I honestly woke up this morning not knowing which day it was! That is the downside of international travel and great conferences like the Bethel leaders advance. There is so much going on that the Blessings just seem to run into each other. So I am going to give a synopsis of the last 3 days to try valiantly to catch up.
Sunday
It is not every day that you get to lead a fighter pilot, doctor, future astronaut and governor to Christ, but that is what happened on Sunday! On the flight across from the Baltimore to San Francisco Mark Simpson and I found ourselves seated next to one of the most accomplished men I have ever met. With grey hair, blue eyes and an intelligent face he seemed like Hollywood type casting. The moment we sat down we introduced ourselves and we never stopped talking the whole flight. Our topics ranged through American politics, the wars they are involved in Mr. Obama, the Nobel peace prize, history, philosophy, the free masons, religion, marriage & fidelity, books, leadership, the future, his family and finally we talked about salvation. Tom* flew A-10s for the air force and had already done a few tours of duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, and he had also served in 25 other countries.You can imagine Mark and I had to deal with more than our fair share of jealousy as he described one day when he got to fly from Kuwait over to the Med, over Greece, Italy take a left turn then over Egypt and North Africa viewing the whole sphere of ancient history including the sphinx and the pyramids from the solitude of his fighters canopy! As we spoke of what he has already done and his plans to enrol for Astronaut training school and his desire to enter politics when he leaves the military we all realised that God had put us together for a reason. That reason soon became clear as we talked about salvation and peace with God. 20 minutes before our plane landed God turned the conversation towards home and Tom* gave his life to Christ! It was such an exciting day!Monday
We spent most of the day resting and just trying to catch up on some sleep. Extradition was at 3 p.m. so we went off to Bethel full of faith and expectation and almost immediately run into a solid wall of..favour! I was standing in the queue to register and to my delight I saw Deborah Steven’s one of the staff members here at Bethel who is a walking miracle. She appears to be permanently vacked, and as a result is always smiling or laughing. She came over to me, pulled me out of the queue and proceeded to organise priority seating for me and our entire group, introduced me to Danny Silk who was finalizing a power point presentation for later and then took me to the front of the line got me registered and signed up for the prophetic ministry on Tuesday Morning! It was like getting hit by a loving whirlwind! Then Deborah said good bye, went off to organize something getting several people vacked who were blessed enough to find themselves in her joy-filled flight path! So I decided to go over to HeBrews, Bethel’s coffee shop I was waiting to get my coffee when a guy next to me asked where I was from and when I told him I was from South Africa he got excited and said to me “South Africa! I am going to South Africa in September with Dano McCollam!” With a smile I asked him “Do you know where you are going? To my church!” We had cup of coffee together and had a great connection!” I even ended up prophesying over his wife. They are Patrick and Tricia Vandenburg Senior Pastors of Father’s House Church. He has written a book called “A Knock on the Door” the story of his life how this ex-con became the evidently joyful man he is today! He gave me a copy!
The conference started with awesome praise and worship, followed by one of the best teachings I have ever heard on the 5-fold ministry and apostolic Government by Danny Silk. Well I am running out of time now, the gentle rumblings from out of the darkness have stopped informing me that my room mate is awake, It is time for another day in the blessing zone.
