Showing posts with label dts. Show all posts

little black lamb!


A few weeks ago I blogged about the joy of being inconvenienced, If I didn’t convince you enough last time with my time in Paris, I hope that this story and the joy of my team being inconvenienced will encourage you to live a lifestyle of inconvenience.
I have the incredible bliss of having the most impressive team, I can’t speak highly enough of them! The way they selflessly give of themselves encourages me and reminds me daily why I love what I do so much. They are like no other group of students I have had the privilege of working with thus far. Praise Jesus, let us continue to go from GLORY TO GLORY!  
Last week our team went to an orphanage without Lindsay and me (don’t worry we weren’t slacking but working on visas to Nigeria). The team left early that morning, around 7 am, and were on their way home after a LONG day of loving the precious children at the orphanage. The team was exhausted and many were sleeping on the way home when Johan, our Irish lad who was sitting in the front seat saw a man on the side of the road.
Now this man had one leg shorter than the other, as soon as Johan saw him he felt the Lord tell him to stop the car to pray for him. Soon in to the start of our outreach our team made a decision that any time we saw someone on the side of the road that we wanted to stop and pray for we would holler at Komi our driver and stop, no matter what kind of inconvenience it would bring to us! As well as this commitment, our team had had received many words from the Lord that we would see powerful healings while in Africa. Soooo you can imagine all that is running through Johan’s head as he himself is struggling to stay awake. He KNOWs just how much on an inconvenience this would be for them to turn around and go back. At first he doesn’t say anything, except to Alec another guy on our team, leading them to both go back and forth about what to do…for 5 whole minutes!! Johan’s internal struggle of trying to determine if it was his own thoughts he was battling or if it really was from the Lord. He finally conceded that it was the Lord and couldn’t deny the prompting of the Holy Spirit any longer as he boldly turned to Komi to tell him to turn around…
Now Komi, who is not a believer, was also exhausted and was longing for home just as much as anyone else, looked at Johan with the look of, “you have GOT to be joking me!!!!” but knowing our team by this point :)) obediently turned the car around and went back to the man.
By the time they turned back and reached the man, named Kossi, minutes from when they first saw the man, to only discover that Kossi did not speak French. Supposedly the National language of Togo! Lucky for the team Komi spoke a-way the unofficial national language in Togo. The team patiently waited and prayed as Johan spoke English to Solomon (our pastor friend) who spoke to Komi in French who then translated Solomon’s words into A-way to Kossi for him to understand. Praise the Lord that we travel in a diverse group :)
Kossi welcomed the prayer and our team got to pray for Kossi’s leg, nothing changed. BUT undiscouraged Johan pressed in and asked Kossi if he had ever heard the gospel message before?? No he hadn’t. So once again through two translators Johan and the team pressed in and shared the great news of the Gospel to Kossi!! Kossi was blown away by the goodness of our Lord and all that Jesus had done for him and decided to give his life to Jesus!!!! What an amazing testimony! I love how Komi who is not yet a believer himself led someone to the Lord! That is just like Jesus to do something like that!! (Insert Praise break here!!)
Our team left Kossi after helping him connect to a local church feeling yes inconvenienced, exhausted and ready for home BUT SO elated, faith-filled and confident knowing they had just advanced the Kingdom of heaven!

This morning As I was writing about this to my supporters I was reminded of the Parable Jesus told in Luke 15.1-7. Jesus tells of the Good Shepherd who leaves his flock of 99 to go after that ONE who has strayed. What a benevolent picture of our Father, the Good Shepherd who has not forgotten even one of his precious children. He loves each of us so much and will do anything to bring us back to the safety and fullness of a relationship with Him. In addition I appreciate so much how the Lord chooses to use us to see his flock restored. Even when we struggle and doubt God doesn’t give up on us but perseveres with us to include us in his glorious purposes!

This to me is again a beautiful picture of how God is so much more committed to his people than we could ever be! He is more committed to US than we could ever know! he always leaves the flock for that one! Let us be a people who are world changers who like Jesus leave the flock and go after that one! That one that Jesus knows is ready and waiting to be welcomed in to his Kingdom!

Who do you know in your life right now that you can go and share the gospel with? Pray for? Show God’s love, faithfulness & benevolence to??

loren km roddam

A PRAYER REQUEST all the way from africa :)))

Greetings from Africa!! God is SO great, we are doing fantastic here. I wanted to call on you all to join with my team and me in prayer!! So quickly here it is::

SO much happened today. Our team has a dream to preach before thousands at the futbol stadium here. We have been telling pastors here and many think we are crazy...we kind of are! Lindsay (my amazing co-leader) had the fantastic idea today to go to the Stadium and pray and worship there. We arrive and the military met us...amazing! As a Canadian gal I am not okay with people pointing with their guns!!! :)) The military told us we needed permission to come in, Johan (our Irish team member) asked if they would give us permission haha! We can be a bit cheeky on this team!! They said no...as we were talking a black car pulled up with just the man (Komi) we needed to see - the man responsible for the Stadium! He invited us in to his office and we quickly became friends with him. However he wasn't able to help us as he needed permission from his boss to allow us to use the Stadium...so he called him. His boss was the government official - Minister of Sports for all of Togo!! (This will come as no surprise to my family as it has continually been spoken over my life that I will interact with top government officials and royalty!! BRING IT LORD) Komi graciously sent along one of his workers to help us. Upon arriving at the government building we were ushered in to a conference room to meet with the Minister and 2 other men. There we shared that we had a message of God's love from the Lord to share with the Togolese and wanted to use the Stadium. Our conversation went from them saying it was impossible for us to use it to them inviting Lindsay and me to return on Thursday with a few Pastors from the local churches who plan to help us host this event. At this meeting we will talk about if and how we can do this! SO please pray! We have made MAJOR progress!! God is SO good!! We are praying for the Stadium for free and for thousands to come and hear our message!!

Another huge prayer request we have is this::
About a month ago we had a word of the Lord to go to Nigeria! So we are!! It was totally out of the blue and the Lord has done nothing but open doors thus far. Today Lindsay, Alec (another team member) & I went to the Nigerian Embassy. Once there the lady working there told us it was impossible to get our visas for Nigeria :))
YAAAY another inconvenience OR an opportunity for the Lord to do the impossible. They also said we cannot get a visa at the border either. They pretty much told us the only way to get visas was to apply in our home countries - Canada, Brazil, Korea, Ireland & England. That can't happen as we are leaving in about 18 days time!! We left not discouraged but encouraged to get on our knees in prayer, knowing that this was the Father's plan not ours! Upon leaving the office one of the gate guards asked us how it went, after we shared he informed us we can actually get visas at the border. PRAISE! We are hopeful for this but have another lead as well...about an hour before we went to the Embassy we were applying for visa extensions for Togo, at this office we met the son of the diplomat for Mali (another West African Nation) - no big deal, just a day in the life of Togo Team - and we are hoping that this young man who studies in Boston and is visiting his diplomat mum will help us in not only getting our visas to Nigeria but also maybe help us get there!!

Needless to say we ned prayer!! God is SO good we have already seen Him move so much. Since being here we have seen 4 physical healings, a multiplication of food at church and have begun to disciple 3 young Christian men! We are rejoicing in how the Lord is going to open these seemingly shut doors!

Would you please take even 45 seconds right now and pray that the Lord would move in these two situations, that we would be able to use the Stadium to bring the GOOD NEWS and for our trip to Nigeria - our passage there as well as our visas! Please pray in faith acknowledging that we serve the God of Luke 1.37, the God where nothing is impossible! 

Thank you SO much for your love and prayers!! We are SO grateful!!

loren km roddam

a seemingly major inconvenience = dream come true!

During one of our weeks of lecture in this Discipleship Training School we had a speaker come and share how often times when we are inconvenienced the Lord will use that for an opportunity. Since hearing this my prayer has been that God would inconvenience me daily. This is my desire for each day I am in Togo and for the rest of my life...little did I know that God would actually hear and answer my prayer :)

For the past 4 or so months my co-leader, Lindsay and I have had a dream to take our team to Paris. We wanted to surprise them and debrief there on our return home from Togo. When we discovered that our flight did not fly through there we were slightly saddened but knew that the Lord had something better for us, and He does! We now get to spend 3 wonderful days with friends of mine in the Netherlands!!

This story begins a week ago when my team was boarding a plane to LAX. We had some teary goodbyes, were excited yet heavy hearted to leave our friends and fellow member of our team in Kona, he is on his way to meet us soon. From the moment we arrived at the airport we sensed the favour of the Lord with 5 of the 8 of us getting upgraded to economy comfort. This was great b/c had an overnight flight. We board the plane and after waiting an hour we come to find out that there was a slight electrical problem and they were awaiting a part from Honolulu. So off we the plane we went. After waiting another hour we discover our flight is completely cancelled!! Little did we know that this was the first of many delays that we would have!! Lindsay and I were quite fortunate b/c we were already waiting in line for assistance when the mob closed in around us upon hearing of the cancelled flight. Again we felt the favour of the Lord as the Customer Service Agent went above and beyond to help us reschedule our flight the next day, knowing we were with the University of the Nations, and rerouted us through PARIS!! God answered our prayers, it was only a few hours but still we were thankful!

Even though this was an inconvenience to our plans we saw it as an opportunity to see our friends in Kona for another day. We were put up in a hotel, which was exciting for us but I am confident to say that the hotel was not nearly as happy as we were when the remaining 4 outreach teams came to join us there :) The next day we were off for round two with two other teams. This time it was a much more joyous parting as we all flew to San Francisco together. We arrive only to discover that our flight was delayed! This was a re-occuring theme for our travel. In the midst of delays, cancellations and re-bookings our team stayed in the highest of spirits, joyful and praising Jesus! Breaking out in spontaneous PRAISE BREAKS in random airports across the globe. (if you don't know what a Praise Break is, it is when you do something wild with your body that you have never done before to give thanksgiving to the Lord for all He has done :D it is quite a hilarious sight)

Finally we arrived in Paris. I was so happy to be there. I knew it was a gift from the Lord but felt that there was something more b/c I knew that the Father would not bring us all this way to just have us leave so quickly. But alas my ticket said we only had 3 short hours, which were cut even shorter b/c of another delay :)) so we would make the most of it as we passed through windows gazing out...

Our team went to check in only to discover that my reservation along with another gal's were both cancelled. I was elated! I would get to see Paris after all...and for FREE!! The rest of our team took off running to catch their flight. About 30 minutes later after working through rebooking our flight, Lindsay's bright and smiling face comes bursting down the hallway! Our entire team had missed their flight due to Air France and were not allowed to board...resulting in us ALL staying the night in Paris!! What a great inconvenience that turned in to an opportunity for us to see Paris!! What a GREAT Father we have. God is so faithful to give us the desires of our hearts just because He loves us and for no other reason.


And see Paris we did! We were able to go out and explore the city that afternoon and again the next morning taking in many sights, culture and delicious food at a very minimum cost to us. It was better than we could have ever hoped for!!



We arrived in Togo 5 days later than anticipated with 3 cancelled reservations, with each flight we took be delayed and arriving with no luggage. BUT that paled in comparison to the great spirits and joy we had with the memory of the extra night with our friends in Kona and adventure in Paris. What an extraordinary generous God we serve. I am still extremely humbled by how much better God's plan is than mine and how when we allow ourselves to be inconvenienced the adventures never cease!!

My hope is that for us all to reevaluate how we look at inconveniences in our lives, not as things that mess up our day/week/month and bring in a bad attitude BUT an an opportunity for the Lord to move in our lives and to bring blessing to us and others along the way!!


Stay tuned for more to come from our time in Togo!!

loren km roddam

t minus thirty-six hours, ready or not togo here we come!!

I am down to my last few hours in Kona...36 to be exact! 36 hours left of the lecture phase of the most inspiring Discipleship Training School I have ever had the privilege of being a part of. I remember boarding a plane exactly 4 months ago today not knowing what to expect, not realising that the people I was about to meet would impact my life forever, being welcomed in to a family that I would chose to commit to and live life with, resulting in changing the course of my life, plans and ultimately the world forever!!! 

As I have been reflecting on these past 11 1/2 weeks with various people I have been reminded time and again at the Lord’s sovereign hand through it all. Nothing can hold us back from the GREAT gifts He has for us. 

We began this school with our students getting to know our staff with a week of hearing our testimonies and learning to hear the voice of the Lord, then jumping right in to a time of purifying our hearts and realigning ourselves to the Lord with a week of “Pure Heart”. After Tom & Donna shared with us we were blasted with a firm foundation in the word of God and a boosting of faith by the incredibly humble, gifted and wise Trent Sheppard, Dan Baumann & Christian Gonzalez. 
The foundation these Godly men gave us enabled us to openly embrace the following three weeks of encouragement and empowering of Holy Spirit with Amy Sollars, Chad Dedmond and Bob Hartley! Bob never ceased to amaze us daily with his acuteness to hearing the voice of the Lord - often getting phone numbers of people in our class!!
After being empowered we were trained through a week of circuit riders, which pumped us up to hear Garth Gustafson, who was fresh in and fiery from Cambodia to remind us of our call to the nations and our desperate need to know the word! Last but not least we have the honour of finishing our lecture phase off with the Father of Awaken - Andrew York and our wise and adventurous friend and other Awaken leader Kat Hobin on the importance of kingdom family and community. This was just the message we needed to hear as we are launched out to the nations!! Can you see what I am talking about in terms of inspiring! All I could think of this morning was - GET ME TO THE NATIONS!!! This progression of greatness could have only been sovereignly put together by our great God!


As I look back Through Andrew’s teaching this week I am reminded of something he shared from 
Acts 1.8 - But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea andr Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Jesus is just about to ascend in to heaven and leave His disciples to fulfil the great commission that he has given to them when He turns to say these words to them. Jesus is wanting them to know that there is a kingdom of POWER that is available to them. 1 Corinthians 2.4-5 speaks of how Paul’s weak message was not made strong through His words but through a demonstration of the Spirit. 
Through all that I have learned through this school what sticks with me the most is a simple truth! It is not me, my words, my power or my strength - as much as I would LOVE to think that it were - that changes people’s lives but it is the POWER OF GOD at work in me!! I need to realise that I have full access to the Father as a daughter! A daughter of the Almighty God - again the ALMIGHTY GOD NOT the God who is sort-of-mighty BUT the ALL-MIGHTY God!! Think about this for a minute, allow it to sink in...we serve the ALMIGHTY GOD, nothing is out of his power or control! 

Through this knowledge and understanding the Kingdom of POWER is readily available to me (us). I just need to reach out and take hold of it! Take a risk, take a risk daily! I was again challenged by Andrew’s words when he asked us if we really knew what we were asking when we prayed the Lord’s Prayer to have God’s Kingdom come?! Heaven is bursting at the seams to be released on earth!! How can we be a part of seeing Heaven released on earth?? How can I in West ArFica be a part of seeing heaven released there??!

I have the opportunity to step on a plane in 36 very short hours to voyage across the globe to Togo & Nigeria, West Africa! This will be my first time to this remarkable continent. A place that is close to my heart some might say it is even in my blood...line :) As I pray for heaven to be released on earth and take a step of faith (and risk) in going to the nations I go expecting God to show his power! To show His power in ways I can’t even dream of! But dream I do!! 
I can hardly wait to see all that the Lord has in store and stored up for my team and me. 


I invite you to Join me - dream with me, Pray with me, expect with me for the GREAT, marvellous and impossible things the Lord is bursting at the seams to do in these beautiful places. I hope you will join in my journey as I take a leap of risk that will without fail change my life and these nations forever!

this is how you spell RISK...or maybe we're just CRAZY :)) 

enjoy some highlights from the past 3 months!

loren km roddam

these are some TESTIMONIES!!!

Aloha!!

What a week we have had here in Kona!! We had one of our January DTS' returning from outreach and had the privilege of joining them for a night of testimonies of what the Lord did on their teams. I wanted to share with you some highlights as so many of you are a part of this as you support me and my ministry in Kona. I hope you are as blessed as I was through these testimonies!!

The Fire & Fragrance DTS sent out 9 outreach teams to:: The Big Island of Hawaii, NYC & the Northeast, Washington D.C, LA, England & Amsterdam, Nepal, Uganda, South Africa & India. Through their time these teams totaling more than 160 people ministered to thousands of people!!! They saw 1229 SALVATIONS!!!!!!! PRAISE THE LORD!!!! Many of these were put in to intentional discipleship relationships and left with bibles to further grow and deepen their new relationship with the Lord!!!!! In additions these incredible God loving and fearing teams saw 4470 people healed!!!In Nepal alone they prayed for between 2000-3000 people for physical healings and had a 90% healing rate amongst them!!! PRAISE THE LORD!!! Nations were changed through these outreaches, University campuses transformed and our students lives were changed forever!!

I want to share a few specific and exciting stories with you that really encouraged my heart!

Big Island, Hawaii
While in Hilo these students (who were all families who left all that they had behind, sold homes, cars, belongings and businesses to come and be a part of this DTS) joined together with what was once the world's largest church - Haili Congregational Church - to go and minister to the surrounding area. While there their Youth leader was admitted to the hospital with staff infection and heart failure. Our team went to the hospital to pray for her. She was feeling so great that she went home the next day! But shortly after her return home her condition quickly declined and she was back in the hospital. Not long after she was rushed back to the hospital she died!! The DTS team heard about this and began to pray for her!! In total she was dead for 7 minutes. When she came to she asked her brother (who happened to be in the hospital with her) if she had died...he replied, yes, yes you did. She in awe said..."it was real then, Jesus came to me and put his mouth over mine and resuscitated me!!" AMEN!!!!! The doctors and nurses in the hospital were going crazy! A doctor asked one of our students "who are these people anyway??" 
His response, "we are the body of Christ and we do this all over the world!!!" COME ON!! 

AMAZING, needless to say we all broke out in to a spontaneous time of thanks and praise to our GREAT God!!!

Meanwhile in Washington DC at the only deaf university in the world our students learned how to sign the gospel. Through this incredible opportunity more than 100 students "heard" the gospel through sign!

In South Africa a couple of our female students were walking through a University Campus when they spotted a beautiful set of twins. They strike up a conversation with them and come to find out that one of the girls is deaf. So the girls do the only thing they know how to do, pray! So they pray for this young deaf girl and she gets completely healed and hears for the first time!!

I hope you are as encouraged as my students and I were this week. We are nowless than 3 WEEKS away from leavingand more excited than ever to be in the nations bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to earth and sharing the Gospel to each place we go!!


IF you would like to help me get to Togo please follow this link!

http://lifewithlor.blogspot.com/p/join-my-team.html

Thank you for your love and support, would LOVE to hear from you!!

From Glory to Glory,
Lori

75-5851 Kuakini Hwy
#296
Kailua-Kona, HI

96740

loren km roddam

what were humans meant to be???


have you ever stopped to think about Jesus as a man? I know that we “know” that Jesus was a man...BUT have you ever really stopped to think about what that actually means??

Last week in the Discipleship Training School I am working with, in Kona, HI, we had the privilege of taking a week just to focus on the life of Jesus here on earth and to imagine what his life might have looked like.
One thing We would do is read through one story at a time and put ourselves in Jesus’ shoes...what was He thinking? What was He feeling? What was the look in His eyes? We tried to imagine what his friends were thinking and feeling, what about when the disciples would see Him turn water in to wine, or heal the blind man on the Sabbath day? They would have been thinking:: This was a MAN! What kind of a man can make dirt (and on the Sabbath day no less) and put it on a man’s blind eyes to make him see? Or who goes to a party and when all the wine has run out just grabs some water and make some more? Really...Can you even imagine doing these things???!! I dream of doing these things!

Through this teaching, I had a great revelation:: the disciples would have struggled to understand that Jesus was FULLY God! Then
there is ME...of course Jesus is God...how do they not believe Jesus is God, the Son of God?? But to really grasp the concept that Jesus was FULLY MAN...that seems too much for me. For a man to have walked on this earth, who walked on water, rose people from the dead, lived a sinless life and to give himself for me – all of these things still as a man...seems to unreal!

Through these slight mind/heart shift changes I have a renewed understanding for what God said to Adam & to Noah when He gave them dominion over the earth...Jesus was only doing what He knew He had the authority to do. TAKE DOMINION...

dominion |dəˈmɪnjən|
noun
1 sovereignty; control : man's attempt to establish dominion over nature.


This thought leads me to the question that was asked so many times of us last week...what were Humans meant to be??? What were humans meant to be???


If Jesus came fully man to this earth and saw people healed, delivered, raised from the dead, set free...what does that mean for us? A people whom He said would go on to do greater and better than He??

We were created in the image of the most High God! The breath of the living God was breathed in to mankind...when Jesus was with His disciples He breathed on them, signifying the Spirit of God. The holy Spirit makes us a new creation...this...
Brings us a new way of being human!


How will we let this truth change us? Change our view of Jesus? Change how we live our lives? What were humans meant to be??? Let us work together to be a people who join with God to bring His creation back to His original design for us.

loren km roddam

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