd of regulars were waiting with others still arriving plus a number of new people. Right there in the open close to the lake the worship began…uninhibited, joyous and heartfelt. Again there came that unmistakable presence of God and His goodness and people were openly touched and so thankful for God’s love in their lives. Angela spoke on God’s forgiveness and our need to forgive others. Even though it is in public, the people paid rapt attention. At the conclusion some received prayer and the testimonies of God’s interventions is nothing short of amazing. The people continued fellowshipping as we shared the meal and other people who were on the fringes came to receive food.
This church, which has grown quite large, is full of people who are now hungry to know God better. Some attend the Bible School His Heart runs weekly, many attended the day Retreat joining the other churches Angela oversees. I was at the baptism service where over 20 new Christians were baptised and a number were from the Street Church.
It is so thrilling to see all this happening. Every person with a story of the love of Jesus. Allen who came to Street Church 5 months ago who now has his wife and family back, Basilio the vendor (seen in the red t-shirt above) who was baptised along with his wife being cheered on by Willie and Gloria.
Willie was healed of crippling arthritis some 6 months ago.-
What a privilege to watch and be involved in something so pure and God glorifying.”
Tonight was amazing as our youth lead the worship at their service. I felt so full of joy as I watched them loving Jesus with their whole hearts. Beautiful voices, beautiful hearts, beautiful worship to our King.
We started with one little cd player. As things grew we have purchased a number of sound systems which we drag around to various places. Now we have a simple band. Guitar, beatbox and vocals.
God is good and He is raising up young people who are taking their place in leading people into His presence.
Last weekend was our annual Touching Heaven Kids Conference held in Auckland, New Zealand. Kids aged 8-13 years came from different places in the North Island and encountered Jesus.
Conference sessions, practical electives, small group times, crazy games, awesome praise and worship, healing the sick, hearing God's voice... all part of the fun! :)
Here are a few words from the kids...
Touching Heaven Testimonies 2010
God helped me learn about him and how much I love him and care about him. And showing me all those faces in my mind. I had a great experience.
In my elective he showed me how to talk to people and have the courage to ask people if they wanted prayer for their injuries.
I saw a tree with my name on it. God loves me.
God really touched me this weekend. I really felt God. I had visions, saw healings and saw many prophecies. Thank you so much God.
I’ve experienced God’s love and anointing.
I had a vision and I saw and angel. I was blessed with the holy Spirit
He taught me how to talk to him and he showed me how to heal the sick. He also used me to call his summon his kingdom and bring it to earth.
This weeked I had so much fun!!! Now I know lots of things about God.
God has helped me make new friends. I saw the sick healed, saw visions. I can concentrate on worship.
I saw visions, made new friends, got to know God more, talked to him and had so much fun.
God filled my heart with love and joy. I like the dance.
The worship was good so in my life I can do it myself. It made me stronger. Next time when we do come, we will have a good time.
God was there. I danced. I was filled with his love. I felt happy. I felt warm when people prayed for me. Now all I can say is I love you Lord.
This weekend I learned that God heals people and that He loves me.
God taught me how to pray for people if they really need it. Also he taught me how to listen to him.
I have experienced God’s peace and seen people healed either partially or fully. Our prayers doubled a boy’s vision which was pretty sweet.
The presence of God fell on me. I had !!!lots of visions!!! I heard his voice.
God has shown me some pictures that were AMAZING. One of them was fire.
God healed someone through me and it was really cool to see her face when she found that she was healed.
God has helped me to be more confident to pray out loud and has drawn me closer to him. He helped me to be able to worship him in the band and actually worship freely and be able to life up everything to the Lord and lift up my hands and just worship!
I got healed of my headache and my knee muscles were healed.
I went on the treasure hunt of God. We went with our group to the mall and we were looking for the person God gave me that was wearing a pink top and blue jeans, so i found her and I prayed for her and she got healed from back pain.
I met new friends, had awesome visions, played cool games, had a good sleep, worshipped and praised God and was filled with God’s love.
At 2010 TH conference I saw several different visions, felt God’s amazing presences and God also made me more confident in him. I enjoyed the drama session. Can’t wait till 2011. Go God!
God touched me and I saw a vision of angels singing songs of praise
Healing – and I really enjoyed it AND, words, pictures from God – I really enjoyed that too. I liked the worship.
He talked to me for the first time. He showed me visions for the first time. He made me not shy to worship.
It’s been great seeing God at work, healing my wrist and showing me prophetic pictures. Yey God.
I asked God to fill me or just come to me and I felt the Holy Spirit in me.
Some people and I prayed for someone and his eyesight improved/doubled
I came a lot closer to God. I made a lot of new awesome friends. I learnt how to praise God in other ways. I learnt how to pray for other people and heal them. I met some really cool leaders who prayed for me.
He’s opened my heart up more to him and shown me his love. He’s helped me to understand him more and shown me his glory!! God is awesome! I loved this camp. Can’t wait to come again!
He maked me more awesome!
He made me hear. He opened my heart. He loves me and he made me really happy.
When I was getting prayed for I suddenly felt joyful. I didn’t know what happened until my leader said “When God’s holy Spirit comes on someone you might feel happy and joyful”. So I had the Holy Spirit come on me. That was the first time that happened!
I asked God to help me get closer to him and during praise and worship today I felt unstable and I was rocking back and forward and felt really warm!
God has healed my back. He has helped me connect. He has given me more confidence to pray. I felt what it was like to have his mighty presence in my heart. I experienced angels and Jesus. The Holy Spirit surrounded me with his warmth and love.
I felt more loved than I ever have. I was touched spiritually and humanly.
I really felt God’s presence in a way I hadn’t felt it before. I saw people get healed. I prayed for healing on my friends arm and it started to heal. I’ve never done that before. It was SOOO fun!!!!!!
It's only day three of our five day Touching Heaven Kids in Baguio, Philippines.
Everyday God's presence has been increasing. Everyday He has been touching their hearts. Everyday our young people have been serving with energy and passion. Everyday I'm just amazed at what God is doing here.
To see such a team of youth revivalists rising up and ministering was so far from reality a year ago. Now... well there is no holding them back....
To see our children worshipping God with such passion ... well, I'm actually speechless and feel undone. I'm amazed at God. His goodness. His love. His power. His faithfulness.
Take a look at this rough video I captured on my photo camera. Not the greatest quality I know, but hopefully will inspire and encourage us all - that the King loves us!
Well, I'm exhausted but wired and have to write this before I sleep. Tonight we had a "Prayer Encounter" Evening for our youth. It is an interactive environment where they can walk through rooms in the building, which are set up as different prayer stations, with different ways of praying. We had a powerful time and at the end we gathered together to worship. That morning God had shown me a picture and said "Ask me for rain". I thought he was speaking spiritually but tonight I felt like we were to ask him for rain in the natural. You see, the Philippines is in the middle of a terrible drought. We have had no rain for months! Every day is dry. Many farmers are losing their land and livelihood. Everything is parched. We have had city water in the pipes for about 3 hours only in the last six or so weeks. There are power cuts throughout the Philippines as the dams are so low and there are electricity shortages.
So for some time the young people passionately cried out for rain. First in the natural, but then also in the spiritual. We rejoiced, sung and danced as we declared that Forever, God is faithful and His love endures forever. As we were preparing to leave....the youth started shouting "It's raining!!" and it was.....
God truly is faithful. All the way home, the kids were just saying over and over.. "It's a miracle. God is so good."
God is so wonderful! Helen is an intern with us full time with a small allowance and accommodation provided by us. After praying, she felt to go ahead to study a Bible Degree program but a money miracle was needed. This last week we had a substantial gift towards Helen's training. Not only is it the money for the course that is so great, it is the expression of God's love towards her and her continually growing knowledge of the Father heart of God. Thanks generous people.
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