Child Sponsorship

If anyone is interested Iris Nepal offers a Child Sponsorship program for the kids at our home. Photos of the children along with their sponsorship status can be found here. For more info email irisnepal@gmail.com

Radio Silence....

...We're still alive and doing well, but due to moving, no internet access, and our laptop dying, we have been rather lacking on the communication front. Hopefully in a few weeks we'll be able to give a more verbose update(with pictures) on whats been going on with us. For now we leave you with a point form outline.

• After 11 months of nomadic homelessness we've finally moved into our own flat just outside of Kathmandu. We live above a church and below our amazing landlord. The place is brand new which is a nice perk in Asia, and when its a clear day we can see a number of Himalayan mountains from our windows.
• The power supply on our laptop blew which has led us down the wonderful adventures of international warranty claims
• We've seriously been falling more in love with the children at the home.  The more we get to know them and their personalities the more they work their way into our hearts. 
• All the staff who we're away during the summer returned last month, and last week we had a YWAM arrive. Now we'll be resuming village outreaches, going to Nepal's many unreached villages and sharing the love of the Father with them.

On another note, last week we encountered Gods amazing faithfulness and provision. Essentially we ran out of money and we didn't know what we were going to do. So we prayed and thanked Jesus for His provision and faithfulness ahead of time. The next day we received more money than we immediately needed from a totally unexpected source. Then a couple days later our base leader came to our door with money saying it wasn't from him and he couldn't tell us who it was from. Jesus is so good and faithful, its amazing!


Thats all for now
Grace, Peace, & more Holy Spirit
-Kyle & Annie

Update

Our bi-annual update for Iris Canada is now online.

http://irismin.ca/updates/august-2011-kyle-annie-update

Marbles and the relentless generosity of children

The other day I decided I wanted to give each of the boys at the Iris home a few marbles. At one point they had  one or two to share among all 13 of them, but they had long ago disappeared the way marbles do. The day after I decided to get them marbles Jesus provided a whole jar of them to us for free. Not that marbles are expensive, or out of our ability to purchase, but any provision from the Father is a good thing, and for this we are thankful.

Today we gave each boy four small marbles. They were so excited and thankful over a few cents worth of round glass. They all kept saying "Thank you Uncle, thank you Auntie", and wasted no time starting a number of games around the play area. The smallest ones would just giggle while they chased their rolling marbles around.

About an hour after we gave them to them a five year old named Mahindra came up to me and placed all four of his new marbles in my pocket. Thinking he was being silly I took them out and tried to put them in his shirt pocket. He promptly places both hands over the pocket preventing my deposit and said he wanted to give me the marbles. I played along and thanked him, then a few minutes later I tried again to put them in his shirt pocket. Again he flat out refused. After a few more unsuccessful attempts I ran down to his room and hid them under his pillow. He soon discovered them, chased me down and shoved them in my pocket.

I had to accept it, he wanted me to keep them. This little boy who doesn't have very much, and shares all the toys with the other children, insisted on giving away his new toy that was entirely his own.

Freely we have received and freely we are to give. We can't hold onto anything so tightly that it gets in the way of love. Five year old Mahindra knows more about the kingdom than I do.

-kyle

Transformation

This is Pabitra. She's five years old and one of the newest additions to the Iris Nepal Children's Home. What we know of her story is similar to so many children in Nepal. Her father died and then her mother remarried, however, her mothers new husband didn't want any reminder of his wife's old marriage, so Pabitra's mother abandoned her.

When Pabitra first came to Iris you could see rejection hovering over her. Like many new orphans she would eat huge quantities of food because she was probably uncertain if any more food would come. While the other kids would run around and play on the rooftop terrace of the home she would stand motionless and stare out at the mountains. She would let you pick her up but she would sit lifeless in your arms. Everyone at Iris would just hold her and pray for her, pour as much love into her as we could. Most kids take a few hours to realize that they are in an environment of unconditional love and acceptance, Pabitra took days.

One day we went to the kids home to spend time with them after school and Pabitra was the first child I saw that day. She was a totally different person. She met me with a huge smile, arms flung wide, wanting to be picked up. She now is full of joy, giggling, running around with the other kids. She eats normal portions of food, and sings while she does her homework.

This is the transforming power of the Fathers Love. It demolished the spirit of rejection and poured out acceptance and love, and made a broken little girl into a new creation.

Glory

-kyle

The Narrow Gate

"Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few."
Matthew 7:12-14

This verse kicked me in the pants the other day. "...the way is HARD that leads to life." Wow, that really speaks against a lot of what the Western Church teaches. Following Jesus is the best, most amazing thing one could ever do, but it's so hard as well. I've been having a difficult time adjusting to life here sometimes, but it ok. Doing what Jesus has called you to do is often difficult, it involves suffering, it involves the desires and wants of our flesh (body) to be killed, so that our life in Jesus can grow and blossom. My character is being built and issues that I thought I've dealt with have all been challenged since I've been here. The enemy has also been trying to discourage me and tell me lies, so it's been double the hurt (pruning) and pain sometimes. BUT, Jesus is so so good. He's changed my life! He's making me more like Himself until one day I am face to face with my Saviour - perfected by His glory.

Father, may my life be a sacrifice and offering to You. Thank You that You give me the strength to do this.

- Annie

I met my cousin tn Kathmandu!

That almost sounds like a country song.  After we got back from our outreach my Mum, Aunt AND Uncle all e-mail me and tell me that my cousin Amy, who I've never met, is in Kathmandu doing a DTS with YWAM.  She's an MK and has lived all over the world and I've never had the chance to meet her.  After connecting by e-mail we arranged to meet for lunch.  It was so good to connect and share about what's going on in in our lives.  It was surreal and yet completely comfortable, I mean we have the same grandmother, same cousins and we even have the same space between our toes!  I miss her already.  LOVE YOU AMY!!!

Village Outreach recap

Panwhalla in Janakpur

 Its been a few weeks since we returned from our village outreach in Janakpur and Pokhara. It was great to get out of the Kathmandu Valley and into other parts Nepal. Janakpur feels almost exactly like North India, the heat, the food, the people, the way the city is laid out, all of it. It made us miss our time in India a little.

In the three days we were there we ministered in one church and three small Dalit villages, one of which had never heard the name of Jesus before. We would gather and worship for a while to welcome the presence of God, this also tends to gather most of the village around us. One of the Nepali's on our team would then preach, and then we would pray for the sick. Because of the rigorous farming work in the rural areas almost everyone had some sort of body pain amongst other ailments. At lease 5-10 deaf people were totally healed, some heard their children's voice for the first time. Overall the vast majority of people prayed for were healed, many also accepted Jesus into their hearts, and received the love of the Father.


We had to pray for a few hours just to get through all the people. It gave me a better understanding how Jesus got tired at the end of a day praying for people. I kept getting to a place of feeling totally empty yet there are still people waiting in line, or bypassing it all together to receive prayer. I often had to pray as an act of will rather than a place of faith, but that didn't matter much, when we are faithless Jesus is faithful. The people were so hungry, hopeful and full of faith. They often had more determination than we did. If they weren't healed they wouldn't get discouraged, they would just receive more prayer until they were.

In spite of all that the Holy Spirit was doing I don't believe that was the primary purpose for us going on this outreach. It was a very trying and challenging time for both of us. The Lord was testing our hunger for Him and His Kingdom, testing our reliance on His grace and presence. Can we faithfully lay hold of His promises when our hearts or circumstances seem contrary? Though difficult these things were actually answers to things we have been praying about for some months now.


After Janakpur we headed over to beautiful Pokhara, had a day of rest, then hiked up into the surrounding mountains to some more villages. Because of an encroaching storm, and a navigational blunder that turned a two hour hike into a seven hour one, we never got a chance to do any direct ministry in the villages around there. Instead we all enjoyed the spectacular views and had an intense time of prayer for the area and the Nation.

-kyle

Village Outreach with Fire and Fragrance

In a few hours we're leaving for a 10 day village outreach with a team from Fire & Fragrance (a ministry under YWAM). We'll be splitting our time between Janakpur (map)  in the south and Pokhara (map) to the west. We'll be based in the two cities but spend most of our time in the surrounding villages of the Dalit (untouchable) cast. These people are shunned by the general public and can often only find work doing the jobs no one else will do.

Our hope is that the people we meet encounter the love of the Father and that Holy Spirit crashes in. That heaven would invade earth in a place where many have never heard the name of Jesus.

We'll write more when we get back.
Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
-kyle & annie

In Transit

Everything we've taken with us

The past two weeks have been a whirlwind of packing and travel. We had planned on sorting out all the packing weeks prior to leaving but things piled up and we ended up doing it the day before. Our large suitcase was hopelessly overweight, we tried swapping its contents with other bags but it was still coming in 20 pounds over! Finally in the wee hours of the morning as we resigned to just pay the overweight charge I checked in online only to find that we had an extra free checked bag than what our travel agent told us! Thank God for hidden blessings. So the morning of our flight we managed to get it all under weight with the help of the extra bag.

We were incredibly blessed to spend four days in London on the way over to Nepal. We spent a bit of time seeing the sights but we were mostly there to see some beloved friends from Harvest School in Mozambique. It was a great time to catch up, pray, worship, and be mutually encouraged by each other's faith. They are all inspiring people who's heart is set on the kingdom and its exciting to see where Jesus is leading them.

We arrived in Kathmandu on the 13th and are settling into our temporary lodgings and fighting off jet lag. Today as we ran some errands I was incredibly happy to be back. Nepal already feels like home even though I don't yet speak the language or know how to take the bus. The hills around Kathmandu are stunning and with monsoon approaching in a month or so everything is becoming vibrantly green. It almost inspires me to become a landscape photographer.

-Kyle

Leaving soon...again

Kyle and I leave for Nepal in 11 days! We're really excited and can't wait to go. This is just a quick post to ask you all to pray for us as we prepare to leave. This is so different then just going on a long trip, we're moving to another country! Yet, in so many ways it's not a big deal at all. Nepal is so right, we're stepping into our destiny and there is nothing else we could do but to go there.

God is so faithful to us! He keeps His word and His promises. Thank you Father for the opportunity to live in a beautiful land and minister and learn from such beautiful people.

Bless you friends and family!
-annie

What Do We Have To Give

"To beg God to heal someone is to assume that you have more compassion than He does" - Randy Clark

Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the Beautiful Gate to ask alms of those entering the temple. Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms. And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong.
(Acts 3:1-7 ESV)

The above quote and verse from Acts have been challenging me lately, and changing the way I think. The vast majority of Christians believe in praying for the sick in some capacity, yet for reasons that escape me it is often reduced to an uncertain plea to God. Often in our near certainty that no healing will take place, we throw in the anti-prayer contingency "If its not your will to heal them, then give them strength, peace, perseverance etc". I've prayed like that in the past, but I don't really know why, perhaps it's learned behavior? As Randy Clark points out above, to pray like that is to totally disregard the nature of the Father. Furthermore I'm unaware of a instance in the NT of someone praying for someone in this manner.

So if praying for the sick is not a petition to God what is it? Whats been getting to me the most is where Peter and John say to the lame man "I have not silver or gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!". What is it they had? What do we have to give in a situation like that?  We're called to be filled with the Holy Spirit and His power, and that is a significant factor for sure but as I've mulled over it I've realized there is more.

I've occasionally fallen into the error of praying for a miracle just because it works, with no tangible love for the person I'm praying for. Sometimes because the Father love the person more than I do He heals them. But as Bill Johnson aptly says, "If our prayers don't move us they aren't going to move Him".  I've realized that power or anointing alone isn't how the kingdom works. I need to walk in greater love for the people I minister to, I need Jesus to give me supernatural love for them.

I also feel that as temples of the Holy Spirit we carry the presence of God with us wherever we go. The more time we spend in His presence, when our cup is overflowing, the more of Him spills out around us without us even trying to do anything. We can walk into the darkest places we can find and actually bring the presence of God with us. Sometimes His presence in us is all thats necessary to change the atmosphere around us. I believe that's what happened when people were healed when peter walked by them. It wasn't His shadow, he was so filled with the Glory of the Lord that it gave life to all around him.

While this is all partial revelation I do know that is changing the way I approach the "impossible".

-kyle

Nepal & Iris Ministries

We indicated this in the last post, but I thought I'd throw it out there a little more officially.

We've signed on to work with Iris Ministries in Nepal for the next two years. Iris is a beautiful and amazing ministry and we feel blessed and honored to be a part of the family. Their heart is to feed the hungry in body and spirit, and let the love of Jesus spill out all over the place. Furthermore having leaders like Heidi and Rolland Baker is incredibly inspiring, they are true forerunners in the Kingdom. Iris Canada is also registered Canadian charity and will be handling all of our donations from now on. If you wish to support us you can make tax deductible contributions on this page, or by clicking the links on the right of our blog page.

While we were at the school in Mozambique we did a long term interview with the leaders who oversee Asia, though we had not yet been to the Iris base in Nepal we knew Jesus was calling us there. Our short time in Nepal confirmed it, the country and the people worked their way into our hearts. The Lord has left the next step in our life in Kathmandu. We cannot not go there.

We leave Canada around April 8th, which leaves us just enough time to prepare to move to Asia. When we arrive we'll be meeting up with some good friends from Harvest School (in Mozambique) and ministering with them. After that we need to find a place to live and then take on the challenge of learning the Nepali language, which is very similar to Hindi. The exact nature of our ministry there is yet to be revealed, but our heart is to release the Fathers love and the Kingdom wherever we are. We are also looking forward to building relationships with the kids at the Iris Nepal children's home.

-kyle

A Long Overdue Update

The last time we posted was halfway through the school just after our first bush outreach. So much has happend since then, school finished, we traveled from Mozambique to Nepal, and are now back in Canada.

Summary of the School (by Kyle)
Iris Harvest school was a totally incredible, transforming, life changing experience. I whole heartedly recommend it to anyone who's hungry for more of God and has a heart for missions. It's pretty much impossible to go to the school and not be changed. Everyone including the students, staff, and speakers are so hungry for more of God and His Kingdom. Its a wonderful atmosphere for faith to grow.

Some highlights from the school:

• The culture of honor, faith, and risk. Honor those around you, and honor the hero's who have gone before you. Stepping out in faith requires risk. But if you make a risk in faith and it doesn't work out it's not a failure or even a blow to your faith. Learning to take risks is learning to walk in faith.

• Learning what it means to be a son of the Father, realizing that we are called to co-labour with Christ, salvation isn't the end its the beginning.

• "There is no reason in faith, why today isn't the best day of your life" - Roland Baker. The more I lay hold of that truth the more powerful it becomes.
• Spending hours a day in worship and listening to incredible men and women of God share their stories and teachings.
• The students. I received as much from them as everything else in the school. Their stories, faith and zeal are incredible.
• Our first bush outreach, read about it here.
• Going on a second bush outreach changed my definition of destitute when I met a crippled man who has been bed ridden for five years.
• Graduation was one of the most crazy and glorious experiences of my life. The sheer power of the presence of God made the outreach I last posted on pale by comparison (not that we should compare such things). The Lord brought a banquet of His presence and we all feasted like royalty. Love, prayer, and prophecy poured out on everyone like water. Profoundly beautiful.

You cross a line at the school, something changes in you and there is no going back to the way you used to live. Now that I've tasted and seen that there is more to the Gospel, I can't go back to the old way of thinking. It actually makes life a lot more exciting. Jesus can show up with His love and power at any place and any time. It has wonderful implications, when we cultivate a greater awareness of His voice, His presence, and the Kingdom, the mundane can become the miraculous.

 Nepal
The day after graduation we led a small team of six (including us) to Kathmandu Nepal for an extended international outreach. There we partnered with the family that runs Iris Nepal and ministered for two and a half weeks. The outreach had some some amazing moments but had its fair share of challenges. Most of the team was sick for the duration of the outreach, which limited our plans to go visit unreached villages in remote areas. The outreach had no set schedule, rather we spent lots of time worshiping and seeking the Lord for direction. This led us to different parts of Kathmandu to minister on the street and pray over those areas.

We visited a number of Buddhist monasteries to reclaim the territory in the spirit. At the first one we visited some of the team prayed for the head monk who had noticeably bad asthma. You could hear a raspy hissing in his voice when he spoke. After a few minutes all the hissing was gone and he could breath normally again. At another monastery we prayed for an old Buddhist man with bad knees, causing him to shuffle when he walked. He too was totally healed and was able to walk normally with no pain. Another time we were near a small Hindu temple when the Lord led us to pray for the woman who was cleaning the idol of the days offerings (mostly flowers and coloured powder). The Holy Spirit gave us a word of knowledge that she had pain in her right hip. While we were praying she felt heat on the affected area and then all the pain left.

The thing that stuck me about these healings was that they all took place inside places of pagan worship. While intellectually I've always known that the presence of God is everywhere, I used to feel that temples and such were such dark places that I needed to leave as soon as possible lest I be affected by the demons that inhabit them. The reality is that the love of the Father is so much bigger, and He is waiting to pour it out. He loves the people who don't love Him, so much so that He'll send people into these places to bless and pray for them. By the Holy Spirit we transform the atmosphere around us not the other way around. Greater is He who is within us than he who is in the world.

The base leader Joel is incredibly inspiring. He stops for the destitute, the ones the culture ignores, and shows them real love. Ministering with him forces you to slow down.  It was an honour to partner with his family and minister together with them.

Canada and Update about Nepal (By Annie)
We've been back in Canada since January 7th and it's been amazing!  God's been doing a lot here and it's been really good to put what we learned at the school into your everyday life.  One of the things that they talked about at the school was how you have to dig your own well.  At the school you're taking in so much teaching and you're meeting so many amazing people that it's easy just to feed off of their "well", their anointing, their walk with God...you get the idea.  But, when you're on your own again it's like, "right so now it's just you and me God, lets go!"  You have to build your own faith and take what you learned and put it into practice.  Faith is a gift, but we also have to work out our faith with "fear and trembling."  What a dichotomy that one is!  Rolland Baker loves the concept of dichotomy and how it's all through the scriptures, he said, "salvation is free, but it will cost you everything."  I love that, it's so true.  Following Jesus is the best thing you could ever do, but it's the hardest thing you'll ever do. 

Right so back to us being in Canada.  I lot of people were perhaps surprised that we returned as we bought one way tickets and didn't have a plan after Nepal.  We were willing to stay there or go anywhere after the outreach.  We both felt that we were supposed to come back at the beginning of January for a short season and that it would be a time of preparation, seeing family and ministering to whoever we come in contact with.  It's been awesome.  But, that being said we can't wait to go back to Nepal.  For those of you who don't know we're heading back to Nepal to work with Iris Nepal for at least 2 years.  I've wanted to be a "missionary" for years and my dream is coming true!  It's so surreal, yet totally normal that we're Iris Missionaries now.  So the plan, well we don't really have one, is to go back in the spring or early summer, we'll keep you posted.

Nepal got into my heart when we went there in 2008 after we got married and it's never left.  When we left this last trip I cried for about 20 minutes after the plane took off, it was so hard to leave.  I've never cried when I've left a place before, it really confirmed to me that Nepal is where we're supposed to be next.  While we also have a heart for other places south of there (not saying the name intentionally), we feel that the next step is Nepal.  We also have a heart for Canada and feel that someday we will return to our homeland and serve here as well.

Your prayers would be greatly appreciated as we feel that this year is going to be a huge change in our lives.

Much love to you all,
Kyle and Annie