Jesus HA ahaha

It was almost 70 degrees outside today!

Cierra and I are constantly overwhelmed with creativity in this culture.  Its so much fun...

Here is a piece I painted a few days back...Cierra did an amazing one too, I will have to put that up soon...

God is destroying old mindsets, one of which is a poverty mindset!  We now are looking at the world in a completely different way!

Have You Ever Had a Sobering Thought? What About the Opposite?

It has been exciting this week getting back into the swing of things here in Redding as we dive into school and homework! This week has also been tough on us financially. I have been trying to set up massage appointments for some extra money ( I'm a Nationally Certified Massage Therapist in case you didn't know ;) )  and Jason has been keeping his eyes open for jobs. It has been hard to balance the "rest" that we feel God calling us to and the "responsibilities" of working.

We are in need of monthly support to help pay our bills and groceries. We have decided to stop driving our car and have downgraded our phone plan.    School is completely paid off and we just need a little more for our upcoming mission trip in March, $140 for me and $95 for Jason.  Praise God!  Just yesterday, friends handed us $60 in cash that covered the rest of our utilities for January.  We can easily survive on $800-$1000 a month.  We are open to your ideas and financial support.

Pride tells me to not ask for support at all, that God will provide no matter what I do.  Love compels me to be honest and vulnerable, relying on others.  Thank you!

Testimonies! (as shared by Jason)

This last Thursday we hit the streets for our weekly treasure hunt and got to see God touch peoples lives in amazing ways!

We stopped a guy and his wife about to go into a chinese restaurant and after praying for his newly replaced hip we saw his mobility go from a 10 (not very mobile but able to walk with a cain) to a 4!  He walked right in to get his food, holding his cain under his arm.  They were both encouraged and exclaimed how they felt special that we had stopped just for them.

After praying for a few other people we came across a young guy who asked us if we had any money...which is sorta funny considering the first part of this post!  I asked if we could pray for him and he exuberantly said YES!  He went on to explain that every time he closes his eyes he sees a pentagram, lifting up his sleeve he revealed a festering red scar where he cuts himself in worship to demons and he then shared with tears in his eyes that his little daughter was being molested by people in the house that he is staying in.  My heart broke for this young man and I was burning for love for him as we immediately began to minister to him.  The more we prayed the calmer he got but after only a few minutes he quickly excused himself to be able to catch the bus he was waiting for.  We watched him run off, knowing that God was not done with him, even if we were for that time.  God's love is jealous as the grave!

Have you ever had a sobering thought?  For me its often times finances or "the future" or something.

Have you ever had the opposite?  For me, its what Jesus did for me on the Cross! HA
I don't have to work for his love.  I don't have to try and do "things" for Him.  He gives me gifts to play with and joy to make me smile. Once I realize how God sees me,  holy, righteous, as royalty...then I stop acting like what I was before I met Jesus, a sinner.  HA ha.

Just last night we were invited to a "Jesus Party" at some house we had never been to before.  Needless to say we met some amazing people from Oregon and spent about 2 or 3 hours prophesying and ministering to a group of young people in town for JESUS CULTURE.  

I painted again last night while listening to Benjamin Dunn.  Check out his new album Circus of Love on iTunes! Or go to his website HERE.

 
Click HERE to donate! Love you guys!

Happy New Year!

Can you believe it's 2011?!

For Christmas, Jason and I got the opportunity to spend the holiday with my family in southern California! We had such a wonderful time with my family and extended family on my dad's side. It was fun to watch Jason's responses while we were celebrating with my amazing, loud mexican relatives. Such different family dynamics create so much flavor... I love it! It was great to see family I hadn't seen in a while and a couple of my best friends added a warmth every Christmas should have! It was hard saying goodbye to my family after 10 days of visiting. I don't know if I realized how much I missed them!

It was nice to have a change of pace and be refreshed by the love of my family. For new years, we had a chill dinner with a couple of our new friends from BSSM and counted in the new year with a youtube re-run of New York's celebration. Ahh, the simple life :)

Many Blessings from the both of us to you and your family this new year! We are excited to see what God will bring. :)

c

The Ecstasy of Loving God

This past Monday my roommate invited me to go with him and his visiting brother-in-law to the local Catholic Christian bookstore here in Redding.  I had nothing else going on, so I agreed, bringing with me the latest book I am working on,  looking forward to some good reading!

I set my book down on a coffee table and decided to look around for a few minutes at the store.  Just from what's on the shelves at this place you can tell this store owner is an active follower of Jesus.

I found myself in the card section and was putting a card back with a cartoon of Jesus "clearing the temple" on a skateboard when a high school aged guy comes up to me and asks if I am the owner of the book about ecstasy.  Before I can even answer he then asks me what I think about ecstasy.  Having no idea of his background or where he was going with the question I asked him if he wanted my opinion on the greek definition and biblical explanation on ecstasies in God or if he was wondering about what I thought about the street drug.  He seemed to get a little bit confused and ended up wandering off as my roommate interrupted with a question about what kind of coffee I was going to get at the cafe there.

For some reason this guy is just drawn to me and after a few minutes he asks me if a want to play guitar with him in the back corner of the store.  He introduces himself as Pauly and before I know whats happening, he's jammed out a nirvana song and has his laptop open showing me his favorite skate videos on youtube.  After about 30mins of chatting it up, I discover that he is the foster child of the store owner and has only been with their family for about 2 weeks.

He keeps wanting to talk about this "super hawt chic" at this new youth group that he is going to but I start sharing with him some testimonies of what God has been doing in my life recently.  I go on to share how God totally showed up on a recent treasure hunt (see past blogs about what a treasure hunt is if you're in the dark) and how two random guys at a disc golf course got to encounter the love of God through prayer and prophecy recently.  After a few minutes I ask him if he knew Jesus and he kinda didn't know how to respond.  I then proceeded to ask him if he wanted to.  He admitted being curious but didn't really know what to do with Jesus.  I got so excited, I started explaining the power of forgiveness and all the things that God has done in my life as I've learned to walk in forgiveness!  I then shared how Jesus was the ultimate model of forgiveness and what He had done for us through his death and resurrection.

I asked him how he was doing, to which he replied that his heart was beating out of his chest.  I told him mine was too...and that's because the Holy Spirit was right there with us!  By this point my friends were signaling me that they were ready to leave, to which I was trying to signal back "just 5 more minutes!"  Looking Pauly in the eye I asked him if he wanted to follow me in prayer to meet Jesus.  He said yes!!!  After we were done you could tell he was deeply shaken and not really sure what to do next.  I had time for just a few more minutes of encouragement as they were in the process of closing the book store down for the evening.

Looking back on that afternoon I had no idea that I would be heading into an Jesus encounter with a high schooler.  God is so creative.  The Holy Spirit totally used Pauly's curiosity in a book about ecstasies in God to lead him into an introduction to Jesus!  Praise God...

Then!... just today, four of us went downtown to bring some clothes to a person we had befriended on a street corner when salvation broke out again!  As we handed Willy his new pair of jeans and a coat we started chatting with another guy there who was clearly inebriated and looking a little worse for wear.  Within about 5 minutes of us being there he begins to share his life story with one of our crew, Philip, who faithfully listened to him pour out his heart.  Phil then began to prophesy love and life into the guy and within 20 minutes he has led him to the Lord!!

Its safe to say that momentum has been building in our hunger to see people encounter Jesus in a tangible way.  True love, real love is as strong as death and His jealousy as fierce as the grave.  Cierra and I both are on a journey to see the true potential of love stirred up in us for others.



p.s.s  Thank you to all who have sent support!  God is such a good provider! These testimonies belong to you as much as they are ours!!!

Blessed

It's a blustery overcast Saturday and I am sitting on my bed, looking out my window with a heart of thankfulness.  My heart is in awe of a God who loves me and cares about every detail of my life.  He is good.  Jason and I have our tuition PAID IN FULL!!  Yeah God!  God is so amazing and faithful!  We are so blessed to have friends like many of you who are deciding to be a part of what God is doing in our lives.  We believe that God will bless those who invest!  So, BLESSINGS to you! :) What seemed impossible, God has made possible through wonderful people like you. Thank-you from the bottom of our hearts. We have no doubt that God will continue to provide for our monthly needs and our mission trip to San Francisco in March 2011.

It all seems so appropriate with Thanksgiving coming up this week! We are excited to spend this wonderful holiday with Jason's immediate family at his Aunt and Uncle's beautiful home in Roseburg, Oregon. All of our roommates will be joining us as well! It will truly be a celebration of thankfulness. We love this time of year as we celebrate many things, including Jason and I's 3rd wedding anniversary on the 24th, and Jason's twenty-fifth birthday on the 29th!

Hope you all have a beautiful weekend reflecting on the things you are thankful for in your life. :)

fluff balls

One of the things that took quite a bit adjusting to when we first got to Redding was moving in our two cats, Zao and Bella in with our roommate's dog, Kipper. It was amusing at first, watching both of our cats in the crate hiss and growl at Kipper who seemed to almost drool looking at them through the crate's gated door. Poor Kip seemed so confused as it seemed like he wasn't sure if he wanted to chase them or eat them.

After a little over a month of carrying their crate up and down the stairs to get the animals used to each other, they are now finally able to co-exist together!! Hallelujah! Having their litter in our room got old really fast as well as carrying that huge crate up and down the stairs! Jason and I felt like we were carrying a little prince and princess on their coach. Yea. Hopefully never again. We love them, but not that much.

Here are our little cuties..

                                          Zao (We also call him The Fluff)

                                          Bella

                                          When they were kittens

                                   One of their favorite spots at the top of the stairs

                                          Kipper and Bella on my lap :)

Believe and Read!

Today we finished sending out all of our support letters. Whew! Jason and I are excited to see how God will come through for us. He always does. The rest of tuition is due this week and we had a $900 balance! This past weekend money has been trickling in.. God is good! We still owe about $700 more.  Jason and I are learning to rejoice and thank God before He comes through with the faith to know that He will! It's exciting really.

While we are believing God for our finances, we are reading away for our homework. I personally have never read so much in my entire life! I am not a big reader, so this year is stretching me a lot in this area. It's all really awesome material, so I am really enjoying the hard work. Of course, Jason is loving it and is ahead in all the reading. He's my little book worm. :)

Here are a few of the books we are reading:

We need your support!

Family and Friends!

Everyday is an adventure for Cierra and I, here in Redding California at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry as God has been moving radically both in our hearts and through our hands. The first day of our outreach Treasure Hunt (*See our blog entry labeled "Enthusiasm") class, Cierra and her team encountered some people in downtown Redding who were preforming Reiki (a form of new age energy therapy where practitioners are able to heal himself and others, with the use of specialised symbols). They were able to engage in conversation with two of the onlookers after asking what they were doing. "They are doing Reiki. They are able to find all the parts of the body that need healing and heal it." The girl said. Cierra and her team started to explain that they were on a hunt to find people on their "treasure maps" and that they were able to do the same thing, but with a God who loves them! Soon they were able to talk with them and see the girl's uneven leg grow out! They also prayed for her decaying tooth and hurting back, which they did not see healed right away, but are believing God to continue to touch her. Now, we are excited about the opportunity to be sent out on an upcoming short term mission trip, both by Bethel International and by YOU.

The heart and passion here at Bethel International is to raise up a generation of world changers that will be known simply for their reckless abandonment to see that Jesus is Lord in all the nations. As we are building relationships with various regions around the world one of the main goals that we have is to make the nations look like geniuses. The strategy is go to and raise up influencers in their own nations so they begin to run with the inheritance that God has given them to transform their nation. All of the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry trips are partnered with Bethel International’s vision for transforming nations.

The trip that Cierra and I will be a part of will be partnering with the Promised Land Fellowship in downtown San Francisco, whose goal is to transform the community around them through Christ’s radical love and power.  We will be equipping the leaders and members of this ministry with tools that they can take out into the streets in their area.  We will spend much of our time on these same streets ministering along side these individuals. 

We really want you to be a part of what God will be doing through our hands on this trip to San Fran.  We are asking you to consider sowing into our lives.  Cierra and I both know that the greatest impact comes from people who respond to God.  We need both your prayers and your money but we trust that any giving will be done with joy and not out of obligation.  No gift is too small!  We are still in need for our final tuition payment and cannot attend this trip unless it is paid off. We are also in need of monthly support in this season.

 Financial gifts may be made online at ibssm.org (There is also a link on the right side of the blog).  You may specify whether it is for the mission trip or towards school tuition. This gift is tax-deductible and you will receive a statement at the end of the year for your tax records. If you wish your gift to be anonymous, please check the anonymous box. This will allow you to receive an end of year statement, but will not allow us as students to see your name. This gift is non-refundable, and if for any reason a team member or team does not go, the money will support another mission trip sponsored by Bethel Church. (If online payment is not an option, donations can be mailed to Bethel Church Attn: Bethel International 933 College View Dr. Redding, CA 96003.)

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond and be a part of the amazing things that God will be doing through us!  We love and value who you are and pray that your life would be invaded with the love of Jesus today and in days to come.

Much love and blessings,

   Jason and Cierra

Dead Dead Dead Dead

We are so blessed!

Within the last month:

-our car has sold, providing us with money to live for the next month or so!
-money has come in the mail and through visitors and friends at exactly when it's needed (for rent, food, etc.)
-we are seeing life changing miracles on a daily basis and experiencing them through our hands on a weekly basis.
-I (Jason) now have a part-time job.
-we are seeing huge breakthrough in our growing relationships with our room mates.

I will recount a highlight from just a few days ago.

Brad, Ton and myself were about to sit down for a game of farkle at our dinning room table when the Holy Spirit had other plans and from Stephanie's prompting we launched into the mother-of-all conversations.  We hit topics such as eschatology (end times, book of Revelation), security of salvation, baptism in the Holy Spirit and identity in Christ.  It was heavy...in the best possible sense!

At one point we were talking about how, as believers our old sinful nature is dead.  How, when we accept Jesus into our lives, our old self and original desire to sin are dead, leaving us righteous and in right standing with God.  We are no longer "sinners, saved by grace" but "paid for, righteous and pursuing holiness".

This means we are dead.

dead dead dead dead.

When we sin and think,"it's just my flesh" we are necromancing.  We are bringing back to life something that is already dead and should be left dead.

Romans 6:1-4 "What then shall we say? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!  How can we who died to sin still live in it?  Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life."

Our struggle is not against flesh and blood (Ephesians 4) and when we sin its not our original intent.  We are in a battle against a mouse with a megaphone.  The enemy has no power except what we give him.

So, as we are all sitting around our table, letting this revelation sink in, Stephanie suddenly says,"I feel this poking pain in my side, like I am being stabbed."

We all just sit there, knowing that the Holy Spirit is doing something but at that point, not sure what.  Then, the Lord shows me a picture of him on the cross and all 7 places that he was afflicted with pain before succumbing to death.  Jesus was pierced in his side.  Why?  This is what the soldiers did to verify that Jesus was dead.  Indeed, he was dead.

In the same way, the Holy Spirit was reminding Stephanie that she is dead.  How cool is that!!!??

The night went on and what had started at about 10:30pm was not done until about 2:30am.  The Holy Spirit is looking to touch people and He loves to move through those who are willing.

Are you bringing back to life something that is really dead??  Be dead, stay dead and be alive in Christ.

Prophecy and Encounter

This week is prophecy impartation and activation week!

Frightening?  Somewhat.

Necessary? Absolutely!

"Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy."
1 Corinthians 14:1

Prophecy is needed to edify and build up the church in order for people to live out their destiny, walking in love and power.

Today during class, every person stood from there seat, turned to the left, placed their hands on the person in front of them and asked Holy Spirit what He wanted to show this person.  The best part is...you don't have to work hard to get something!  The goal is to build up.  Some people see pictures with their inner eye, others get words, some just get an impression or a feeling.  God is looking to show His love and is looking for open vessels to pour through.

Another revelation we are walking out is the concept of experiencing God.  I had never thought about it before, but it makes complete sense that if you have an encounter with a God with as much power as our God has, then you may have a physical response to Him.

We see a lot of people encountering God here. People shaking, contorting, laughing, crying, dancing, spinning, rolling, yelling, etc.  If we really believe that God is a good God and full of joy have we experienced it?  Have we laughed out loud for no other reason then because God touched us in some way?

All this to say, read Acts 2 and you will get an idea of what any given day looks like at our school.  There is plenty of joy, a bunch of drunkenness in the Holy Spirit and an abundance of love to be shared with the lost and broken both in the world and in the church.

Stay tuned! Cierra has an amazing testimony of Gods provision that she will share soon!