In our children’s stories we often encounter metaphorical places which point to our in-build awareness that there is another place, a home to which we long to return. Alice had her “wonderland” that she fell into as she tumbled down the rabbit hole in her pursuit of that harried hare, Peter Pan was the most famous citizen of “Neverland” before Micheal Jackson upstaged him, and of course many of us grew up romping through the Hundred acre wood with Winnie the Pooh and his cohort of playful friends. Sadly though for most of us once we become adults we seem to lose the way home to these fantastic realms and are forced to “grow up” and keep our “feet on the ground”. However there are people who seem to manage to retain this wonderful childlike ability to live in two realms at once, a gift I firmly believe God wants us to cultivate. Three days ago I was “attacked” by one of them, Roland Baker, aka “Tigger”.
Although Roland did not speak for long at the conference his life was eloquently shouting throughout the whole conference. Just four months ago most people had abandoned hope for Roland he was suffering from an awful form of dementia which left him completely incapacitated, he did not know his name, could not dress himself, or take care of himself and had to have 24 hour care. There seemed to be no hope and his family were summoned home to say good-bye because the overwhelming medical opinion was that Roland was about to move in to the heavenly mansion that he and Heidi have built over a life time. That was four months ago, before God healed him! Today he is healed and bursting with love, joy and mischief! It was impossible not to notice his playful delight as he bounded about the conference getting anyone who came within range “vacked”.It seemed like a small whirlwind swept through the crowd as Roland pounced on people and prayed for them. The power of God left people strewn in joyful bundles all round him and Roland would bounce Tigger fashion to find someone else to attack with the love and joy of the Holy Spirit. Watching was fun, experiencing this attack was awesome.
I went to the altar on the second day of the conference to see if I could get Georgian Banov and his wife Winnie (Hurricane Winnie) to pray for me when Tigger appeared and started wrecking the altar call. I positioned myself directly in his flight path and soon found myself in his sights and I was not disappointed. Roland bounded over to me, (this is not writer’s hyperbole, when Roland begins to pray for people he bounces) and laid hand on me saying “God give him more than he can contain” Glory swept over me like an electric current jolting me from head to foot until I was barking out uncontainable laughter. He prayed for me several times, as I kept going back for more, after all he said give him more than he can contain! It was great but more was to come.
The next day, Saturday, I bumped into Roland outside my hotel and I went up to thank him for who he is and for praying for me and to explain I could still contain more ;). Then we went to the afternoon meeting at which Georgian Banov was speaking. God just poured out his blessings on me that afternoon! On the bus over I was given a free T-shirt, Georgian gave me a CD because I was from Africa, then he asked all the pastors to stand to receive prayer. I stood expectant, my eyes on Georgian but I was being stalked by that spiritually ferocious creature the Pemba Tigger! Roland pounced on me from behind releasing the full power of Jehovah sneaky on me! This time I was unable to go back for seconds, I was glued to the floor, laughing uncontrolably, blind drunk for the rest of the meeting. When ever I started to recover the Tigger would come over and love maul me again! I have vowed never to say “Stop Lord,” as I have determined to live with the motto of “more Lord” but I will admit I was close to the edge this time as my stomach muscles were in pain and I was laughing so hard I could hardly breathe as the joy of the Lord swept over me! It was so much fun! What a way to end the “Voice of the Apostles” conference! I missed the evening meeting to get ready for our flight early the next morning, I was looking forward to having a long snooze on the plane, it worked out differently though God was lining me up for another amazing encounter, more of that in the next post.
