January Wrap-Up

The first of three months in this first trimester wraps up tonight. It has been action packed so far!

We go to a small building in North Sutton, New Hampshire to partake in classes and complete work assignments. The classes go from 9:15 AM to 12 PM Monday to Thursday, and the work assignments go from 1 to 5 PM. Our classes vary from day to day, but one of the main ones is the ISD 201 - Understanding Dreams and Visions. That course wraps up at the end of this week. In it we were introduced to dreams and their role in the Bible, Biblical dream interpretation and how it's done today, dream symbology (based on Biblical influence), dream elements and their representations, and the different types of dreams we are given. My favorite part of that course was the understanding of the symbolism in each major colour (for instance, blue represents revelation and communion). Other classes we are in include Angelology, Saints & Mystics and Hermeneutics. The major prophetic voice of Streams Ministries, John Paul Jackson, usually comes in once a week to teach us something complex that God has revealed to him. One of those concepts was how Jesus' statement in the New Testament about the Father living in Him, and He in the Father was actually possible, and then how that points to the structure of the tabernacle as God instructed back in the Old Testament.

We have gone on two outreach trips this month - the first was to Wakefield, Massachusetts and the second to Lindenhurst, New York / Cranford, New Jersey. We went to the Wakefield Vineyard to make a presentation to the youth in that church. It was all about different ways God speaks to people (including dreams & visions), and prophetic ministry. A few of the kids in particular were very clearly gifted in the reception and interpretation of the Holy Spirit. That being said, during various prophetic exercises that we gave the kids to do, we were amazed at how profound all of their words of knowledge and prophecy were.

While instructing the kids, we also took time to demonstrate prophetic ministry to them. We picked random kids out of the crowd to demonstrate. One of my favorite people that was ministered to was Aaron. He was a 13-year-old kid who clearly had been shut down by his social peers and lacked self-confidence. He was given various prophetic words about how he had a voice that needed to be heard, that he has a brilliant mind gifted to him by God, and that he is free in Jesus to express himself as he truly is. A 6-year-old girl received a picture from the Lord during Aaron's time of ministry and drew out exactly what she saw for Aaron. Her picture had a door outside of a large heart, and a key close to the heart. Various other objects of symbolic significance were also drawn, some of which Aaron later revealed were elements from a dream he had and other prophetic words spoken over him from the day. It was amazing to see how much God was showing Aaron that he is loved and cared for.

Near the end of our time there, we split up into small groups (3 interns from Streams Academy, and 10 kids/parents per group) to interpret any dreams that they had. This was my first time attempting to interpret a dream live, although I was in a group setting so I didn't solely have to have an interpretation for a dream. It was very exciting when I did successfully interpret my first dream, though. I won't take any credit for it, because it is always the Holy Spirit that reveals the truth and meaning in a dream, but I was excited nonetheless. A mother there had a dream that went like this:

"I was in a medical lab. I knew that I was with a doctor, although I could not see him. The doctor told me to look into a microscope. When I looked through the microscope, I could see that there was blood on a petri dish. In the blood there were blue particles spreading."

Still somewhat lacking in the confidence that I could successfully interpret, I leaned over to the intern leading our group and whispered what had instantly popped into my head. He told me that it was good and to relay it to her. My interpretation for her was that the doctor was God, and that He has placed her in an overseeing position of authority over the spread of revelation (the blue particles) throughout a small part the church (a drop of the blood of Jesus).

That trip taught me that God indeed speaks to everyone (including me), even though I felt like I would never hear from God.

The outreach to NY/NJ was also interesting in terms of what was in store for me to learn/do. I very much enjoyed the drive down, as I had never been to Connecticut or New Jersey. The first day we were only driving as far as Lindenhurst NY, as one of the female interns (Sharayah) lives there and her church (Lighthouse Christian Fellowship South Shore) in particular is very much in pursuit of learning about prophetic ministry/evangelism. Although we were scheduled the next morning to minister to people in church, and then to go to a Jason Upton conference in Cranford, NJ the next evening, God's biggest influence/message for me happened that night. I had a really good conversation with another female intern, Jessica, about struggles in my life. Shortly after, all of the interns were called into the seating area for prayer and then ministry time/worship. Jessica was praying for me, and first she had some encouraging words for me. After that though, she said she felt the Lord tell her that I "needed to just dance". I knew for sure that she must have heard from Him, because I have been afraid of trying to dance for so long. I didn't say no this time; I went with her and we both started individually dancing in worship. It was an incredibly freeing experience as I felt much lighter. Throughout the night I received several random words of prophecy regarding breaking off the fear of man and my freedom of expression, which further confirmed God's intent for me to live free of worldly fear.

The next morning after church we had groups set up to either interpret dreams or receive prophetic insight for people of the church who so desired to take part. Although the theme for all of the people who came to my group's table was resting in God's peace and all had wonderful stories, the coolest of the people we ministered to by far was the last couple that came to sit at our table. It was a Portuguese woman named Ana, along with her husband. She came to the table looking for a dream interpretation but also for prophetic words. She had a recurring dream involving her ex-husband and people of her past, and she was afraid that it would hamper her current marriage. We assured her that seeing people of the past (including an ex-husband) doesn't necessarily mean that it is about that specific person or people, but something perhaps from that era who hold a value as significant as the person portrayed. In this case, it was something that was as intimate to her as was, at that time, her husband. The other two girls in our group gave Ana and her husband several specific words about their character and their lives in general, which caused them to laugh and cry out in joy. They revealed that they had come to another group when Streams was at the church last year, and that they received those words almost word-for-word from a different group of people! The last part, which was really cool, involved language. I felt for some reason that Ana should pray for us in Portuguese, so I asked her to, and she did so. Midway through she got very passionate and obviously anointed as she was praying. After the prayer, she revealed to us that just that past Thursday, she had told the church board that she was struggling with her confidence and overall ability to speak to and pray for people in Portuguese! I had a brief conversation with her in broken Spanish/Portuguese before we finally wrapped up and got ready to leave for the Jason Upton concert.

On the last part of the drive down, my brother Caleb was set up to be the van's navigator. Unfortunately, he had a little trouble getting the directions right, so our vanload of people, plus the other two vehicles of interns, had to stop and re-coordinate ourselves. One intern (Chad) had a GPS system in his car, so we chose to use that to get to our destination in New Jersey. However, due to some misprogramming on Chad's part, the GPS took us straight into the heart of New York City! I was in awe of the city - in particular though, I have never seen such stupid pedestrians! They honestly just walk whenever they want, regardless of when they're actually allowed to; not a wonder vehicles take so long to move around there. We got to drive through Times Square, which was really cool, and ended our escapade in New York by taking the Lincoln Tunnel from Manhattan to the New Jersey Turnpike.

Although I never cared too much for Jason Upton before the concert, I actually did enjoy it; part of that was surely because of the freedom I was receiving over the weekend. There were some people from a Holland-based ministry group that were given some time to speak to the audience regarding ministry to the poor/less fortunate, and then after the concert prayed for people. They made the night an opportunity for some to receive the Lord for the first time; it was exciting to see what was happening for some of the more 'hungry' people.

An Streams Academy intern alumni graciously hosted me and some of the other interns for the night, sending us on our way the next morning with French Toast casserole in our stomachs.

January has been an incredible month - I can't wait to see what February and March have in store!

First Few Days

Just getting here was quite a challenge in itself. Me and my older brother Luke, along with 2 friends of ours (Jamie and Brandon Bower), got to the Calgary International Airport around 6:30 PM on the 4th. Our planned route was a flight to Edmonton, an overnight flight from Edmonton to Toronto at 1:05 AM, and then a flight from Toronto to Manchester, New Hampshire at 8:30 AM. Getting to Edmonton was no problem, sure. Our flight out of Edmonton was delayed by a half hour, which made time to get to our connection flight short already. We were certain we weren't going to make it. I couldn't sleep on the plane because I had an aisle seat, so I watched The Guardian on one of the plane TVs to pass the flight time.

Upon arrival in Toronto, we had to transfer over to the new terminal, pick up our bags and take them with us to Canada Customs. To our dismay there was about 200 people waiting to get through customs, with our flight set to stop boarding in 20 minutes! We thought for sure that we wouldn't make the flight, but an attendant called out for all of us flying to New Hampshire and brought us to the front of the line. Me, Jamie and Brandon all got through customs very easily, but Luke was unfortunately pulled aside for secondary questioning. There was a lineup in the questioning area, so I was told that Luke would not get out in time for our flight. Jamie and Brandon left for the flight, but I opted to stay behind with Luke and wait for the next flight. To our dismay, we found out that the next flight after the 8:30 one was at 5:30 PM! The two of us spent most of the day sleeping under chairs in the waiting area for our flight - probably the longest 9 hours of my life. Luke and I in the meantime both got a little sick (me with a tickly throat, him with a stomach flu), and the unusually hot cabin temperature in the plane to NH didn't help things much. We were both quite relieved when we finally hit the ground at 7:30.

One of the interns came to pick us up at the airport - a uniquely quirky fellow, David Carpentier. My younger brother Caleb had spent the Christmas holidays with him in Boston. They really compliment each other; each have their own degree of weirdness, but it's what makes them so lovable. There are two houses the Streams Academy interns stay in - the Grey House and the Yellow House. The guys all stay in the Grey House, and the girls all stay in the Yellow House. The interns go to the Yellow House each night for dinner, since most of the cooking is done there. David drove us up to the Yellow House, since dinner had just finished by the time we got there. As expected, we were mobbed with hugs by other interns before we could even get into the house. Oh how I've come to love those hugs already!

Saturday morning was orientation morning for all of us - our teacher/leader, Ken Nelson, wanted to get us all familiar with the curriculum, but then he added a special surprise: he was going to pray over each of the 4 new people (of which I was one), and prophesy over our lives. Ken's word for me was powerful; I openly wept because of the impact of what he had said.

In the evening, there was a salsa dance party to celebrate the forthcoming beginning of the winter trimester. Luke kept pushing me to try, but I didn't want to because of my fear of how bad I'd look. Finally though, a Indian female intern from England named Kulbir asked me to join her. She had quickly become one of my favorite people to be around, so I decided to try just for her. Unfortunately, God gifts us all in different ways, and dancing isn't one of mine...I gave up after 10 minutes because I couldn't get a hang of the footwork. I tried, though!

On Sunday we went to what is called a Bridge church in Newbury, New Hampshire. Upon setting foot in there, it was different from any church experience I'd ever had. Worship felt more authentic for me than it had at any time previous in my life - tears filled my eyes as I sang in complete reverence. The sermon was one of the best I've ever heard - a big black guy named Aaron Evans was preaching to us concerning the fear of man. The pastor introduced Aaron as "the guy who tells the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego as Shadrach, Meshach and A Bad Negro!" Aaron was just totally transparent with us; he relayed a very humorous rendition of his story about how God convinced him to move up to Newbury, New Hampshire from Orlando, Florida. He discussed his fear when sitting at a prophetic round table with John Paul Jackson, Bob Jones and Bobby Connor all around him. It made me realize just how human the prophetically gifted can be, too. I had this impression for some reason that they all had nerves of steel, so it was relieving and assuring to hear his story. He then called any of us who so desired, to come to the front to receive intercessory prayer to break the power of the fear of man. He had an intercessory team, along with himself, pray for each of us as we individually passed through. A few months ago I might never have even left my seat; this time I went, because I want to push myself outside of my comfort zone at Streams.

Today we had our first day of classes - Ken Nelson taught us about the major covenants of God that were established at different points in Biblical history, including the covenants of blood (Old Testament via an animal, New Testament through Jesus), the covenant of tears/sweat (an allusion to Jesus' sweat whilst praying in Gethsemane), and several others. In the afternoons we all work in various departments at the Streams Ministries offices - my job is in the Web Development area, and I will be assisting in the programming/coding of various Streams-related websites that will be launching this year.

Monday nights we do something called Monastic Mondays - before dinner, all the lights in the Yellow House are turned off, and the house is lit only by candlelight. The dinner usually contains no meats, and little to no noise can be made (we are to whisper or speak very softly). This is to honor the traditions of monks, and allow us to eat a 'holy meal'. After dinner, Ken usually speaks, but for this first week, we did something called soaking instead. Instrumental music is played in speakers around the living room, and all of us are to sit on the couch or lay on the ground and just let the music and the Holy Spirit 'soak' into us. It is quite a surreal experience; I felt great peace during the soaking time. Several others experienced holy laughter, but due to it being Monastic Monday, they stifled it into giggles.

It has been such a relief to see the lack of a religious spirit here - I feel ready to learn what it is I am to learn while I'm here. Tomorrow we start to learn about the saints in history!