quarta-feira, 3 de setembro de 2008

SPIRITUAL FORMATION

As the days go by we realize this won’t be a very easy class. There are quite a few strong personalities and though we are in the first few weeks of class we’ve had quite a few “let’s sit and talk about this” meetings with several students. The Lord is our strength and praise Him patience is part of the fruit of the Spirit.
Spiritual Formation week was precious and sweet. We saw the Spirit move amongst the students every night during prayer and we could see it was a direct result of the Word preached during the day. The Spirit moves upon the Word! That is so true! As the Word comes forth in the teaching, each student hears it and their eyes are opened to the Truth, and the Truth is Jesus. Jesus manifested changes our lives!
We split in four groups for the time of repentance, confession and prayer for deliverance. Dora and I were with the girls, and it was precious to see each of them open their heart in front of the others, pray asking forgiveness and then pray for one another! We can’t even see all that happened that day in the Spirit, but a lot of things were broken and that makes the difference.
After mãe Nicky and Agostinho taught on the baptism of the Holy Spirit, we could feel His sweetness in our midst. All of us, without the other knowing, felt direction from God to not lay hands on the students at first. All the students who wanted to be baptized were in a circle in the middle, but I felt that if I laid hands in any one at that point, it would be an insult to the Holy Spirit, He wanted to move, and we shouldn’t be on his way! Wow, one after the other, the students started to speak in tongues as we just stood around, kneeling, worshiping, expecting Him to move. And then we felt released to start laying hands. What a wonderful experience of God’s faithfulness to His Word and the Holy Spirit’s direction.

About that week the students testified later:

“God’s love is so great! When I think the live I used to live, and yet He loved me so much to bring me here and give me His Spirit.”

“I have never been this happy in my life. Since the day we prayed for salvation, I went to sleep smiling, dreamed about singing, woke up smiling and can’t stop smiling until now. There were so many people better than me, in the place where I live. How could God chose me to come here? As I was praying for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I was sad because I wasn’t receiving it. Then I saw a big light, even with my eyes closed, and I was filled with joy again and started to speak in another language. Before, I thought I was going to speak something similar to the other people, but God gave me this very different language, listen….” And he started to speak in tongues with a huge smile on his face.

“I received the baptism in the Holy Spirit, but still wasn’t sure if it was really God or if I was just imitating the others. So at night I prayed and asked God to confirm that it was Him. I dreamt with God telling me: ‘The language you wanted is that one you have received. You don’t need to doubt’.”

“I received the baptism in the Holy Spirit and it was so strong, that when I came out of the classroom I didn’t want to stop. I was talking to the grass in tongues, and I couldn’t even eat or sleep, I just wanted to speak in tongues. I was speaking in tongues to my xima.”

“I had a lot of headaches, but when I received the baptism in the Holy Spirit, I’m not in pain anymore.”

“I was sweating because I had prayed so much asking God for the Holy Spirit. Then I saw a person, with much light around. And as I saw that, other students started to pray for me. I felt something bad coming out of me and I couldn’t stop laughing and smiling, and started to speak in a new tongue. After that I had the courage to do something I had never done before, help a family burn their witchcraft.”

“When I arrived at the school I felt the 90 days I’d be here would be too long. After we prayed and I felt the Holy Spirit warming my heart, I was so happy, I think 90 days will be too short!”
Amimo, Chris’ translator, also participated on the Spiritual Formation, and was baptized with the Holy Spirit. He spoke in tongues for a long time, and at the end when he wanted to testify about it, he was so full of the Holy Spirit he couldn’t stop stuttering. He has been a different man these past weeks. Full of joy and even his face is coming back to normal! Praise Jesus!!!

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