The next Chapter!

Hello everyone,

Well, it's been a long time since our last update here so we throughout we better fill you all in on what's been happening in our lives... It's a bit of a long one but I hope all the photos help!

Finishing BSSM and Leaving Redding:

After mission trip we finished up our last few weeks at BSSM which was both amazing and sad as two of the most incredible years of our lives were coming to an end. The last week in particular was unforgettable, we had amazing times of worship together where the presence of God was so tangible. We spontaneously worshipped as a class with Bill Johnson for a whole afternoon which Bill described as "camping around the presence", we got commissioned by Bill and Kris, blessed and prayed for by all the 2nd year staff and finished feeling truly sent out to go change the world!!

Graduation was a true celebration and thanksgiving time of all the Lord had done in and through us during our 2 years there and needless to say the worship that night raised the roof. It felt like a true honour to be trained and equipped for revival amongst so many amazing, gifted people and it truly felt like a highly trained, powerful army was being sent out into the nations to see the Kingdom of God being advanced.

Graduation Day

After school finished we had a few weeks left in Redding to pack up, spend time with friends who have become family to us, unwind and enjoy America. That time really was a blessing and allowed us time to say goodbye to that season of our lives and the many special people in it without feeling rushed. We know Redding and Bethel will always be a home for us to go back from time to time, to get refreshed and re-filled. We absolutely loved our time there and so glad we took the step to go. Our lives have been transformed by what has been cultivated there and we've grown and developed so much as people and leaders and feel so trained, equipped and poured into to go release all that we’ve received into the world.

Thanks to all of you who made it possible for us to be there for 2 years by supporting us prayerfully or financially, we really appreciate all of you!

Summer

We arrived home in Northern Ireland at the start of June to amazing weather, and a new 1 week old nephew. We have spent a lot of our summer spending time with our family here, including 7 nieces and nephews which we’ve spent many hours playing with. We have also been able to catch up with many friends this summer and spent time worshipping, eating and sharing stories together. It's been great being back with our church family here- Emmanuel and we've really enjoyed having the opportunity to share, lead worship and partner with them in all that they're walking in. We were also the guest speakers at a weekend called ‘Encounter’ organized by Hope Fellowship which we got to know a bit last summer. This was such an honour for us and we really enjoyed both leading worship and speaking to a group of really hungry followers of Jesus. Many people were touched and refreshed and a few people experienced some level of healing in their bodies. We've loved getting the opportunity to share at a few other meetings over the summer and have felt so encouraged and believed in everywhere we've been.

Meeting Zac!

Having fun with the kids.

This summer has been such a good time for processing and reflecting on all we've learnt and received in the past 2 years. We sat through hours of teaching and training and have had life changing encounters with God there and so, its been good to revisit some of that to let it really sink in. It's also been a great time to start preparing for our new season (which if you keep reading you'll find out about), thinking and praying about things such as what our vision is and what are core values are. It's been a real blessing to have this time to plan and set us up for success.

The Next Chapter

This journey started back in May 2011, just a few months before we left for Bethel when Daniel went back to Brazil for 10 days to see his family. Up until this point, we had no definite plans after our time in Bethel, we just knew that was the next step and thought we'd receive some direction while we were there. However, one day when Daniel was just driving around his city there, God really started to speak to him. He started to feel God's heart for the city, and see it in ways he'd never before and he felt God saying that it was time for him to come back. As well as this, God started to show him the great spiritual inheritance he had there, that was ours to step into. Daniel's parents are influential leaders in their city, they are both pastors and his Dad is a politician, they have planted churches and carry a lot of authority in the spiritual realm. It was like the Lord showed all the open doors there would be for us there as well as really capturing Daniels heart for the city.

Daniel shared the experience he had there with me and that He felt like God was calling us there after our time in Bethel. We'd always talked and thought about moving to Brazil one day but we never thought we'd go to Daniel's home town as we had a lot of friends and contacts in a city elsewhere in the country and just thought we'd end up there. However, when Daniel shared with me, it totally made sense and so much excitement rose up in my heart and spirit. Throughout our 2 years at Bethel we received a lot of confirmation that Brazil was where God was calling us through prophetic words, connections we made there and our own encounters with God and therefore we gradually made the decision that we would move to Brazil indefinitely after Bethel.

So where exactly are we going?

A lot of people have been asking us where we're actually going in Brazil and so here it is: We are moving to a city called Uberlândia in the state of Minas Gerais, which is towards the south of the country (see the map). It is the 2nd largest city in the state and has around 1 million inhabitants (if you include surrounding areas). It is one of the richest agricultural areas in Brazil and therefore was appropriately name as Uberlândia, which means 'Fertile Land' which we'll take in the spiritual sense as well!

                              

Daniel grew up in this city from around the age of 7 when his family moved there from São Paulo and stayed there until he moved to Ireland. All of his immediate family still live there, as well as many friends.

What will we be doing there?

The main thing we will initially be doing there is working with Daniel's families’ church, which is called Igreja Evangelho Vivo (Living Gospel Church). His Mum and Dad planted the church and are the senior pastors of a congregation of a few hundred. Initially we will be helping his mum out being on the leadership team and leading the youth. We also really want to start up some outreach programs in the church.

We want to take time to transition well, especially for me as I learn a new language and culture and also because we plan to be there long term, we're not in a hurry to take on lots while we're first there. But some of the things we're dreaming about and aiming towards is to start a school of ministry to train and equip leaders, start outreach and social justice projects in the local community and wider city and get involved and influence the political realm.

There are lots of open doors and opportunities for us there which is exciting, and our heart in all of this to go love and call all people into their true identity as powerful sons and daughters of a good God, who release and bring the Kingdom of God into every sphere of society and see cities, nations and culture transformed. We dream of seeing the city of Uberlandia transformed and shining with the glory of God!!

We are leaving for this adventure at the end of next week and would love for you to be praying for us as we make this transition. So her are some things you can be praying for:

- A smooth and easy transition into Brazilian life as much as possible!

- Christine to get the language quickly and have fun doing it!

- For the church and especially the Youth as we begin to lead

them

- Transformation, healing, deliverance etc in many lives

- Sufficient finances as we settle there and make our home

As we move to Brazil we are going to be continuing to update this blog but we are also planning on sending updates in Newsletters/prayer letters by email. If you would like to receive these please make sure we have your email and tell us you want them!

So that’s it for now, we’ll be in touch and would love for you to be in touch with us too!!

With love

Christine Oliveira

Colombia Testimonies.

Hey everybody,

So here is the long awaited 2^nd part of our blog about our trip to Colombia. Sorry it took so long, between the busyness of finishing up school and then our Mac being out of action for a few weeks, it took longer than we anticipated.

In this blog we have shared a few detailed testimonies of meetings and people we encountered there. We hope it encourages you and fills you with hope and faith for what the Lord can do.

Righteousness, Peace and Joy

One of the nights Daniel and I and another girl from our team got to go and take a cell group from the church. We never really knew much about the groups we were going to but just prepared as best as we could and relied on the Holy Spirit to guide us through the night. As soon as we arrived at the cell group I immediately felt that this group was a family and really loved each other as a family did and knew that was going to be significant for the night.

We shared on intimacy with God and how God made a way through Jesus for us to have relationship with him and that we're seated in heavenly places. Then Maria led them into an encounter time where they each asked Jesus for a gift and as this was happening people started to weep at what Jesus was giving and showing them. The presence of God was so strong in the room by then. We asked some of them to share what they'd seen and one by one they said how they'd seen different family members come home. Someone saw their cousin who was in drug rehab restored and home. Nearly each promise God had given them in that encounter was to do with family and so we all got together and declared what God had shown them and agreed with each other. It was so beautiful to see this groups love for each other and how they really fought for each other's breakthroughs.

Then because the presence of God was so thick and tangible in the room we decided to go after healing. There were about 8-10 people who needed healing in their body so we got the others in the group to pray for them and by the end of the night every single person was healed!! People got healed from knee problems, chest and throat problems, migraines and stomach issues.

Romans 14:17 says "the Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" so after we'd seen Gods righteousness (making wrong things right) and peace (alignment with heaven) through the healings and encounters all that was left to come was joy. So people started to get full of joy, and laughter erupted in the room! It was a wonderful night in God's presence where heaven came and invaded a hungry, humble group of people. We saw what can happen when people are hungry and expectant and when we let the Holy Spirit come, lead and take over!

Ministering God's love.

Stopping for the One

On our first Sunday we did prayer ministry after the services in the main church we were connected with there. There were at least 2,000 people at each service so you can imagine the amount of people coming for prayer ministry at the end. We each had a line of at least 20 people waiting for prayer and they waited for as long as they had to- some up to 45mins!

That day I met a young woman called Gloria in the prayer line who had been working as a prostitute but had got saved a while ago and no longer wanted this to be her life. She was very broken with a lot of emotional hurt, she also had a lot of physical problems and had no other way of getting money other than prostitution. She was desperate, I could see she wanted a new life but presently she couldn't see any other way of supporting herself. I felt quite overwhelmed by her circumstances and filled with compassion for her. I only had about 5mins with her as I had 5 other people still waiting for prayer but I knew I couldn't just say a prayer and leave her. My heart was moved with compassion for her and I wanted to help her practically, I felt like this was her chance to change her life. I was trying to find out if she knew anyone in the church, if she had anyone helping or supporting her but she didn't. She came to Jesus in another city and since being in Medellin she just came to this church now and then but wasn't connected in to anything. So I asked her if she'd wait for me until I prayed for the last few people so I could talk to her more and she agreed.

I wasn't sure if she'd wait but she did and me and my translator got to talk to her more. I felt such love and compassion for her that I said in faith that I was going to find out information for her and find some support for her and to come back next Saturday when we were going to be there and find me. So during the week I tried to find out any programs or groups that could help someone in her situation but couldn't get any clear answers. But then I met my translator from that day and she said she couldn't be there on Saturday to help me with Gloria but her friend would and that her friend wants to help her.

So on Saturday we went back to the church and I wasn't seeing her anywhere but during the message I looked back and saw her and so I went to make sure it was her and it was. She was really happy to see me, so I found the girl who said she'd help her and translate for me too. We got to pray for her again and prophesy over her, the translator also gave her a Bible as she didn't have one. I was telling her how God wanted her whole life as He wanted to transform and touch her whole life. She then told me that if I didn't find her that day that she was going to forget about God, church and trying to change her life as it was too hard. But because I came and found her she wasn't going to give up- she had hope! I told her that’s God heart for her, He wanted her so much that He put it in my heart to find and help her.

I had put a scarf I had in my bag that day for some reason and just felt the Holy Spirit say give it to her so I gave it to her and told her it was a prophetic gift and sign of the generosity and care she's going to experience from the body of Christ. The scarf also had butterflies on it, which I told her were to represent the freedom and transformation she is going to experience. She was so touched by this simple act of kindness. I then got my translator to tell her how the church could support and help her and she's going to stay in touch with her and help her get connected into things.

 I have so much hope for her and for her to come out of prostitution completely as God has captured her heart. I saw the power of giving just a little bit extra and going out of my way to help someone and not just say a prayer and move onto the next person but to pay attention to the tug on my heart and compassion of Jesus I was experiencing. Jesus stopped for the one and so should we, someone’s life may just be transformed...

Juliana

I had the opportunity and privilege to personally lead two people to the Lord on the trip. The first was a young girl I met on our first Sunday there during an outreach we did in an area called Santo Domnigo. Some of the team and I were making balloon animals for the kids when we met this sweet girl called Juliana. Immediately I felt the Lord highlight her to me and show me that she was really intelligent and gifted. So I just simply told her that and encouraged her, which made her day.

Then later I was sitting down in the square and she came and sat beside me. Daniel and I were talking to her using all the Spanish we knew, asking her what she wanted to be when she grew up etc and then I just felt like I should ask her if she knew Jesus. She said she did kind of but didn’t really have a relationship with Him and so I wanted to share the gospel with her but unfortunately my Spanish wasn’t good enough for that. So I called over our host, Tom who runs the children’s centre to help us. He ended up sharing the gospel with her that Jesus died for her and he loves her etc and then I asked her if she wanted to invite Jesus into her heart and she did and so we led her in a prayer in the middle of the square. I then prayed that she would feel the Holy Spirit and she felt wind on her hands. I felt like the Lord really picked her out for me and that he really wanted to start relationship with her that day!

Me with Juliana (centre) and her friend.

                                     

Treasure Hunts

On our last Sunday afternoon in Medellin we did outreach called Treasure Hunts with anyone who wanted to from the church. Treasure Hunts are when we ask God for words of knowledge (or clues) for people He wants us to meet- like what they look like, location, anything they may need prayer or healing for etc. We then go out in small groups and try and find the people on our list from our clues, which are God’s treasures for that day.

So that day four large groups went to 4 different parts of the city to find and bless God’s treasures. The testimonies that came back from that day were incredible. Some of the young people from the church, who’d been out doing treasure hunts with us the night before for the first time, went out and saw many healings. They prayed for a man with Polio who hadn’t been able to walk properly for a while and he ended up getting up and walking. Then there was a team who had a little 7 year old girl with them and her Mum. When they were at the metro station the little girl went over to an older man and asked him if he had pain and he did, so she just prayed- “in the name of Jesus, pain go” and he felt completely fine after.

Another one of the teams went to a park which is always quite busy. One of the Colombian’s decided to bring a PA system with him for our leader to preach. So they set up and our leader Joel preached the gospel and a large crowd gathered and then the team started to call out words of knowledge for healing. Dozens upon dozens of people were healed, eyesight and hearing restored, one man had a nectarine sized tumor on his neck that completely vanished! Many of them accepted Jesus that day including 2 men who were previously doing witch craft behind the team when they were preaching.

A lot happened that day and many of the church saw someone get healed or touched through them for the first time outside of the church.

Our leader Joel preaching in the park.

                                      

Here is a video a girl from our trip made about our trip with more testimonies etc on it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4u5bBF8u-s&feature=youtu.be

Hope you enjoyed reading this and that it’s encouraged you! God is a really good God and this trip just made us even more convinced of that!

Colombia Mission Trip - Part one

Hey everyone, so we have finally managed to process what happened on our trip enough to write a blog on it. There’s so much to share, in just over a week in Medellín our team had about 40 speaking engagements, 7 morning devotionals, numerous outreaches and some more. Thousands of lives were touched, at least 700 people came to the Lord, thousands of healings and miracles were released, so many inner healings took place, many were delivered of demons and countless hearts received the Father's love for the first time, wow, our God is such a good God!!

The full blog of our time in Colombia will be delivered in a trilogy, how fun huh?!? Today I’m gonna write part one, the overview of our trip, so much happened, I’ll try keep it as short as possible. Then in a couple of days we’ll post part two, with blog of testimonies, testimonies of physical healings, emotional healings, people encountering God, people giving their lives to God and all that, and in a couple of days after that we’ll be posting the final part of this trilogy, a blog on how this trip has deeply impacted our lives and prepared us more for what’s about to come as we move to Brazil at the end of the summer. This is the best way we found to fully describe how amazing this experience was and the impact it had in the city of Medellín and in our lives. I hope you guys enjoy reading this and we pray that through these blogs, stories and testimonies you would be encouraged to believe more and more for what God can do wherever you are, and that revival is a very real thing that is happening right now in many parts of the world. Yes!!

Part one:

Revival is Here

The church we were working with in Colombia is called Comunidad Cristiana de Fé, this church is truly living in revival. Every week they have 40 to 60 new Christians giving their lives to Christ, EVERY WEEK! We were there 2 weekends and we couldn’t believe the amount of people giving their lives to Jesus every service, and they weren’t just praying a prayer, those people were in tears, having a full on encounter with God, so beautiful to watch. As for now they have 7000 people in the church, 2000 young people at their youth service and over 400 cell groups around the city, and the numbers are growing every week. It was so amazing to partner and serve a house living under true revival. That itself is something I won’t forget, but this is just the beginning of the journey we had during 9 days of ministry in Medellín, Colombia.

Our team arrived in Medellín on the weekend and on our first day there we attended their youth services with around 2000 people each, it was a lot of fun. Worship in Colombia reminds me a lot of Brazil, they are extravagant, lively, loud and yes, they love to dance! At some stage this 70 year old man was on the stage waving flags, and it wasn’t long till other oldies joined him, dancing and jumping as they worshiped God with all they had to offer at that moment- so awesome.

During the service we got to share some testimonies and release God’s goodness to the church, and after both the services we were doing prayer ministry. Some people waited in the line for over 40mins to receive prayer, many of them were physically healed, emotionally healed and had encounters with the love of God. The message the pastor shared on that day was on abortion, so during the ministry time we had quite a lot of women that came up to receive prayer because they had multiple abortions in the past. There were some quite heavy things being thrown at us, but God’s grace and love is stronger than all that, and many of those women had rejection and condemnation broken of their lives as we ministered to them. It was so amazing to see them forgiving themselves and embracing God’s love and acceptance as they realized that nothing can separate them from the love of their heavenly Daddy.

On Sunday morning we did the same thing, shared some testimonies, called words of knowledge from the stage and at the end ministered to people for a very, very long time, 2000 people is a lot of people for a team of 21 haha. Again, so many testimonies of encounters with God, deliverances and both physical and emotional healing came out of that ministry time, God is so good and He was showing up with all his goodness at every prayer request, whatever it was.

On Sunday afternoon after the church services we went to a community called Santo Domingo, this community is built on a mountain, and the best way to get there is by cable-cars, as you can see on the pictures. We did our first outreach there, hundreds of people from the community came to this square and we spent the rest of our day hanging with the kids and adults from that community. Christine and I and a couple of other guys from our team were playing with kids and making balloons for a couple of hours until we completely ran out of balloons. The awesome thing is that through making swords and crowns, we were knighting kids saying that they were princes and princesses of God, and through that we got to release their true identity, Christine led one of these girls to Christ and it was so sweet to watch. On that day after a open air message and a drama for the kids many people gave their lives to Christ and were connected to the local cell groups from the church that are in the area. Many people came asking for prayers for physical healings and once again God showed up, they had encounters with a powerful God that cared and loved them enough to heal them and it opened the door wide open for them to give their lives to Christ, it was a great outreach.

Santo Domingo

Santo Domingo Cable-cars

On Monday and Tuesday during the day we got to spend time with the kids from the foundation we were staying at. The place is called ‘Fundacion Viento Fresco’ (Fresh Wind foundation). They take care of around 175 kids aged from 6 months old to 12 years old. These kids come from really abusive and hostile backgrounds, many of which live in high risk of becoming street kids. A lot of these kids parents are involved in prostitution, drug-dealing and gangs, and a lot of the kids don’t really have a father in their lives. During those days we got to just hang with the kids, play, help the staff with feeding the kids, putting them to sleep during nap time, and some more practical things. It was so much fun, these kids were so excited that we were there, and we were super excited to be there, our whole team fell in love with them and it was pretty hard to say bye to them at the end of the trip. We also got to know and really fall in love with the staff of the foundation. There isn’t a lot of them, and the amount of work they have to do everyday is crazy, almost overwhelming, and yet they do it all with such a great attitude, they have created a family and a safe environment  for those kids. The love that each one of the staff carry for those kids is surreal, it was a honour for us to be in the presence of that kind of love and humility. We were challenged, stretched and transformed just by watching, serving and partnering with the staff of that place, such ordinary heroes that do everything they do as if they are doing it unto God Himself.  We also got to teach at the staff devotionals. Every morning the staff meet for 30mins to share the word of God, and during our time there we got to take these devotionals and teach what God was putting in our hearts. On our last devotional our team decided to honour the staff of the foundation and we washed their feet, it was such a great and powerful moment of the trip. We will never forget that place, and everyday we miss being there, seriously. What a beautiful place.

Playing with kids at the foundation.

On Monday night a our team split into two groups, half of us went to do a church service and the other half went to the streets to do ministry with homeless and drug addicts, Christine and I ended up going out to the streets. The church service turned into a healing meeting with many people getting not only physically healed but delivered from demons and filled with the Spirit of God.

We went into this really dangerous neighborhood not far from the foundation we were staying at, with locals from the community with us for protection. We ended up on this narrow and dark street filled with homeless, people doing drugs, people just sitting outside their gates and kids playing amongst all that, it was an interesting scenario, especially with the kids playing as if they were having fun in a playground. We got to give way some bread and drinks and pray and love on people, we had people being delivered, giving their life to Christ and healed on that night, still, in the midst of all that, we left the place feeling a bit overwhelmed by the reality in which the people of that community live in, it was an interesting tension, we were grateful for what God did that night but at the same time overwhelmed by their situations. 

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings our team split up and went to different cell groups. Christine and I led two cell groups together on Tuesday and Wednesday, one for the youth leadership team and another with some awesome Colombian families. At both we got to share about intimacy with God, living from Heaven to Earth and releasing the kingdom of God. We got to activate them into the prophetic, declarations and healing and both nights God showed up and people were healed physically and emotionally and delivered from oppression. At the second meeting everyone that needed healing got completely healed, it was amazing, then they were all baptized with the Holy Spirit and joy, it was a fun night, one of our favorites meeting, and the Colombian families had some awesome Colombian snacks for us, which is always a bonus!!

On Thursday we went to different cell groups, Christine and Michal led a woman’s cell group, they spoke on the culture of honor and had an amazing time, Christine will share the testimonies from that on the testimony blog. I led the meeting for the leaders of the teens and children’s ministry in the church. Antonio, Peter and myself had a lot of fun as we shared and prayed for that group, it was a fun night. 

On Thursday and Friday morning we led classes at a school of ministry called Christ for the Nations that is led by the church. We spoke on the unconditional love of God, loving the unrighteous as well as the righteous, shared some testimonies and did some teaching and activation on the prophetic and words of knowledge and on the second morning we went out to the streets on treasure hunts. While on the streets we tried to step back and let the students take the lead, it was amazing, so many of them had never done that before and many got words of knowledge and prophetic words right for the people on the streets, some people got healed and had an encounter with God as well, we had such a great time with the students of their school, it was awesome to share what we have been learning at our school here in Redding.

Our team at Christ for the Nation Ministry School

On Friday we went to a public school to speak and minister to the students. We were told that a really rough school had cancelled classes for an hour so we could minister to the students, which is a miracle in itself as it has never happened before. They got us a school bus because it was too dangerous to drive cars into the neighbourhood and they made sure to tell us, a lot of times, not to bring anything with us to the school, as these are not the kind of kids that you want to meet on the streets at night. So the scenario is: 500 students at one of the worst high schools in Medellin, filled with teens who spend their nights as hit men and prostitutes in a very dangerous neighborhood- perfect!! We got there and cheered the 500 students as they walked into the auditorium and then after a message about the love and goodness of God and the power of what was done at the cross we had an altar call. I believe that between 80% and 90% of the kids stood up to welcome Christ into their lives, seriously, I could hardly believe what I was seeing, so let the ministry time begin. We were praying for those kids for a long time, they kept flooding to the front of the auditorium asking for prayer for their families, for themselves, for healing and more. We were there for over 2 hours with those kids, and they only left because we really had to leave, otherwise we would be there still. The principle was amazed, he said that this had never happened before, he said that the worst kids in school were the ones touched the most, some kids were looking at each other in tears saying “we have felt the love of God, we can’t continue the same, we are bad people, we have to change, we will change” yes! These are kids who live in ridiculously abusive and violent environments saying that they will change because they felt the love of the Father, in tears, WOW!! The kids and our team were in tears all over the room, the principle asked if we would go back to do it again haha. The testimonies of what happened are incredible, so many physical healings, emotional healings, prayer for families, prayers of forgiveness and a lot more, and I mean a loooooooooooooooot more. I’m still trying to process the goodness of God and what I saw happening on that day. WHAT A GOOD GOD WE HAVE HUH?!? So good!!! The day after that the church contacted the parents to ask them about sending a bus to pick the kids up to go to church, the parents were asking what happened at the school, they said that their kids went home that night with tears in their eyes and peaceful, some said that a new kid went back home from school, and they asked the church if they could keep up whatever they did at the school. Seriously, I can’t stop re-living that afternoon in my head and we are forever changed by this experience. We’ll share more individual stories of this day on the next blog.

Kid's response to who wants to give their lives to Jesus and have a relationship with Him.

Ministry time with the kids.

After that, on Friday evening we went to the streets to meet and release the love of God to women and men involved in prostitution.  There’s quite a lot of prostitution going on in Medellín, to be honest, I’ve never seen anything like it, it’s happening almost everywhere and in a lot of places it goes on day and night. The night we went out we saw girls as young as 14 years old selling their bodies on the streets. We got to talk to a few girls and they were so open and welcoming, we got to hear their stories, pray for them and give them hope to pursue a future outside of that. Many of them felt the love of God for the first time as we went out representing a good God that has nothing but love and acceptance for them, a good Daddy who longs to have relationship with them. They are so used to being judged by Christians that it was almost overwhelming to them. It was another one of those moments where I was grateful for the encounters they had with God’s love but overwhelmed by their reality, I’m still trying to process through things as I write this blog.

On Saturday and Sunday we went to different church services, on Saturday morning Christine went to a church with someone else from our team and they spoke on intercession, I went to a different church and spoke on the prophetic and hearing the voice of God, both services went really well and many people got healed as we prayed for the sick and released the kingdom of God at the end. On Saturday afternoon we went back to the main church, the one with 2000 young people, for their youth service. There we called out words of knowledge on the stage and did a healing service, so many people were getting healed, it was amazing, and many gave their lives to Christ. After the service we went out on the streets with the young people to do treasure hunts. Christine and I ended up going to this square where people meet to do drugs and drink and where the police never goes. There were hundreds of people doing all sorts of drugs and drinking, we loved being there, we believe that darkness can’t stay when light shows up haha. Needless to say that God, once again, backed us up as we started to share his goodness with people, we got to talk and pray for quite a lot of people and we could see God touching lives as we loved them. It’s amazing the amount of beautiful people you would find in a place like that, I love it.

On Sunday we did ministry at both services in the morning and again hundreds of people got healed, saved and delivered. In the afternoon we went out to the streets one last time in Colombia on a big treasure hunt with the church  and God showed up, hundreds of testimonies of salvation, healings and deliverances came out of that last outreach, so good, so God!!

Wow, there you go, a very short overview on our 9 days of ministry in Colombia.

As I said before, both Christine and I, as well as the rest of our team are still trying to process all that happened during our time in Colombia, we saw more people getting saved, healed and delivered than we could’ve thought was possible, everywhere we went people were having full on encounters with God. I’ve seen enough tears coming out of people’s eyes to fill up a lake, tears of pain, tears of joy, tears of hope. I’ve seen what revival looks like, I know it’s possible, I now know that there’s no place dark enough for God’s love and light to shine in and transform everything.

Thank you all for the support towards this trip, financial, prayers, encouragements, it all made a huge difference while we were there and it made this trip possible for Christine and I.

So this is it for now, a nice overview of our trip, in a few days we’ll be posting a blog with individual testimonies of things we saw God doing in Colombia, we have enough testimonies to fill a whole book so, there’ll be some good stuff on here.

We love you guys, and we pray that you would walk in full awareness of who God is, who you are and what you carry after reading this blog.

Daniel and Christine.

Christine and I enjoying some awesome tasty Colombian food! :)

Colombia here we go!!

Hey everyone,

Hope all is well with all y'all out there, good to see you here again.

We decided to write a blog updating you guys on our Colombia Mission Trip, we hope you enjoy reading it and partner with us with your prayers!!

So Christine and I leave tomorrow, Thursday the 28th, which is actually today for most of you guys. We're driving down to San Francisco, then flying to Texas, then Panama and then Medellin-Colombia, 3 flights, yay!!!

The expectations for this trip are amazingly high, both from our team as well as the people in Medellin. They are so excited about our team coming down, we have quite a full schedule in front of us.

Our team will be staying at a children's centre, the place is a centre for kids of drug addicts, prostitutes, pimps and some more. We will be hanging with those kids sometimes during the day. At night, our team will be ministering at 20 different churches, yes, come on!! We are also speaking at two youth services, with 2000 youth at each service, and Christine will be ministering at a women’s conference and we'll be going to do stuff at a YWAM base over there.

We'll also be doing outreaches and going out to the red light districts. It's gonna be full a schedule for us.

Partnering with us.

One of the most important things for Christine and I is to have people praying for us as we are releasing the kingdom of God in Medellin.

The kids centre that we’re staying in have recently been going through attacks, and they found out that the people attacking it are witch doctors and witches, which is somehow a relief, it is just the devil and not drug dealers or the drugs quartel, that would be a problem, but the devil, well, he has to go once we release the kingdom.

Also, the woman’s conference that Christine will be ministering at is called ‘Blessings, Curses and Deliverance’, and that in South America has a whole different meaning, Christine will be experiencing deliverances to a whole new level.

As you can see, we will be encountering many opportunities to destroy the works of the devil and demons so, we would really appreciate prayers covering us.

Things you could pray for are:

·     Protection for our team. Spiritual, emotional, mental and health protection.

·     That we would get all that God has for us during this time in Colombia

·     That we would release all that God has to release to the city of Medellin through our lives

·     For more protection. :)

Thank YOU!!

So that’s what we’ll be doing in Colombia. We really want thank you guys who supported us in different ways, we know that we couldn’t be doing this if wasn’t for you guys, and we REALLY REALLY appreciate your support.

We love you guys, all y’all and can’t wait to share the huge amount of testimonies that we will bring back from Colombia.

Love and xo’s

Daniel 

LA trip - City of Angels

Hey everyone, wow, it's been a while since we last updated this blog, it has been pretty pretty busy since we came back to Redding from Christmas break, but the main thing is, we're back!!

So I want to share a bit about a recent ministry trip to LA I went to with one of our pastors, Sarah Webster, and a few other amazing students. It was so much fun, such a encouraging time in so many ways, as a friend of mine says, you cannot have an encounter with God's love and not change, something changes in our awareness of who He is and of how he loves us when we encounter Him, and that awareness always allows us to see ourselves as He sees us, which allows us to see others as He sees them and love them deeper than we could've done before. It's an amazing cycle of love haha, but truth is, you cannot be the same after an encounter with His love.

On the way down to LA we were sitting in the car sharing about our hearts and expectations for this trip, normally signs and wonders, healings and miracles are the top 'this is what I want to see' thing, which is awesome, and indeed we saw a lot of that taking place, and more important, we saw God being introduced to many as a result of a encounter people had with His goodness and love through healings and miracles. I love when miracles happen, it's a beautiful thing, but the miracles in itself are never my end goal, miracles are always a doorway to an encounter with a good God, it allows people to experience a God that not only cares and loves them, but also a God powerful enough to change their circumstances.

On this trip though, as we shared our hearts, we started to realize that the team's heart was to love people, to make sure that everyone that we met would leave feeling known, feeling seen and heard, yes we wanted to see the supernatural taking place but what is more supernatural than to see a broken heart been restored right in front of you right?! It's a beautiful miracle. We asked God for salvation and love encounters, and God heard our prayers.

We got to LA just before 5pm, and our plan for that evening was to visit the 'Bonnie Brae House', this is the place where the Azusa Street Revival started, the home of William J. Seymour, the Azusa Revival preacher, a exciting place with a lot of history. Once we got there the woman who was meant to open the place for us called to tell us that she would be a hour and a half late, it was cold, we were hungry and tired from our 10hrs journey, and now we had 2 hours to wait, standing in front of this house downtown LA, YAY!! 
As we waited, a bunch of us standing on the footpath, people started to feel drawn to us, this man who lives across the street heard us singing (yes, 2 hours to kill, we decided to start worshiping on the street, why not?), this man came to us asking what was so special about that house, he said that he sees people there all the time to visit it, sometimes groups of people, why? What was so important and special about that place? So we started to share that over 100 years ago people were praying in that place everyday and God answered their prayers, the Holy Spirit came and they were filled with the Spirit of God and that started a great move of God that affected the whole world. This man looked at us and after a long pause he started to share how his mom was killed 18 years ago, and he always blamed God for it, and he never wanted anything to do with God, but then he started to say that on that night he felt to come talk to us, and that he thinks that it was time to reconnect with God again, BOOM!! Just like that, we asked if we could pray for him and he said yes but he had to do something before we start praying. He went to his house and 10mins later came back out with his whole family, wife and 2 teenage boys, and told us that his whole family were ready to accept Jesus in their life. A few of us prayed for him and he was filled with the Spirit right there and then, so good. This guy and his family ended up going into the house with us and learned more about our history as Christians.

While this was happening, some of our team were talking to other people that kept stopping and asking what we were doing, even this woman who was driving by felt to turn around, get out of the car and come talk to us, she also got saved and ended up in the house with us haha. People stopped and asked for prayer for different things and we saw healings taking place. People got saved, healed and delivered on that night and we didn't do anything for it, we didn't approach anyone, we were just standing at the front of this house talking and at some stage worshiping God. People came to be loved, known, heard and seen, and we did just that. The result of our prayers earlier in the car were just the beginning of a amazing week.

The next day we went to Venice Beach, if you haven't heard of this place just look it up on google, this is a super famous beach in the LA area with a lot of everything in it, cool people, famous people, crazy people, homeless, drug addicts, street artists, vendors and some more, you wouldn't get bored here. Our heart going there was the same, meet people and make sure that everyone would feel known, heard, seen and loved. We split our team into smaller groups and went off to do whatever we felt God leading us to. I ended up with two other girls and as we started walking we saw a group of men and women standing by a wall, they looked rather scary and I was a bit concerned about approaching them to be honest, one of the girls with me wasn't at all so before I had the chance to express my concerns, she jumped right in the middle of the circle introducing herself and pointing to me, and so the adventure begins. We ended up talking and listening to these guys stories for over a hour, all of them have been to jail a few times each, and stayed there up to 9 years at a time, lovely people as you can imagine. But as we started to ask them deeper questions about their lives and what caused them to end up at such places, these guys came alive, they couldn't believe that we were actually interested in their stories, they loved sharing all the good and bad stuff they did. I then started to ask for advice on how to stay away from jail, why not? And the life advice these guys were giving me on making good decisions in life and think through my actions were priceless, really deep good stuff. We could see the gold inside of every one of those guys and they could see that we really cared. We got to pray for every single one of these guys individually before we left and again, God showed up. On that day more people felt known and seen by us and by God, people got healed and saved. There are many other stories like this one that took place on that day but that could be saved for another time. And this was only day 2.

The rest of the trip stayed on the same course, everyday, everywhere we went we released the power of love and watched as God restored people's violations of what love is. We went to places like Skid Row, Pasadena, spoke at churches, ministered to people, prophesied at the Dream Centre - LA for over 3 hours over their youth and a few other things. Everywhere we went we went with the same heart, to make sure people were feeling Known and seen by us and by a good God who cares.

As I said before, it was an amazing trip. For me personally, one of the amazing things I got out of this trip was the realization of what I carry. My heart was to spend time with people and make sure they felt known, this is what I had to give, it is what I wanted to give away, and in the midst of so many amazing gifted people in our team, it was a great experience to run with what I had to give and be aware of what I had to release into every environment and situation I walked in. I believe that I was more activated into what God has for me to carry in life and I became more aware of what 'my message' to the world is.

Wow, this post is quite a bit longer that I expected so, I might finish it up here for now.

I hope you guys have enjoyed reading about this trip and that this would somehow bless you guys. Our mission trip to Colombia is coming soon so, be ready for some more life changing stories. Thank you for everyone so has giving to our upcoming mission trip to Colombia, we are almost there with our payments, and if you would like to support us just follow the link bellow:

https://missiontrips.ibethel.org/

Thank you all for all the love, prayers and support to both Christine and I.

Love you all!!

Daniel Oliveira