My Birthday Weekend

This weekend was certainly gonna have a different feel to it. Usually at about this time every year I am in Vancouver, British Columbia at their yearly Scrabble tournament, as it falls on the same weekend as my birthday. This year, I am on the completely opposite coast doing something completely different!

For the weekend, we were going to be interpreting dreams at the Olive Branch bookstore in Northborough Massachusetts, and then interpret dreams or give prophetic ministry at the MetroWest Bridge church in Natick, Massachusetts. Before we left, I got lots of birthday hugs from people - there's always an excuse to hug now it seems, but hey, I'm not complaining!

Olive Branch bookstore

The Olive Branch bookstore is in a town called Northborough in Massachusetts - the building it is in was built originally as a luxurious house, sometime around 1830. As a house, it went through several wealthy owners, the last one being a woman of faith. Although she was selling the house to a business investor, she prayed that the house would become a place of healing. The house became a small business venue for the next 2 owners, but then the next owner (co-owners, actually) made the building into what is now the Olive Branch bookstore. The woman's prayer was answered, as the current co-owners have done so much with the house! They added a cafeteria called The Ugly Mug; I got a good laugh out of the name the first time I saw i. While the resources and publications were added to the building, the feel of it being a home and communal place was remade. Various spiritually-related classes are taught on the top floor of the house, adding further to the healing atmosphere upon the bookstore.

When we do prophetic ministry or dream interpreting, we work in 3s; we believe this method fulfills Biblical principle, as God himself works in a 'team' of 3: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. My dream interpreting team for the afternoon was myself, Kelly Guerra (Guatemalan girl from Texas) and Anton Luse (dude from New Jersey). Probably our coolest dream from the afternoon came near the end:

"I was walking through a house - I noticed everything was black and white. I walked out onto a porch and then back into the house. I went upstairs into a room, and started to paint a rooster on the wall. As soon as I did that, the rooster was the first thing I saw in color, and then everything else had color too! I went past a large room where there were bug paintings on the wall, and they started to come off and come alive! I went back out onto the porch I'd been on earlier, knowing the bugs were coming eventually."

We got to share with her that God was showing her a picture of her spiritual life. The black and white indicated her lack of spirituality. The first time she went on the porch, she got a glimpse of what she could have in Jesus. The rooster was symbolic of "the sun rise", which is a play on words alluding to "the Son's rise" in her life; basically it was an image of her acceptance of Jesus. The bugs coming off the wall were representative of issues in her life in need of being dealt with, and her second visit to the porch indicated more divine vision for her, in this case to deal with the bugs in her life. We assured her that it was a good dream and indicative of what God has done and will do for her.

Anthony and zee Parrot

After finishing our workshop, we packed up and drove to Annalee O'Dell's house for a lovely dinner. The interns surprised me by singing Happy Birthday and presenting me with a card that most of them had signed. I felt very much loved throughout the day, but this was very special. Dinner was chicken-fried steak (weird concept, but tastes really good), mashed potatoes and veggies: it was quite delicious!

Once we'd all pigged out on food, we expressed our thanks and then made our way over to the MetroWest Bridge Church in Natick Massachusetts, where pastor John Thomas was leading a youth event. Basically it was a time of inviting the Holy Spirit in to do works in people. Some received a seer anointing; if they didn't already have it, they received a greater measure of it. Others were hit with holy laughter (one girl laughed for over an hour!), and one girl was "slain in the Spirit" for more than 2 hours...it was quite something.

Most of our trip's purpose was now accomplished. The next morning, the remaining trip agenda consisted of the MetroWest church service and then prophetic ministry/dream interpretation following the service. I always like to say, John Thomas is one of the closest things you can get to Jesus. What I mean by that is not that John Thomas is a god, but that he is an amazing man of God and a representation of part of God's very nature. He is one of my favorite people to hug - I never want to let go each time I hug him. After an intense worship session, John Thomas preached on divine authority and protocol (i.e. why Satan had to ask God before doing stuff to Job's possessions, family and then ultimately Job). At the end of the service, he called forth anyone who was feeling condemned to come to the front for prayer, and anyone who was feeling convicted to go to the back for prayer. He released the interns and other prophetic voices to break those strongholds off the people of the church. Although I personally wanted prayer for feelings of conviction (I'm thankfully past the stage of feeling condemned), I was asked to prayer for others, so I complied and went with Kulbir Raju (intern from the UK) to pray for people.

As I was wrapping up and about to leave to join my dream team, I saw a girl from the Emerging Leaders conference we'd attended last month. During ministry time after a message, I got to pray for her in regard to her "spiritual hearing". She came over to me and gave me a great big hug, telling me that the conference and the time I'd spent with her had changed her life. She revealed herself to be a newer Christian and explained some of how me and the conference had affected her for better. I also got to meet her boyfriend before giving her a hug and heading off (I offered her boyfriend a hug, but he wasn't comfortable with it). She gave me contact information because she wants to keep in touch and ask questions she feels I can answer for her. It's flattering, but I'm remembering to leave all credit to God!

For the after-church dream/prophetic team, I experienced almost complete blockage on revelation for people and really had little to say. Before I might have gotten upset at that, but the Lord clearly wanted to work through specific people in my group, so I was ok with taking a mostly supporting role.

The evil Dunkin Donuts box

John Thomas kindly treated us all to pizza before we left for New Hampshire. On the way home, my van drove too far past a key exit on an interstate highway, so we stopped briefly at a Dunkin Donuts before regaining our direction. I went in and got a box of "Munchkins", which are their equivalent to Tim Horton's Timbits (Canadian pride!). I can happily say that Munchkins have absolutely nothing on Timbits, which are by far better tasting. It's all good though - I like sugar!

When we got back, Mike and Mandy Wise (leadership couple from Texas) had made dinner for all of us - Fish 'n' Chips. They cleverly disguised a final surprise for me, though; they called a 'meeting' after dinner in the dark, where they brought out a homemade cake they had made just for me! It was primarily chocolate, but they had done something particularly unique with my cake; what would usually be icing between the layers of cake was whip cream...it was so incredibly good! I had more than enough of a sugar fix for some time after that. Mandy Wise had something else to tell me, though. She pulled me aside and told me that she and Mike want to host me for a Mexican dinner on Wednesday as a 'gift' to me. I of course said yes - I'm really excited and can hardly wait!

My 21st Birthday Cake