The walls of Jericho

First, Sorry that I have not been blogging more.  Amazing things are happening here. The lord is at work but we are so busy and get so tired when teams are here. I just woke from a 20 minute nap that turned into almost an hour, thanks to the snooze button.  It is getting hotter here so our quite times are spent relaxing and catching up on sleep lost over past day.  None the less here is a story from earlier in the week. I did post something about it on Social Media but here is the long story.

I believe this was Monday evening.

I was grouped with Ryan, Nikita (one of the girls from Sheffield) and one of our translators (I will call him S for the story). Ryan was told we were going to the park to prayer walk. Which we were excited about. The park is beautiful and no one is disappointed to go there. So we had S meet us there since he was already in the city.  We got into town and found that we were really at #5 which is the place of the building that houses that space that we want for the Agape Center.

This is the space that would be perfect for the Agape Center.

So back up to when we first arrived and parked we always circle up and pray and then disperse. So before we all split up Ryan shared a "word" that he got while relaxing earlier today.  He got the impression that whoever was at #5 location needed to walk around the building like the wall of Jericho. Six times praying and then the last one declaring Gods goodness and that the building is ours. Just after sharing that someone was looking at the group assignments are realized that Ryan's group was at #5.

So after splitting up finding S, because he was at the park with a dead phone, we started out walk around the building. We may have seemed crazy to on lookers. Walking around the same half block over and over. But we did it.

Walking laps, that is the building in the background.

A bit about how the walk went for me and how the Lord showed up.

 So a little background, this summer the Lord is showing me and teaching me that He sees me, He cares for me beyond belief. This was just more reaffirmed this night during the walk. 

The first two laps around the building I would start to pray for something but then couldn't, in the sense that I didn't have the words or what I wanted to pray I didn't know who to put words to it.  I was getting frustrated and the enemy was mocking me. Telling me that if only I had the gift of tongues like everyone else then I wouldn't be of no use. He just kept telling me I was broken, that I would be the reason that this was not going to work. I kept praying against all that and even prayed for tongues. The Lord knows my heart and where I am at on tongues. He knows that its a complicated thing for me. So I was not given tongues that night but instead each lap around he would give me something to pray about. Something to share with the other three to pray for together as we walked.  Which to me was even more sweet because he saw my need, my distress and came in a gifted me with knowledge and a way to pray, that incorporated all of us so that the prayers were even stronger.  Jesus himself even said that "Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven." in Matthew 18:19.  

Praying over the building on the final lap.

The last Lap was all celebration, though it may have been the quietest celebration. We thanked the Lord and declared this building and place His.  The four of us walked away confident that that building is ours and if its not it will be clear and the Lord will give us another place that will be easy to rent. 

Declaring this Building THE LORDS.

We didn't talk to anyone that evening.  But we knew we poked big holes in the tent of darkness over the city.  S could feel the enemy's camp was in a state of confusion with each lap and each prayer prayed that night.  Just another way the Lord is showing me and my teammates how important prayer is.

Dschool was here.

We said goodbye to our first team on Monday.
That means only 4 more left. 
I'm not liking that. 

This fits so well. 

Check out our intern blog that Sydney writes. 

It was a great trip.  It was like a big family reunion too.  Because I helped with Dschool this year I felt like each member of that team was family. It didn’t matter who you got pair with for ministry because you wanted to be around them all, all the time.

One particular evening when we went out to the city to canvas for Unbound, I was paired with three others. Our goal was to talk to businesses and have them hang a poster up that says “Not in My City”. Unbound is a organization that works with raising awareness and stopping human trafficking. Check it out here and find out more about them.  Anyways, this evening came after a few evenings where I felt like a very small piece of the puzzle and not very instrumental in ministry.  (I am not a go up to a person and start talking to them type, so street ministry pushes and stretches me) So this night with a clear task laid before us I was feeling like I could be a part of this, I could succeed. Compared to how I felt other nights in ministry.  So with my team we finally found our section of town that we were to talk to the businesses about. All evening out joke was three Americans and a Mexican enter China town on an Italian holiday in Italy...   

All Jokes aside God showed up and make me feel so loved by him. It was our third or forth business. Clearly in Chinatown we were running into a communication difficulty with not knowing Chinese. So two of my team went into a Chinese Restaurant and I started praying like I had every other time. This time my prayer was along the lines of “Lord let them look at the poster and even if they don’t understand, let them point to a space on the wall and say this is empty you can hang it here.”  Not 5 seconds after I prayed that, an employee came out and pointed to a blank spot on the wall for our team to hang up the poster.  I just started to laugh and thank God for answering my prayer.  For days before I doubted so much if I was even making a difference. Doubted if my prayers made a difference. And here He was showing me that “Yes I do hear your prayers”. For the rest of the evening it happened almost just like that. I prayed for what I would like to see, and my Lord answered my prayers. By the time Dinner time came I felt so loved and so seen by God that no one could have convinced me otherwise. 


This is just one story of so many from this past week.  Each evening there were stories of healings of praying for and talking about Jesus with Muslims who normally wouldn’t. The Lord is moving here and he is using us interns and the Short-term teams to do it. 

It is such a privilege to be a part of what is happening here. Its going to be hard to go home in a few months.

Here are a few pictures of our week with Dschool.

Before ministry in the Piazza.

Connie (One of my Omaha Roommates and Friends) on top of one of Etna's craters

Picnic after hiking and praying on top of Etna.

A beautiful off day in a beautiful town full of tourists.