Our Trip Overseas

Sat in on the King’s Arms’ school of ministry today, was fantastic. Really met with God and was great to see people so passionate for his presence and making an impact on the world! We went out to Bedford town to pray for people and had a couple of epic meetings with people.
Minnie and another guy went up to a couple of older ladies, one who had a walking stick and didn’t speak a lot of English. Turns out she has had pain in her back since hurting it cleaning the bath in the 1960’s!! Minnie asked to pray for her and but she wasn’t keen out in public so she grabbed Minnie and took her round the corner where Minnie prayed for her back and the pain left! The lady was testing it out and bending forward and was amazed to not be in pain! Praise God!
A guy called Tim and I went up to group of three lads (late teens) and started to chat to them. One guy was interested as we asked him whether he would like experience God so Tim prayed for him and the guy shut his eyes for ages, He said he felt a kind of weight on him physically (in a good way!) and Tim told him that that’s God on him! I then shared a picture I had for him, explaining about God’s heart towards him. He was really amazed with what was happening and really open Jesus. It was awesome! You could see it in his eyes. Then his friend (who was previously with him but then left) rang him and told him that we were laughing at him, which we said wasn’t true. But he seemed put off and left, which was a real shame, but God still touched him powerfully! And God is on his case, save him Lord!

We spent last week travelling in Oregon with our new friends Andrew and Kat from Wellington, who we randomly met in Redding and half an hour later decided we would venture north together! Got to see Crator Lake, Coos Bay, Portland and Snowboard at Mt Hood, ohhh yeah!

Now we are in Tacoma, Washington visiting old friends Bo and Alexis and Wes, who are planting a new frontiers church there. Church meeting this morning was great! Checking out Seattle tomorrow with our lovely hosts.

I just wanted to share a crazy story that happened today while we were out treasure hunting with a few guys from the church. We met a Christian lady who had a tumour in her shoulder for the last 15 years, not a cancerous one but it stopped her moving her shoulder properly and she was soon to have surgery on it. The three of us put our hands on her shoulder and started praying, with lots of laughter! As we prayed she felt electricity go into her shoulder and down her arm, and when we finished praying she tested it out and could move it so freely, moving it in ways that previously the tumour stopped her! She hasn’t been able to move it like that for 15 years! Praise God! We couldn’t feel the tumour because it wasn’t on the surface but she is going to go back to get it checked out.

We also shared prophetic words with her that we felt God was telling us, which she said were really spot on with where shes at right now, its great to be used by God for stuff like that!!

We had lots of other great chats and prays with people, sharing things we felt from God and praying for healing. The pain in a lady’s back left as we prayed and her boyfriend felt the presence of God as we prayed for him too! There was a lady with a young toddler who we spoke to, and I felt God say that the toddler hadn’t been sleeping well so we asked her, and she said that was true so we were able to pray for peace on both of them for sleeping well at night.

God is amazing. All the time!

Hello

Well we finished out theology course and passed with flying colours!! just kidding it wasnt graded so everyone passed!! We made some lovely friends so it was sad to say goodbye to everyone.
Sorry that we have been a bit slack at updating our blog! so many awesome things have happened that we havnt had the time to tell you about.

We only just survived the flight to San Fran…11 hours on an air china flight was an experience to say the least! then trying to navigate our way around Beijing airport… well that was a mission and a half! We did meet a nice canadian guy though taking a 72 hour journey back home!! it made our 28 hours seem like nothing!

The flight from Beijing to San Fran was a little bit nicer cause we had a bit more legroom and a spare seat next to us which made sleeping alot easier.

In San Francisco we stayed in the Hilton Hotel at the airport which was a nice little piece of luxury. We caught the BART (train) into the city and did the tourist thing, going to Pier 39 and the exploratorium and even IHOP wich stands for international house of pancakes, very american!!

It was Nat’s Birthday on our last day there so we went out for a lovely dinner to celebrate.

We are currently in Redding California. We caught the greyhound bus here, a must do while in america! we met some christian guys on the bus which was nice to have some people to chat with about Bethel church which is where we’re visiting.

More about Bethel church soon,

Hope everyone is well back home,

love Nat and Minnie

Hello all

Just a bit of an update on our past few weeks.
We are about 3/4 of the way through our theology course now, it’s gone so fast! We’ve made really good friends with all the people who have been on the course with us and it is sad to think that it is almost over.

This weekend it is easter and we are house sitting for a couple in the church (Gareth and BJ) some of you may know them.
Yester day on good friday we had an early morning church service at long reef beach (next to Dee Why). It was a beautiful morning with the sun shining down and lots of surfers in the sea.

We have booked our flights for the next leg of the trip… San Fransisco via China!! 11 hours to Beijing with a 6 hour lay over then another 11 hours to San Fran. Suffice to say this will be an adventure!

Just finished our first week of our Theology Course, it’s been epic. There’s twelve of us on it, from Cambodia, Philipines, Japan, Perth, Sydney and the mighty Wellington. Led by a legendary guy called Mike from the USA. Everyone’s getting on like a house on fire, great laughs, especially from the Cambodians, they are hilarious.

We’ve been learning a lot and really stretching our brains, as well as having some times to meet with God and worship, and we’ll be doing more of that this coming week. It’s been great hearing lots of stories from the different New Frontiers churches around the Pacific Rim and the challenges they are facing, as well as great stuff that has happened. We’ve looked at cultural differences a wee bit, with tackling different  worldviews people might have and how to stick to the gospel without bringing ‘western’ ways of life and imposing them on other cultures just because that might be what you are used to.

Minnie and I got to go to a party at the richest house in AUSTRALIA last friday night with Jamie and Joel, was crazy! It was one of those experiences where you think, I have no idea how I got here! The people were very normal though and being there made you think, yeah it’s flash but money definitely isn’t everything.

Also been out surfing at Long Reef a couple of times with the lads, amazing waves and warm weather, yeeeoooow! Great part of the world.

Just got to Sydney for our first part of the trip, it’s been awesome to have a few days just chilling, and staying with the wonderful Wilsons right by the sea. Great old friends, its great to be staying with them for a whole month. Walking distance to two surfbreaks….oh yeah!

We were welcomed by a pretty sweet thunderstorm on the day we got here,  fork lightening and everything! One peal scared the crap out of us, sounded like it hit something nearby! Walked up to the church where we’ll be doing the theology course for a month, looks like it’s going to be epic, with real epic people too! Got “does the future have a church” by Terry Virgo to start reading for the course, and to answer that question, YES the future has a church!

Had dinner with Ben and Jonty (Jan and Mariane’s Nephew!) last night and went on a signiture Ben tour around Manly and saw some sweet Bats in a tree.