Wednesday, July 11, 2007

UMT Summer Boot Camp - WEEKEND REPORT

WOW! What an amazing weekend! The Lord really showed off and did some spectacular things over the last few days. We saw a ton of POWERFUL miracles and about 20 people met the Lord this weekend!

For the evening meetings we had the band Living Anthem, an amazing praise and worship crew from Bremen, Georgia. These really are more than rockers; they’ve had an authentic encounter with the Lord that’s released an awesome anointing on their music.

We were so blessed to have Surprise Sithole from Iris Ministries with us. Suprise is a true Apostle overseeing 7,000 churches, representing more than 1,000,000 believers in Africa alone! With more responsibility than any other minister I have ever met, Suprise has more joy and is the happiest person I have ever been around! That alone was worth the price of admission (free), but we got a lot more too. The simplicity of his message, his lifestyle of exuberant joy and passionate love for God, along with the power of the Holy Spirit released during the ministry times, we were blessed! Most every ministry time ended with the people running to the altar and throwing themselves on the ground, worshipping and crying out for more of Jesus!

Most all of our plans for the weekend were changed as the time for equipping workshops was set aside for time in a Holy Ghost “dog pile”. Just a mass of people on their face, worshipping, repenting and crying out to Jesus, asking for MORE! We did however get to go out in groups two times, Saturday and Sunday afternoons. The results were fantastic! Each day, more than 70 people went out, preaching the Gospel to the poor, healing the sick and casting out devils. It was just like in Luke 10:

"And after these things the Lord appointed seventy others, And He sent them two and two before His face into every city and place where He was about to come." Luke 10:1

"And heal the sick that are in it, and say to them, The kingdom of God has come near you!" Luke 10:9

"And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us through Your name. And He said to them, I saw Satan fall from Heaven like lightning. Behold, I give to you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the authority of the enemy. And nothing shall by any means hurt you. Yet do not rejoice in this, that the evil spirits are subject to you, rather rejoice because your names are written in Heaven." Luke 10:17-20

So the teams went out to preach the Gospel and heal the sick and they did! When everyone returned on Sunday evening to tell the testimonies of what the Lord had done, we were blown away!

Here are some of the testimonies:


LUNGS HEALED, CRIPPLE WALKS!
One of the teams encountered a woman in her thirties in a wheelchair, being pushed by two other people. They found out after asking that she had a severe lung disease that hardened her lung tissue and restricted her breathing. Her shallow, labored breathing meant that she could only take a few steps without becoming fatigued and out of breath. She had the team examine her and they could actually feel the hardened lung tissue underneath her ribs, poking out and restricting her air flow. The doctors gave her only a few months to live with the degenerative nature of the disease.

One of the young men on the team asked if the team could pray for her telling her that the Kingdom of heaven is at hand. He then prophesied that her lung tissue would soften, shrink and she would be able to breathe. As they prayed, exactly what they had prophesied began to happen! Under their hands, the lung tissue softened and shrank. They told her to try and breathe deeply and she took deep, cleansing breaths! They then commanded her to get up out of the wheelchair and walk and she did! Instead of taking a few steps and being tired, she took many steps without fatigue! She was praising God and they sent her home without need for the wheel chair!


TWIN BLIND EYES OPENED!
This is a weird testimony. Two teams, in two different locations ran into older women with the same conditions in the same parts of their body! Both had severe diabetes and both had severe vision loss. Both of these ladies (two different women, living in neighborhoods ten miles from each other) had blind left eyes with extremely blurry vision in their right eyes. Both women were confronted with the Kingdom and very receptive to the power of God. Both women were saved and “waiting on their miracle”. They had both received instruction in the things of God, but were not told that the power of God and the Kingdom of God is ON THE EARTH and AT HAND!

As the team prayed for each of them, their blind left eyes were opened and they both began to see out of them, one about 50% vision and the other 100%. In both of them, the blurriness in the right eyes instantly dissolved! They were thanking and praising God for the miracles they had received in the name of Jesus!


THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING LEG!
One team encountered a woman with severe rheumatoid arthritis. She could not speak English, but was communicating through her daughter and granddaughter. The team told them about the Kingdom of God being on the earth today and to offer proof asked if they could pray for her healing. She had pain and severe swelling in her legs, calf and ankles. She was wearing calf high socks that were tight due to the swelling caused by her arthritic condition. The team offered prayer for her, commanding the arthritis to go. After they prayed, one of the team members was giving a word to daughter when he noticed out of the corner of his eye that the leg was shrinking! The other team members witnessed the leg shrinking dramatically before their eyes! The lady, although she couldn’t speak English was shocked and began to make hand motions indicating that the leg was shrinking. The once tight socks now became loose and started to slide off of her now much smaller leg! The pain left her and she went on her way praising God!


IN CLOSING
These are just a few of the MANY testimonies of healings and miracles that took place out in the street, in the projects and in local stores. I’ll tell more in the next update. The list is long and includes pain dissolving, lupus being healed, paralysis being destroyed, prophetic words of knowledge unlocking sinner’s hearts and almost two dozen people meeting the Lord! Many were released into powerful Kingdom ministry and we’re already preparing for the next equipping and releasing events. One that I am especially excited about is the following:


UMT – Youth Track (Ages 13-19)
This is a track we are very excited about that will take place in the fall. It will be a 6 – 8 week program that will equip, train and release young people in Junior High and High School to view their schools as mission fields for the Kingdom of God. We will have intense worship, powerful teaching and ministry and weekly invasions of local high school football games so that everyone involved can see the power of God moving on high school campuses and among high school and college age kids.

Stay tuned!

Blessings,
Ryan

4 comments:

Sarah said...

Thanks for the encouraging testimonies! I believe the twin blind eyes opening is especially important. I think that when God does things in twos like that, it's for emphasis. And that He is communicating something to us through this. I believe these healings are a prophetic picture of the body of Christ in this hour (both women were believers, but didn't know the Kingdom is at hand now). Without the understanding of the Kingdom of God here and now, we are half blind (the left eye) so much so, that it affects our right eye - the right symbolizing authority. Our vision for what God can do and the spiritual authority attached to that is "blurred" when we don't have the full picture of God's Kingdom Here and Now. I think God is speaking to us about what He wants to do in the wider body of Christ through what He did for these women. Heal our vision! So we can see! Let it be, Lord!

Unknown said...

Good stuff!

Caitlyn said...

Your "shrinking leg" story reminded me of a fun thing I witnessed.

At a prayer rumble thing my high school youth group attended Robin, one of the youth leaders, was up front getting her back prayed for by the speaker. After a minute he kept speaking and five or so kids - kids, not high schoolers - took over the praying. The speaker was telling a story of a healing where a guy had one leg longer than the other and they prayed and the legs got evened out. Then he asked Robin if her back was any better. She said it was but "incidentally" one of her legs was indeed longer than the other. We all laughed in anticipation and he said "Gather round if you want to see a leg grow!" So we all crowded around the front of the room to watch and pray. I was close to the front so I got to see it close up. The speaker said "In the name of Jesus we command this leg to grow!" And it did -- too long!! God was having fun with us that day. :P So we prayed again and it evened out. It was pretty wild.

Another thing that happened that same day - a few of us were praying for Tess, a sophomore who wore heavy perscription glasses. She couldn't have contacts because of how her eyes were. She took them off and was laborously reading the Bible while we prayed for her eyes. I'll never forget -- all of a sudden in the middle of a sentence (I wish I could remember what verse she was reading) she screamed and doubled over laughing and crying. She came up yelling, "I can see, I can see, I can see" and she was crying and laughing and trying to call her mom and it was the most amazing thing.

Best of all - my little sister was there, so now she's a little bit crazified too!

Epilogue: I saw Tess the next day and asked her how it felt to wake up and be able to see around the room. I wear heavy-duty contacts and I can only imagine what it would be like not to need them. I'd lovelovelove to get that healed someday. Anyway, she told me that when she told her brother he said it was just a fluke and her eyes would be back to normal in the morning. HA! It's been about seven months and now she only needs reading glasses occasionally.

Yay Jesus!!

Unknown said...

Caitlyn,

Way cool story!

Ryan