We are getting excited about Christmas break and our visit with Sharley, Janey and Zeb.  They are very important to us and we are excited about what God is doing in there lives.

In early December we were visited by David Hogan.  Hogan is another one of God’s generals.  He leads a ministry in Mexico.  His ministry has seen over 500 people raised from the dead.  He spoke to the students.  He is very powerful and to say the least someone who is not swayed easily.  He has been shot twice and has actually died twice but brought back to life by God thru prayer.  He is driven for the gospel and the amount of healings he spoke about gave everyone an excitement about what God wants to do in all of our lives. 

During the month we helped and attended Bethel’s Holiday Feast.  It was a wonderful event and very powerful.  The church invites over 1000 homeless people off the street and provides them a wonderful meal with the best fine china and entertainment.  They also have people from the church donate new clothing, shoes, toiletries, sleeping bags and tents.  Each person who attends gets an opportunity to pick a huge plastic bag with any clothes they want.  Some got new sleeping bags and a few got tents.  I have never seen so many people blessed and who actually felt blessed.  We saw over 250 people give there hearts to the Lord!!!  It was very powerful to us – Dave was part of the security team and actually got to hug about 90% of the people attending as they got off each bus.  What an honor!!  This event deeply touched both Dayna and myself.  She had attended the day before and took part in making over 1200 meals.  God is so good!!

Bill spoke to us during one session and again told us that the Lord has given complete promise for every situation in life – right now.  Those who are satisfied with lack can’t set our boundaries. He always rewards growth with pruning. He takes off the junk and keeps the authentic.  He wants us to carry the weight of the anointing.  God has set us up to make it!!  If we can make it thru the trials we will do very well. Bill warned us to weather seasons of tribulations and betrayals.  We need to stay away from bitterness and unforgiveness.  It is all in how you handle it. If we don’t live by the praises of man, we won’t die by there criticism.  He reminded us that if we are never opposed by the enemy, we may be going in the same direction!!

On Thursday – Dec. 8^th Banning spoke on community and the value of it.  He taught that we cannot do anything without being in community and it is exactly what Jesus wants.  We need to finish strong and stay strong thru it.  Community is big to God and community is a choice each of us has to make.  Banning told us that when we submit our lives to someone, it is an act of humility.  The fruit is not always evident but it will eventually be seen. Banning cautioned that as a leader isolation is a killer!  Discouragement means that we are disarmed of courage!  Christianity works best within community.  A disconnect with community, can lead to disconnect with God.  In Mathew 5:23 while having communion with God – we are told if there is a disconnect with someone then we are to go and make it right and then return and finish with God – in other words, community matters to God.  Community works and brings – Strength, Safety, Speaks in and thru community and encourages all us. 

Dave attends a Home Group on Friday afternoons. They go downtown and love on people, evangelize and have seen many healing miracles.  Last Friday three of them went downtown and walked into the middle of the Redding 99 group.  The group that is protesting across North America as they feel they are being ripped off by the financial industry.  It was very interesting to speak with the 4-5 people in the tent.  They were very radical socialites.  They wanted nothing to do with God and one lady actually screamed at the group.  By the time they finished one guy who had severe pain and little mobility in his back allowed them to pray for him.  He was healed and was doing all kinds of bending exercises without any pain.  The lady who screamed at us gave us a big hug when we left and invited us back to visit.  

We learned that if He is an all consuming fire – we should always be on fire.  We need to seek heaven so heaven can transform us so that the world around us can be transformed!!

We are being taught that we need to be confident and walk in confidence for God.  That he is confident with us and we need to be confident.  That too many churches have gotten people to feel guilty for being confident and teach people to walk in false humility.  Subsequently most people walk so squashed and lowly that they cannot accomplish half of what God has called of them.  Arrogance says what can I get out of this? Confidence says, what can I give to this situation.  Confidence and Arrogance can look very similar and can walk side by side. Confidence will look different on each person.  We are learning that God trusts in me and God trusts me more than I trust myself.  We must not limit the anointing to what we think we can do – God has given each of us so much more!!

Bill finished our Christmas week talking about living in the fear of man.  He told us that one of the greatest obstacles that we will face on earth is fear of man.  Fear of man often masquerades as wisdom.  If you live cautiously all your friends will call you wise – you just won’t move any mountains!!  We need to remember that the bible says that the enemy moves around like a roaring lion but it doesn’t say he has any teeth…  We need to remember that the fear of man will mess up our capacity to lay foundations on earth as God put his Word in our mouths.. Bill finished by telling us that as Priests today in this world we need to be real, accessible and relatable to people.

Kris Valloton spoke to us about false prophets, what they look like and how to deal with them.  Some false prophets carry the Spirit of Divination and some have simply fallen away from God, however, there anointing simply comes from somewhere  else other than God.  Kris stressed some thoughts on how to deal with False Prophets when we lead ministries. 

Wow, it is hard to believe that we have now been there for three months.  God has done some incredible work in both Dayna and me. We stand in awe of what we are learning and know that we will never be the same.  We will not stand any longer for the same old!! God has called us to a much greater path than we ever imagined and we intend on honouring God for the rest of our days.  We have had so many prophetic words spoken over us by Senor staff here.  The message is becoming very clear to us.  We are so pumped about the future and find it hard to take one day at a time.  In order for us to learn what we must – we must remain focussed on each day and thank the Holy Spirit that He has us in exactly the right spot that we need to be at this moment.  We are so excited about the next five months that lay ahead.  

Danny Silk spoke to the church about what leads to breakthrough.  Pressure – increasing pressure. When we live in a place of pressure or resistance we can work thru the breakthrough and get to the next level.  There is a intensity or an exposing of what’s inside when the pressure starts to do its work.  Danny said that we don’t want the pressure to go away or we will never see the breakthrough.  Seems human nature that when things get uncomfortable, we want to stop and go back to the old way – where we feel most comfortable. The common denominator for the resistance in life is a new venture or risk and opportunity.  He reminded us that previous to our last breakthrough our current safe boundaries were once an unknown frontier.  We need to constantly remind ourselves of our former testimonies of breakthrough in our lives. 

During the last week of November, the school had purity week.  The singles were separated from the married folks and they received there own messages on purity, dating and boundaries. Bethel teachers were very frank on the topics.  The married folk received teaching on marriage, communication and being connected in all circumstances.  It was a wonderful but tough week for all.  We need to realize that when love leaves our relationships, fear is the spirit that is left over. If we bring love back into the relationship the fear subsides. 

Dave has been taking Sozo (Inner healing) training.  Dawn De Silva who leads the Transformation Center at Bethel taught on the Spirit of Entitlement.  It seems that we all develop that.  The spirit that says we are entitled to things – things that only God can choose to give or take.  When we don’t receive those things in our time we tend to be offended by God and we can develop an unhealthy relationship with our Father.  We really need to ensure that we don’t get offended when we don’t get what we asked for (healing, favour etc).  The tactics of the enemy will always be the same – 1) challenge the word and 2) stands in your experiences and mocks at the failure of the Word coming to pass - i.e. healing.   We need to walk past anger and offence to see the miracle that God is doing or is about to do.  We have learned that our job is to believe that God – can, wants and will do it!!  Amen

Bill spoke to us about the word study of “help mate”.  He reminded us that Paul was really talking about Christ and His church. He spoke about the bible sometimes being interpreted by people who really aren’t in love with Jesus.  People cannot be punished into purity – we need to approach life and all its issues consistent with someone in love with Jesus.  Bill reminded us that sometimes it is so easy for people to be caustic when they teach but they will teach differently if they love Jesus.  If they have that good relationship with the Father they will teach differently.  He suggested that we don’t sit under a teacher that is not in love with Jesus.  God is the rewarder!  That is why two trees were put in the garden – you can’t give a reward without an option!  Discipline trims us so we can hold up under the weight of blessing so we can extend that blessing to someone else.  The enemy works so hard to remove dreams, by causing worries (especially finances).  The more stress and worries the less the dreams. We need to remember that because of the blood we are qualified to stand face to face with the King!!

In the Kingdom – everyday is:

Every day is the day of Jubilee

Every day is a day of rest

Every hour is Happy Hour!!! 

Hi everyone – November and December has been very busy months for us. In October we attended Janey and Zeb’s wedding in Ventura California.  It was a fun and beautiful time.  This year, we have had the fun of celebrating two (2) Thanksgiving’s – US and Canada.  It was a fun time and we had turkey dinners with many different friends from all over the world.  School continues to be a blessing in our lives.  The pace continues to be intense but the Spirit is teaching so much to all of the students. November was a tough month as the homework continued to increase and we are into month three (3).  I think all the students are looking forward to the three (3) week break at Christmas.  God is good and we are continuing to learn so much.  Every time you feel your capacity to learn is at maximum more nuggets come!! God is really renewing all of our minds and hearts to understand the calling He has for each person.  His love is intense and we are really seeing that the field is ready for harvest. 

In November, we continued to work on our identity in Christ.  It’s about God’s presence, building on it and walking in it all day long. We are beginning to understand that signs that make us wonder are good!!  We need to think about finishing this race well!  We need to embrace the season and thrive in the process.  Dayna and I are determined to embrace each day and each week with the thought of finishing this journey well.  We are all in a process our entire life and we have determined that like Nehemiah we need to build the wall that God has placed in front of us – don’t look to the right or left but just deal with the wall in front.  It is so easy to get distracted by someone else’s wall. We have seen in our past how the enemy wants us distracted from our wall by putting someone else’s wall beside us that seems to be bigger.  Human nature gets us focussed on that wall. We are learning to deal with the wall in front and letting our creator deal with the rest.  We are constantly reminded that we cannot rush the process and recognize the season we are in.  Seems like we all want the end but we do not like the process.  In Bethel, with all the prophetic words spoken over us it is easy to look at the end (prophetic declaration) – the problem is that there is a process that you have to go thru to get there.  A good example of this is a truck pulling a trailer and the driver goes too fast around the corner.  The trailer jack knives and actually ends up going faster than the cab out of control.  God’s process allows us to be in control and not miss being able to carry and lead what God is giving us. 

Bill continues to speak to the students about the value of thankfulness. It is the most undervalued trait.  Thankfulness is humble in nature.  Thankfulness is such a Kingdom principle. It is confidence in who God is and His nature. Thankfulness can break the Spirit of Division amongst the churches and I believe break issues over a Nation. 

Chris O spoke to us about evangelism and spoke about the world population of 7 billion people.  He said that there have been several recent prophetic messages that God is getting ready for a 1 billion soul harvest.  This means that the body of Christ must work together.  That the evangelist must embrace the church and for years the evangelist was a long ranger and not really tied to the churches.  Evangelists must embrace the world and the church at the same time. 

In late November, Bill spoke to us about family life.  He said that God was number 1 and there was no number 2! God takes all we do personal.  He said that pastors have always struggled with doing so much in the Kingdom but allowing there families to be stretched and strained.  He told the students that this is unacceptable.  That we are to do unto the Lord with people in our church but also our families and when we spend time with our spouses or kids it is being done unto the Lord.  Everything we do then becomes an expression of love to God.  Bill stressed to the students that they need to capture their lives and make it (all of life) an offering unto the Lord.  We always need time to rest in ministry and that becomes a priority.  If we don’t rest we will loose everything.  He told us that when we come home from our jobs we need to say a simple prayer – “you are not off work yet” (good advise for all of us).  We need to remember that we are loved by God and we are the apple of His eye and not His PC!!  We need to speak words of affirmation, love and destiny over our spouses and kids!!  John the Baptist’s destiny was spoken over him when he was 8.  He didn’t know it but the words were spoken and He walked into that destiny.  Don’t wait for your kids to know the Lord to teach them – show them how to pray and worship before they come to know Him.