Stuff that God's Doing

I shared a while back that the Lord led me to visit a group of New Age/occultists who meet regularly in town here, starting around 1.5 years ago.
I found them over the internet while researching the New World Order and found myself amongst a lot of searching people who were into all sorts of stuff - Buddhism, tarot, ascended masters and channeling, shamanism and witchcraft, as well as alternative therapists. Before I had known the Lord I was dabbling in this kind of stuff myself, so it wasn't completely foreign to me. One of the girls was a sort of Christian, but she had never had any teaching or discipleship and was wide open for the esoteric. I got to know her a bit, and shortly after we had got somewhat closer, she told me that she was living with a man who was the father of their son, but she didn't know if he was a Christian or not. That evening I went back home and said to the Lord, "Well, Lord, what are you going to do with this situation?"

Three weeks later, at five in the morning, last June, she found her partner dead on the floor of their living room. He had had a fatal heart attack some time in the night.

In the midst of all the chaos which resulted from this tragedy, Ka. has taken off like a rocket. She wanted me at the funeral, and when I arrived, she said, "Thank God, now it can all start." It was astonishing to me that she seemed to consider my being there as necessary and had me sit directly with her and her family, although I had only known her for a relatively short time. In the meantime I had discovered that her son was in the Royal Ranger outpost which my husband had started 9 years ago. For some reason I had never seen her there or realised who she or her partner were. But there, I meet her at this completely unconnected group who meet in a bar in town on Wednesday evenings!

We baptized a newly filled with the Holy Spirit Ka. last September in the river near our house and since then we have been meeting up together regularly. At around the same time, the Lord put it on the hearts of another couple to get together regularly with us, and so we started to just meet in our homes around the Lord. Around the same time, the Lord connected our hearts with that of a girl whose son I give English coaching to. She was in a Baptist Church here, but her prophetic gift and heart for intercession were finding no headway there and she felt drawn to us. She lives just round the corner. Another friend whom I've known for a long time who was also in the Ranger outpost but who left after the new leadership (Frank had to lay down the leadership because of the pressure of work) was unable to work with her, also came to us.

In the third week of December, we were told that because we were no longer part of the church which supports Frank's old Ranger outpost, we had to leave the outpost entirely. This we did. The regional Ranger leadership told Frank that unless we were part of an organised, 'normal', recognised church, then he would not be allowed to continue serving the Ranger youth as a Ranger in the region as well. This threw us into a quandary. On one hand, he wanted to be able to continue to have contact with his close friends in the Rangers, and on the other, we knew that the Lord was not leading us to go back to the former kind of church life we had been used to. We did not want to compromise what the Lord was saying to us. The fact that many who are Rangers and are not involved with 'normal' church, are allowed to be part of the Rangers work here, somehow did not apply. So we have been praying for 6 months as to what we should do.

Bt., another girl from the occult group began meeting up with us regularly, and we continue to pray for her.* Bd., her 'half-boyfriend', who is also from the same group and was heavily into astral travel, also started to connect with us. We had them and several of the others over to our place for BBQs and evenings together, where we prayed for them and shared about the Lord.

Then, another couple who used to be in a cell group we led years ago reconnected with us and a friend of theirs, Kn. came to an evening we spent at their place, and shortly afterwards (about three weeks ago) surrendered to the Lord. We continue to meet with her and are praying for her to soon get baptized in water and Spirit.

Then just two weeks ago, B's half-boyfriend came round to see us and surrendered to the Lord in our living room as Frank prayed for him. He came with us to the get-together we had at another couple's flat 15 minutes away. He was poring over various different translations of the Bible and deciding which one he wanted to get, by the end of the evening.

Our meeting up with each other is becoming more and more focused on Jesus, as we eat, share and pray together. At first, much of it was getting to know each other, but lately, we have all been experiencing a deepening hunger for the Lord, and just to be together to share spiritual food from the Bible and pray. It is amazing how the Lord is giving each one separately, during the week, different facets of the same truths, and as we share together, either during the week as we meet more or less daily, or on the phone, or in our (at the moment) regular get-together times on Friday nights, we see how He fits it all together, resulting in a beautiful picture of Himself.
This is building us up together and encouraging us in our own daily struggles, which for some of us, are considerable. We have recently been experiencing a burden to make sure that none of us has any unmet material need.

Increasingly, we are filled with a desire to be all out for the Lord. None of this is orchestrated by any person except the Lord Himself. No-one commands any of our times together except Him and each person submits to another. It is incredible how just looking at another, fills us with the deepest affection and wish for that other one to be blessed. The Lord healed A. of dog-related asthma. Ka. and her son were healed last Friday as they were at home, unwell and unable to meet with us. We didn't know that Ka had been ill as well and only prayed for her son, but she told us that after reading in a book about healing, she had also prayed and the Lord healed her. We eat together - each one contributes something to the meal, include the Lord's Supper in it, share what's on our hearts, and follow how the Spirit leads. I think that as we get closer to Him and each other, the Lord will gradually put His finger on painful areas of our lives and free us from stuff which has long been buried. Certainly trust is being built up. We have two youngsters regularly with us, and a few others at times. They are as much a part of the group as any adult, and the Lord has spoken through them too. Two of them have either no father or no believing father, and it is good to see how they are drawn to the other men in the group, who give them special attention.

Then just a few weeks ago, Frank was invited to join another Ranger outpost led by a close friend of his. This friend spoke to the pastor of the Baptist church to which the outpost is connected, and after we went down to meet him and his wife, he and the elders of the church gave their go-ahead to Frank to join the outpost, and we do not have to be members of the Baptist church to do so. We are praising the Lord for this miracle. Their trust has blessed us so much, that we know that we will want to bless them in any way we can.

Thinking naturally and reading this, one might think there was something special about us. But there isn't. There's so much work to do in all of us. The Lord doesn't need big, important people; He just needs people who are available and willing to do what's out of the box. I marvel at what He is doing. It seems small compared with some mighty stories we hear, but to us, it's massive. No-one's leading any of this except the Lord, and we are all just watching Him do stuff, inspite of us.

*Addendum: July 11th 2010

Last Thursday Bt. came through to the Lord at last. Thank God! After struggling for 1,5 years and sitting on an increasingly more uncomfortable fence, she has stepped down from it onto the right side. She was with us last night and was radiant with peace. She said that she has no more questions; the search for knowledge is over and she feels like she's in love. We had a meal together with her and three others, including Bd. who prayed again last Thursday too. Not sure where he's at. Looks like he's got his eyes more on Bt. than on Jesus at the moment. Oh dear. Lord help. When we had the Lord's Supper together, Bt said, out loud, that she knew that this was Jesus' blood shed for her personally.

It had been a really heavy week for many of us - spiritual battles on all sides - on Friday the Lord gave me a breakthrough after I read Ephesians 1:21-23 and I remembered a dream N had told us about, about her standing on a huge python, which finally slithered away.

We hope to start giving the new believers some teaching (didache) of the Lord once every month on a Saturday starting at the end of this month. Glory to God.