Volume 8: Hunger for Revival

Flyer for our first event in Kentucky

    Little did I know the how the journey would be ahead. Below is a video from of our time from leaving Lavon and Marla to our first event in Hopkinsville Kentucky. We spent some time with some believers in Tennessee and went to one of Shanes friends church who was a part of the Brownsville revival named Lindell Cooley. In the video you will see a guy named Max who Shane and Julie met at a laundromat. He ended up coming to the bus and we shared the Gospel with him after spending a while chatting. As we prayed for him he immediately started manifesting an unclean spirit. His heart was so bitter towards his dad that he allowed the darkness in, the Lord had exposed this through praying for him. His eyes were rolling in the back of his head, he was growling and moaning as well as clinching his fist. He had a knife on the side of his pants which I couldn't shake being aware of. He never reached for it during our time with him much to my relief. You could feel his stomach rumbling and even see it from the spirits inside of him. He came to and said that God showed him that he needed to forgive his dad, but he didn't know if he could. Funny thing is that the day before he got a letter from his mother, she inserted his dads number and recommended giving him a call. The Lord had set him up and confronted the evil in his heart, to set him free from it and reveal His great love. We must understand the importance of forgiveness. The scripture says, "when you pray, make sure you forgive the faults of others so that your Father in Heaven will also forgive you. But if you withhold forgiveness from others, your Father will withhold forgiveness from you." Matthew 6:14-15. So we see that our unforgiveness towards others stops the flow of Gods forgiveness towards us. It also opens doors to the enemy. The scripture also says "See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble, and by it causing many to become defiled." Hebrews 12:15

 

    From there we went home for Christmas, with the intention of leaving again to do our first ever event in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. We had recently met and ministered with in a  mennonite community where we saw a few healings and a couple of deliverances, as well as a hunger beginning to stir for more of the Lord. So a gentleman named Glenn who had come out of old order mennonite (look it up) community invited us to do a kickstart/Hunger 4 Revival event in his town. It was his home that we went to and saw the Lord move. So we made some phone calls and assembled a team of people to help us with the event. Unbeknown to us that God was forming a five fold ministry that had every office at His disposal for this event. Every person coming walked it different strengths and could fully express the body of Christ in unity. We all met in Kentucky and made our way to Glenns home to pray and prepare for the event.

    The Lord had moved on us as we prayed together for the event. There was weeping and brokenness amongst us as the Lord moved on our hearts. We were very encouraged. I had actually on our journey through Tennessee ended up with the motorhome in a ditch. I had taken a hard left turn at a four way and didn't compensate for the size of the motorhome. I was a bit shaken by that whole ordeal as Shane had to pull me out of the ditch. So it was good to have a time of refreshing where God took some of the trials off of us. In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus said, "the cares of this life choke the Word." So we know that the trials and troubles of life are often how we get distracted from Jesus, our heart drifts from His face to our troubles and we begin to be heavy instead of free. The Lord is always faithful to wash us a fill us again as long as time endures. Bless His Name!

    The time had come for our first event. Unfortunately a massive winter storm had stretched all the way down to Texas! With below freezing temperatures for a time that wreaked havoc across the country. Even where we were a bad storm came through and there was a layer of ice on the road. It was intense. Nonetheless we carried on. We actually only had Shane on the keys, me on guitar and Julie singing backup. So Shane asked if there was anyone in the crowd that played drums (very informal I know but we had a small hand drum known as a cajon available). A person in the crowd said that he did, his name was Will Hunt, a rogue drummer from Mississippi who was on a journey seeking God and ended up at our event. He helped us out and did an incredible job the whole event, it was the Lord providing for sure. 

    During the event my oldest daughter Eliana came up to me and asked when she was going to be baptized. She had been asking since she was six and I had been very hesitant to baptized her because of her age. Some will baptize children too early, when there is no conviction of sin or moving of the Lord on their hearts. This can cause confusion later in life, a lot of children get baptized because they see other people do it and want to go swimming too. In other situations the parents urge it to hopefully change the child but this too is an error. We must first be convicted of our sin by the Holy Spirit, then we must turn from our sin or repent. It is then that baptism comes, and through our faith in Jesus alone we wash our sins away. We die with Christ and rise with Him through baptism, the Bible says that the old has gone and the new has come. So you must understand the weight of the Gospel and of baptism for the believer. (Mark 16:16, 1 Peter 3:21, Romans 6:3-4, Colossians 2:11-12)

    So this took place after (I believe) the Friday night session of our event. This time when my daughter asked me to be baptized I pulled her in close and almost desperately prayed to the Lord, "Father, if you want her to be baptized I need you to convict her of sin, then I will know." I was thinking that if she became convicted of her sin that she could therefore repent from them and be baptized for the remission of her sins. So she went away and about ten minutes later she came back with our team member Sandra. Eliana was crying and told me she was sad in her heart. So I took her aside in the kitchen and we got down on our knees and I said, "let out to the Lord whatever is in your heart." She began to confess things! The Lord had convicted her! She said, "Lord forgive me for being mean to my brother and sister, forgive me for lying, for not listening to my parents, forgive me for being sneaky and getting on the iPad and Lord forgive me for doing what I want to do instead of what I know I'm supposed to do." Then she began to cry heavily for about 5 minutes on the ground. I had not said anything during this time but was convinced the Lord was moving on her heart. So I pick her up and take her to Shane our friend. He puts his hand on her head and begins to pray and then Eliana falls back onto the ground under the presence of the Lord!

Eliana after Shane had prayed for her

    

    As I was watching this I was amazed. Some of the ladies gathered around her and started praying for her. She cried louder and louder and eventually started screaming the Name of Jesus over and over again. Her hands were shaking side to side as she called upon the name of the Lord. Then out of nowhere it was as if the shaking stopped and she started to shout out in tongues very loudly. She had been baptized in the Holy Spirit! It was incredible! We were all crying as we could feel the presence of God all around us. Then out of nowhere two other young girls about the same age, who were the daughters of Shane and my friend Mark, began to be touched by the Lord. They were weeping and crying as well as repenting for the things that they had done. These three girls began to huddle together and pray the rest of the night under the presence of the Lord. How wonderful it was!

    God had moved upon the children's hearts and revealed Himself to them. If you are not familiar with my previous blogs I recounted how the Lord had warned me through a dream to repent and if I didn't it would fall on my oldest daughter and she wouldn't know Him. So as a product of us leaving everything and hitting the road He had touched her in a powerful way. God wants to touch our family and our children, but sin separates us from Him. It stays His hand and His desire to pour out His Spirit on us. He is calling us to be all in for the Gospel but a lot of the American church is lukewarm. (Revelation 3:15-19) We are comfortable and have no need of the Lord. We have a form of godliness but no power! (2 Timothy 3:5) We have been a friend of the world and an enemy of God! (James 4:4) We praise the Lord but our hearts are far from Him! (Matthew 15:7-9) I was there and the Lord so graciously warned me and I heeded His call to repent. We should all search ourselves and make sure that we are in the faith. That our lives are ever progressing toward that of the life of Jesus! The scripture says that whoever claims to live in Him (Christ) must walk as he walked! (1 John 2:5-6) What a challenging message. But God gives grace to the humble, if we come to Him broken and needy, He will lift us up.

    So much more happened at the event like deliverances, healings, baptisms and souls revived. From there our next event was in Springfield Missouri where we baptized Eliana. She went out in the baptismal under the power of God, it was amazing. She has from then prayed for people, shared dreams and visions, as well as encouraged so many people in the Lord. What took place in Springfield and beyond will be in our next blog. I hope you are encouraged to go deeper with Jesus through this, to give Him everything, to put your hand to the plow and not look back! For He is worth it all!