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