Something totally crazy amazing happened a few days ago. Out of nowhere I received a call from Alfredo Adum straight from Ecuador. You have no idea how crazy awesome this is.
Alfredo was the very first person who came to my cell group in Miami. He faithfully attended my cell group every week even though for the first five or six months he was usually the only person there. I discipled him for a year and then his father in Ecuador asked him to go live there with him for a few years. Alfredo agreed and moved to Ecuador. It was somewhat abrupt, so I wasn't able to get his email or new phone. His mom gave me his email on a scrap of paper, but a few days later I lost it. I had no way to contact his mom because she had moved and had a new phone number. I was so, so bummed.
I never forgot about him and constantly prayed for him every month or so, but I had no way of contacting him. At that time Myspace and Facebook had not yet been created, so that wasn't an option either.
So all of a sudden, out of the blue, I receive a call from a really long, strange number. I answer the phone and it's Alfredo. I couldn't believe my ears. How did he find me?
He told me that he was cleaning his room and he found the letter I wrote to him after his first encounter and a picture of him and I was attached to it. He really felt the need to contact me, so he searched for my brother and I on Facebook. He found us in five minutes and sent messages to the both of us. My brother gave him my cell phone and email and that's how he contacted me.
He told me that when he moved to Ecuador he didn't go to church for over four years because his family didn't go and he couldn't find a good church. However, all along he mantained his relationship with God. And four months ago he found an awesome G12 church. He told me that he's totally back on track with God and He's diving in head first! Hallelujah!!!! He is in a cell group, he's going to an encounter in December, and he's going to get baptized!!! Thank you Jesus!!! You are faithful to complete the work that you have begun!
He is currently majoring in Computer Engineering right now and him and his friend have started their own web design company. So he might create our website for Global Gospel Movement. Praise the Lord!
Monday, October 27, 2008
Global Gospel Movement Update
GGM has been going great. It's moving along slowly, but surely.
We are officially a non-profit organization!!!! We are now officially registered in the State of California, with the Federal Government, and with the IRS. If anyone want to give us a donation it will now be tax-deductible. Praise The Lord!!!! This is the biggest breakthrough that has happened lately.
Gabe Ahn, our youth pastor, really fell in love with the vision and wants to support us in every way possible. He told us that Harvest Rock Church would definitely support GGM and be a spiritual covering over it. He said that he really thought that his dad, Che Ahn, should mentor and help me, which is so awesome because that is exactly what I've been praying for.
Furthermore, Jay Koopman, who is one of the craziest Christians I've ever met in my life found me through Myspace (Thank you myspace). I messaged him back and he ended up being in Malaysia. When he came back to L.A. he called me up and we talked for quite a bit. He is totally psyched about GGM and wants to help us in every way possible. He is currently the youth pastor over 300 Bible colleges around the world. He told me that he is sure that the Dean of the schools could help me start GGM. So we're gonna meet up sometime this week and really talk about it.
Currently, we are praying for God to send us a professional web designer to create our website, which probably has been solved. (See "Alfredo Adum: My first Disciple in Miami")
Our other project is making flyers and brochures for GGM. Through working with The Call I've realized how crucial it is to have flyers. A few times we spoke with pastors about The Call, but we didn't have the flyers yet and they basically said "oh, well, get back to us when you get the flyers." So Brooke and I are going to make the flyers.
Also, we are going to hold a house concert in Camarillo probably on January 1 ro 2 in order to raise funds for GGM. I am praying for other creative ideas to raise funds for GGM.
We are officially a non-profit organization!!!! We are now officially registered in the State of California, with the Federal Government, and with the IRS. If anyone want to give us a donation it will now be tax-deductible. Praise The Lord!!!! This is the biggest breakthrough that has happened lately.
Gabe Ahn, our youth pastor, really fell in love with the vision and wants to support us in every way possible. He told us that Harvest Rock Church would definitely support GGM and be a spiritual covering over it. He said that he really thought that his dad, Che Ahn, should mentor and help me, which is so awesome because that is exactly what I've been praying for.
Furthermore, Jay Koopman, who is one of the craziest Christians I've ever met in my life found me through Myspace (Thank you myspace). I messaged him back and he ended up being in Malaysia. When he came back to L.A. he called me up and we talked for quite a bit. He is totally psyched about GGM and wants to help us in every way possible. He is currently the youth pastor over 300 Bible colleges around the world. He told me that he is sure that the Dean of the schools could help me start GGM. So we're gonna meet up sometime this week and really talk about it.
Currently, we are praying for God to send us a professional web designer to create our website, which probably has been solved. (See "Alfredo Adum: My first Disciple in Miami")
Our other project is making flyers and brochures for GGM. Through working with The Call I've realized how crucial it is to have flyers. A few times we spoke with pastors about The Call, but we didn't have the flyers yet and they basically said "oh, well, get back to us when you get the flyers." So Brooke and I are going to make the flyers.
Also, we are going to hold a house concert in Camarillo probably on January 1 ro 2 in order to raise funds for GGM. I am praying for other creative ideas to raise funds for GGM.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Working for The Call California
We have been working full time for The Call California. Our official titles is "Assistant Director in Ventura County". However, the director, who is Marilyn Noorda, has delegated to us the full responsibility of mobilizing Ventura County to go to The Call. So in reality we have been the directors and I must say that we are honored to work with The Call and it has been a great experience.
We realize that this position was given to us by God and we are humbled and honored to be given such a responsibility. So Brooke and I have been working hard. We have been calling countless churches and handing out flyers to individuals and to churches who are responsive.
We got to preach in the Rio Mesa Bible Club of which I was the President of in 2003. When I was the President it was about forty people and now it is more than 100. Praise God!!! It was such a joy to be able to speak there. I invited them all to The Call and they all took tons of flyers and passed them out in their youth groups and churches. Also, we met an intern from South Coast Fellowship at the club. South Coast is doing some amazing things. They have four full time interns who go to all the Bible clubs in Ventura and Oxnard every week and help support the club financially, preaching there, buying them pizza every week, and training the leaders. It is amazing. So once Julia heard about The Call she told her church and all four of the interns started announcing it to all the Bible Clubs in Ventura and Oxnard! Amazing! And you know what's awesome. South Coast is under the covering of Larry Stockstill and they do D12 (i.e. G12). Praise God! They're rocking their city for Jesus. Pr. Pauline, the youth pastor, also just invited me to speak at their youth group once I finish working for The Call.
Another divine appointment was meeting with Pastor Danny Miller. Pastor Danny personally knows more pastors in Ventura County than any other person in the world really. God has used him to unite the churches of the county. God has also recently told him to run for Ventura County School Board. So Brooke and I have been helping him campaign and he helped us by giving us his entire email list of over 300 pastors in Ventura County. We emailed all of them about The Call and some of them have responded. We also talked with Pastor Danny about Global Gospel Movement and asked him to be one of our Advisors and an elder over us. He completely loved the vision and commited to advising us and helping us in every way he possibly can. He told us that he would do everything he can for us to have open doors to preach in the churches of Ventura County. WOW!
I also preached at the youth group in Jubilee twice, which was totally glorious. The youth were really impacted and it seemed like Andy, the youth pastor, has even been inspired to be more radical with the youth group.
Then it all culminated at the Camarillo Pre-Call Rally. Only about 90 people showed up, but it was so, so powerful that we didn't really care. We had several leaders come from all over the county. We had one strong hour of worship and then a powerful time of intercession for an hour and a half. Brooke helped lead worship and she sang a new song of hers. It was the most powerful song of the night and I'm not being bias. I had the privilege of leading the whole meeting by opening in prayer, leading the intercession, leading the offering, introducing the guest speaker, and closing the meeting. The speaker, Carlos Sarmientos, was totally awesome. I'll write more about him in another blog.
Now we are figuring out all of the carpool arrangements for people in Ventura County who are going to The Call. Brooke and I received an invitation to attend a reception with Lou and Therese Engle the day after The Call. They are inviting all the head mobilizers from around California to thank them for their efforts. That will be awesome. We're really looking forward to that.
We realize that this position was given to us by God and we are humbled and honored to be given such a responsibility. So Brooke and I have been working hard. We have been calling countless churches and handing out flyers to individuals and to churches who are responsive.
We got to preach in the Rio Mesa Bible Club of which I was the President of in 2003. When I was the President it was about forty people and now it is more than 100. Praise God!!! It was such a joy to be able to speak there. I invited them all to The Call and they all took tons of flyers and passed them out in their youth groups and churches. Also, we met an intern from South Coast Fellowship at the club. South Coast is doing some amazing things. They have four full time interns who go to all the Bible clubs in Ventura and Oxnard every week and help support the club financially, preaching there, buying them pizza every week, and training the leaders. It is amazing. So once Julia heard about The Call she told her church and all four of the interns started announcing it to all the Bible Clubs in Ventura and Oxnard! Amazing! And you know what's awesome. South Coast is under the covering of Larry Stockstill and they do D12 (i.e. G12). Praise God! They're rocking their city for Jesus. Pr. Pauline, the youth pastor, also just invited me to speak at their youth group once I finish working for The Call.
Another divine appointment was meeting with Pastor Danny Miller. Pastor Danny personally knows more pastors in Ventura County than any other person in the world really. God has used him to unite the churches of the county. God has also recently told him to run for Ventura County School Board. So Brooke and I have been helping him campaign and he helped us by giving us his entire email list of over 300 pastors in Ventura County. We emailed all of them about The Call and some of them have responded. We also talked with Pastor Danny about Global Gospel Movement and asked him to be one of our Advisors and an elder over us. He completely loved the vision and commited to advising us and helping us in every way he possibly can. He told us that he would do everything he can for us to have open doors to preach in the churches of Ventura County. WOW!
I also preached at the youth group in Jubilee twice, which was totally glorious. The youth were really impacted and it seemed like Andy, the youth pastor, has even been inspired to be more radical with the youth group.
Then it all culminated at the Camarillo Pre-Call Rally. Only about 90 people showed up, but it was so, so powerful that we didn't really care. We had several leaders come from all over the county. We had one strong hour of worship and then a powerful time of intercession for an hour and a half. Brooke helped lead worship and she sang a new song of hers. It was the most powerful song of the night and I'm not being bias. I had the privilege of leading the whole meeting by opening in prayer, leading the intercession, leading the offering, introducing the guest speaker, and closing the meeting. The speaker, Carlos Sarmientos, was totally awesome. I'll write more about him in another blog.
Now we are figuring out all of the carpool arrangements for people in Ventura County who are going to The Call. Brooke and I received an invitation to attend a reception with Lou and Therese Engle the day after The Call. They are inviting all the head mobilizers from around California to thank them for their efforts. That will be awesome. We're really looking forward to that.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Progress, Testing, and Grief
First I'll start with the progress.
The first couple weeks in CA I mainly focused on writing my book and I made quite a bit of progress. However, Kent soon sat me own and explained to me the necessity of having a business plan to present to pastors and leaders whenever I share the vision of the organization. Thus, I put the book aside and began focusing solely on the business plan. After three long weeks we fininshed it. It felt like I was writing a thesis, but we thoroughly enjoyed it.
If you want to read the 27 page business plan just tell me and I'll send it to you.
Furthermore, I talked with the youth pastor of Harvest Rock Church, Pastor Gabe, about the vision and he loved it and said that they would definitely bless it and cover it in prayer. We also met with Pastor Steve in Jubilee Church and he gave us great advice. He gave us his full support, happily agreed to be a spiritual father for us, and was officially the first pastor to commit to register his church with our organization. Praise God! I am still trying to meet with the Senior Pastor of Harvest Rock, but his secretary told me that it is impossible to have a personal meeting with him. Pr. Che Ahn is constantly traveling the world preaching and is one of the most influential leaders in the church in America right now.
Moreover, I had a meeting with Pr. Carlos Quintero in order to register the organization as a 501c3. So we have been going through the first steps of registering it all.
The Testing we have been going through is believing God for a house. God spoke to us that He would provide for us and that He wanted me to focus 100% on GGM. I told God that we would do that, but if after one month He hasn't provided we would both get jobs and just get an apartment to live in. Well, we stayed with various different people for that one month and at the end of it we still didn't have our own place. But this is where a crazy story comes in to the picture.
God had spoken to Brooke way back in Atlanta that He was going to give us a house (not an apt. or condo) of our own free of mortgage payments. That really stretched my faith, but I just agreed with her faith and jumped in. So we have been faithfully praying for a house and keeping our eyes and ears open to God's direction for this house. Eventually, God gave me several words about Him establishing a house for us, etc. Then on the Tuesday of the fourth week we were in CA God awoke Brooke with a really wierd word: "Sotheby's". He kept repeating the word to Brooke all day long. It just wouldn't leave her head. We went out to preach the Gospel that day, so we thought that maybe it was a restaraunt that God wanted us to preach at. But we never found anything with the name Sotheby's. Then at the cell group that night Brooke asked one of the girls if she knew what Sotheby's was. The girl said that it was a real estate company around that area and that their was actually a house for sale under Sotheby's a couple streets down from the cell group, which was Pr. Che Ahn's house. This blew us away because we had fervently been praying for a house and never in our wildest dreams would we have ever thought that Sotheby's was a real estate company. We looked around the neighborhood for a while and then we found the house. It was three houses down from Pr. Che's house on the same street. What was crazy was that the spelling and even the font was exactly how God had shown it to Brooke. We knew and we still know that God is going to give us that house. The craziest part of this story is that this house is $1,300,000 and is five bedrooms. We had prayed earlier that if God gave us a small place then we wold know that it was just for the two of us, but if he gave us a big place then we would know that it was for us to start the organization in. It may take a year or two to actually get a full blown training center, so we would start it in our house.
We met with the realtor and told her our story and she was actually quite impressed. She said that this is actually the only house under Sotheby's in the entire area, which confirmed to us even more that this is really the house he wants for us. Also, Heather, whose parents own a real estate company, told us that Sotheby's is a real estate company that only sells huge estates.
So that's our story and we're sticking to it. We don't know when God is going to give us the house, we just know He will because He's the one who said. We didn't say it. We don't know if it will be in a month or in a year, but we know He will do the miracle. Until then, we'll work and get an apartment.
So we began looking for jobs and while we were looking one day we just ran out of places to stay. I just didn't have any more friends who could host us. So we cried out to God for help. The next day we had our meeting with Pr. Steve. He asked us about our financial situation, so we told him. Later on that day he checked his messages and Marilyn Noorda had called him hours before our meeting saying the following:
"Pr. Steve, I just had a great idea. Tell me what you think of it. I've been appointed to be the director for the The CALL Mobilization Team in Ventura County, but I'm really swamped with so many things to do. I think it would be a great idea if we hired Joshua and Brooke full time to be my assistant directors for The CALL Mobilization. We would pay them by giving them free room and board and some gas money. They'll only work for us until The Call and that way they'll have time to assess their lives, get a job, and a place, and they'll be a huge help to us at the same time. What do you think?"
Pr. Steve immediately called me and told me the news. We were stoked. We prayed about it the next few days and God confirmed it through His word that this was His will for us. So we went to Northern California for four days and last night we arrived at Marilyn and Glen Noorda's house. Today was our first official day of full time work for The Call. It is so exciting! We really got a lot done today.
The tragic thing that took place was that one of my really close friends went to be with Jesus. He was only 25 years old. He got married last year in October. One week later him and his wife went to Mexico to be full time missionaries and three weeks later he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. He went back to CA and was in treatment for 10 months including chemo. A few weeks ago the doctors gave up on him because the cancer had spread to his bone marrow and lungs. Two weeks later he died. The entire time we, along with hundreds of other people, prayed for him and even fasted for his healing, but he wasn't healed. It really sucks, but at the same time it doesn't. After praying a lot about it and going to Cody's memorial I became at peace with his death and greatly matured concerning my view on death. This was the first time that someone close to me died. It's really hard for us and its hard for us to understand, but if you were to go to Heaven and ask Cody right now if he wanted to return he would definitely say "No". He's doing better then we could ever imagine. We are the one's that are left hurting and missing out, not him.
The memorial was awesome. Many people spoke about their memories with Cody. I spoke and sang a spontaneous song for Cody and Brooke sang one of her songs for him. Everyone was really touched by our songs. We met with his mom, dad, sisters, wife, and lots of his friends. It was amazing to see how many lives he had so deeply touched in just a few years. It was truly mind-blowing. At least 150 to 200 people were there and they had come from all over the place. And they only represented a fraction of Cody's friends, family, and the people he had touched. The memorial was one hour long at the church and then five hours long at Cody's house where we had a celebration of his life.
They ended up inviting us to stay in a cottage they had in the back of their property. It was so cute and there were praying mantises all over the place. We saw at least eight of them. They're so cool. Oh yeah and this entire time we were way out in the boonies in the mountains. It was so, so gorgeous. Brooke loved it too.
We went to their church on Sunday morning and drove down to San Francisco.
When we arrived in SF it just so happened that the Folsom Street Fair was taking place. This is the most depraved event in America and one of the worst in the world. It is a sado-masichist fair. We were just driving through downtown and Brooke saw three naked men and one naked woman just casually walking down the street. Fortunately, I only saw one naked man cause I was driving. It was horrible!
Anyways, I showed Brooke all the main spots of SF where Alex and I preached during our mission trip and then we went to Adam Hood's house. Adam is a great friend of mine that Alex and I met during our mission trip. Our hearts beat with the same rhythm and our minds think alike. It's crazy. So, we stayed with him on Sunday night. What was so, so crazy was that I felt the Lord telling me to look at my watch and when I did I realized that it was Sept. 28th. Sept. 28th exactly one year ago was the last day of my mission trip and the last day of my mission trip was in SF. Crazy! Immediately, I felt like God had sent us there with the purpose of sealing what he had began through us. WoW! And what's even crazier is that Adam has been wanting a house of prayer in the basement of his house for months now and Sept. 28th was the first official day of the House of Prayer and God had brought us there to inaguarate it with him. We also met his fiance Sarah Jean. She's awesome.
On Monday we drove back to Ventura County and witnessed some of the most breathtaking, glorious sites in the world as we drove down the Pacific Coast Highway.
And now I am typing here on a rocking chair on the porch of Marilyn's backhouse (It's a one bedroom, one bathroom, kitchenette, walk-in closet backhouse). Also, I am going to help Glen with the gardening. They have all the following fruit trees: fig, two orange, peach, pomegranate, plumb, passion fruit, etc. I can't wait to learn about gardening.
The first couple weeks in CA I mainly focused on writing my book and I made quite a bit of progress. However, Kent soon sat me own and explained to me the necessity of having a business plan to present to pastors and leaders whenever I share the vision of the organization. Thus, I put the book aside and began focusing solely on the business plan. After three long weeks we fininshed it. It felt like I was writing a thesis, but we thoroughly enjoyed it.
If you want to read the 27 page business plan just tell me and I'll send it to you.
Furthermore, I talked with the youth pastor of Harvest Rock Church, Pastor Gabe, about the vision and he loved it and said that they would definitely bless it and cover it in prayer. We also met with Pastor Steve in Jubilee Church and he gave us great advice. He gave us his full support, happily agreed to be a spiritual father for us, and was officially the first pastor to commit to register his church with our organization. Praise God! I am still trying to meet with the Senior Pastor of Harvest Rock, but his secretary told me that it is impossible to have a personal meeting with him. Pr. Che Ahn is constantly traveling the world preaching and is one of the most influential leaders in the church in America right now.
Moreover, I had a meeting with Pr. Carlos Quintero in order to register the organization as a 501c3. So we have been going through the first steps of registering it all.
The Testing we have been going through is believing God for a house. God spoke to us that He would provide for us and that He wanted me to focus 100% on GGM. I told God that we would do that, but if after one month He hasn't provided we would both get jobs and just get an apartment to live in. Well, we stayed with various different people for that one month and at the end of it we still didn't have our own place. But this is where a crazy story comes in to the picture.
God had spoken to Brooke way back in Atlanta that He was going to give us a house (not an apt. or condo) of our own free of mortgage payments. That really stretched my faith, but I just agreed with her faith and jumped in. So we have been faithfully praying for a house and keeping our eyes and ears open to God's direction for this house. Eventually, God gave me several words about Him establishing a house for us, etc. Then on the Tuesday of the fourth week we were in CA God awoke Brooke with a really wierd word: "Sotheby's". He kept repeating the word to Brooke all day long. It just wouldn't leave her head. We went out to preach the Gospel that day, so we thought that maybe it was a restaraunt that God wanted us to preach at. But we never found anything with the name Sotheby's. Then at the cell group that night Brooke asked one of the girls if she knew what Sotheby's was. The girl said that it was a real estate company around that area and that their was actually a house for sale under Sotheby's a couple streets down from the cell group, which was Pr. Che Ahn's house. This blew us away because we had fervently been praying for a house and never in our wildest dreams would we have ever thought that Sotheby's was a real estate company. We looked around the neighborhood for a while and then we found the house. It was three houses down from Pr. Che's house on the same street. What was crazy was that the spelling and even the font was exactly how God had shown it to Brooke. We knew and we still know that God is going to give us that house. The craziest part of this story is that this house is $1,300,000 and is five bedrooms. We had prayed earlier that if God gave us a small place then we wold know that it was just for the two of us, but if he gave us a big place then we would know that it was for us to start the organization in. It may take a year or two to actually get a full blown training center, so we would start it in our house.
We met with the realtor and told her our story and she was actually quite impressed. She said that this is actually the only house under Sotheby's in the entire area, which confirmed to us even more that this is really the house he wants for us. Also, Heather, whose parents own a real estate company, told us that Sotheby's is a real estate company that only sells huge estates.
So that's our story and we're sticking to it. We don't know when God is going to give us the house, we just know He will because He's the one who said. We didn't say it. We don't know if it will be in a month or in a year, but we know He will do the miracle. Until then, we'll work and get an apartment.
So we began looking for jobs and while we were looking one day we just ran out of places to stay. I just didn't have any more friends who could host us. So we cried out to God for help. The next day we had our meeting with Pr. Steve. He asked us about our financial situation, so we told him. Later on that day he checked his messages and Marilyn Noorda had called him hours before our meeting saying the following:
"Pr. Steve, I just had a great idea. Tell me what you think of it. I've been appointed to be the director for the The CALL Mobilization Team in Ventura County, but I'm really swamped with so many things to do. I think it would be a great idea if we hired Joshua and Brooke full time to be my assistant directors for The CALL Mobilization. We would pay them by giving them free room and board and some gas money. They'll only work for us until The Call and that way they'll have time to assess their lives, get a job, and a place, and they'll be a huge help to us at the same time. What do you think?"
Pr. Steve immediately called me and told me the news. We were stoked. We prayed about it the next few days and God confirmed it through His word that this was His will for us. So we went to Northern California for four days and last night we arrived at Marilyn and Glen Noorda's house. Today was our first official day of full time work for The Call. It is so exciting! We really got a lot done today.
The tragic thing that took place was that one of my really close friends went to be with Jesus. He was only 25 years old. He got married last year in October. One week later him and his wife went to Mexico to be full time missionaries and three weeks later he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. He went back to CA and was in treatment for 10 months including chemo. A few weeks ago the doctors gave up on him because the cancer had spread to his bone marrow and lungs. Two weeks later he died. The entire time we, along with hundreds of other people, prayed for him and even fasted for his healing, but he wasn't healed. It really sucks, but at the same time it doesn't. After praying a lot about it and going to Cody's memorial I became at peace with his death and greatly matured concerning my view on death. This was the first time that someone close to me died. It's really hard for us and its hard for us to understand, but if you were to go to Heaven and ask Cody right now if he wanted to return he would definitely say "No". He's doing better then we could ever imagine. We are the one's that are left hurting and missing out, not him.
The memorial was awesome. Many people spoke about their memories with Cody. I spoke and sang a spontaneous song for Cody and Brooke sang one of her songs for him. Everyone was really touched by our songs. We met with his mom, dad, sisters, wife, and lots of his friends. It was amazing to see how many lives he had so deeply touched in just a few years. It was truly mind-blowing. At least 150 to 200 people were there and they had come from all over the place. And they only represented a fraction of Cody's friends, family, and the people he had touched. The memorial was one hour long at the church and then five hours long at Cody's house where we had a celebration of his life.
They ended up inviting us to stay in a cottage they had in the back of their property. It was so cute and there were praying mantises all over the place. We saw at least eight of them. They're so cool. Oh yeah and this entire time we were way out in the boonies in the mountains. It was so, so gorgeous. Brooke loved it too.
We went to their church on Sunday morning and drove down to San Francisco.
When we arrived in SF it just so happened that the Folsom Street Fair was taking place. This is the most depraved event in America and one of the worst in the world. It is a sado-masichist fair. We were just driving through downtown and Brooke saw three naked men and one naked woman just casually walking down the street. Fortunately, I only saw one naked man cause I was driving. It was horrible!
Anyways, I showed Brooke all the main spots of SF where Alex and I preached during our mission trip and then we went to Adam Hood's house. Adam is a great friend of mine that Alex and I met during our mission trip. Our hearts beat with the same rhythm and our minds think alike. It's crazy. So, we stayed with him on Sunday night. What was so, so crazy was that I felt the Lord telling me to look at my watch and when I did I realized that it was Sept. 28th. Sept. 28th exactly one year ago was the last day of my mission trip and the last day of my mission trip was in SF. Crazy! Immediately, I felt like God had sent us there with the purpose of sealing what he had began through us. WoW! And what's even crazier is that Adam has been wanting a house of prayer in the basement of his house for months now and Sept. 28th was the first official day of the House of Prayer and God had brought us there to inaguarate it with him. We also met his fiance Sarah Jean. She's awesome.
On Monday we drove back to Ventura County and witnessed some of the most breathtaking, glorious sites in the world as we drove down the Pacific Coast Highway.
And now I am typing here on a rocking chair on the porch of Marilyn's backhouse (It's a one bedroom, one bathroom, kitchenette, walk-in closet backhouse). Also, I am going to help Glen with the gardening. They have all the following fruit trees: fig, two orange, peach, pomegranate, plumb, passion fruit, etc. I can't wait to learn about gardening.
Monday, August 25, 2008
We're Here Baby!!!
We are in California! It is official.
We arrived on the night of August 14th and it is now August 25. In these ten days lots of great things have happened.
First of all, we are currently staying in Meire and Kent's house in Anaheim (Meire is my mom's best friend). It has been really fun being with them. They are family to me and now to Brooke also. Their son Rafael is coming from Philadelphia to visit for one week, so that will be awesome.
The first day we were here I called Tim Fish, my former youth pastor, to see if they were going to join in prayer with The Call DC via God TV and it so happened that they were. Also, Tim just so happened to be doing business near Orange County, so he came by and picked us up. We spent the whole weekend with them.
Saturday was The Call, so Brooke, Tim, Bev Fish, and I joined in for the full 12 hours of prayer and fasting. IT was GLORIOUS!!! From 7 am to 7 pm we were completely united in fervent prayer together with The Call. God truly moved.
Furthermore, upon arriving we began hearing about several different prophecies that have been declared over California in the past couple months, by several major prophets. All of the prophecies have been of judgement on the whole state of CA, but especially San Francisco and the Bay Area. IN fact, just before we had arrived in CA 7 CALL solemn assemblies were held all throughout the state crying out for mercy and revival in CA. The moment we crossed the border of CA and drove in we felt that the Heavens were open over this place and this is exaclty where God wants us to be at this time. And now after hearing these prophecies we are even more certain.
We went to Jubilee Church that Sunday and it was totally awesome. The message given by Pastor Steve was so powerful and mature. I was truly blown away. As a youth I hadn't appreciated his sermons so much, but now as an adult I can see why. His sermons are so mature that it takes several years of following Jesus in order to be able to relate to them.
We hung out with several of my old friends from my youth group in CA and had some good time catching up with each other.
I felt like Jubilee could be the church God wanted us to be with even though I wasn't 100% sure, but Brooke didn't feel like this was the church. We felt like many people in Jubilee were our family, but that it wasn't necessarily the church God wanted us to work with for IPO
Which brings me to another point. Brooke and I have been praying and we have decided to change the name of the organization to Global Gospel Movement. We feel like Itinerant Preacher Organization is too boring and sounds to much like an organization. We don't want this to be an organization. We want this to be a Movement and thus the name change. Please give us feed back about what you think.
Moreover, I have been writing like crazy trying to complete this book, but the more I write the more I realize that this is gonna take a lot longer than I thought. I'm pretty much rewriting everything again.
Brooke has been learning a bunch of graphic design stuff, making beats on reason, and helping me with the organization's website. She's loving California.
Also, on Tuesday we went to a church called Expression 58 who's pastor is Shawn Bolz. The name comes from Isaiah 58 (read it) . The church was absolutely AMAZING!!! Brooke said that AMy would love it. The worship was amazing, the preaching was absolutely glorious, the people were super cool, and they had a woman painting during the worship who painted the most beautiful painting I've ever seen in my life right before my very eyes. I am not exaggerating. She even has a website where she sells prints of her paintings. They're amazing. Check them out at: http://www.janethyun.com/
The church is only one year old and it already has more than 200 people. It's supernatural. We were able to talk with Shawn Bolz and another church leader named Jesse. It was great.
Again, we loved the church, but this time both of didn't feel like this was the church for us. However, we are certain that we will be working together with them.
On Thursday night Meire was having a graduation for a 10 month counseling class she took at Saddleback Church and she invited us. We went and it was amazing. The graduation was more awesome and powerful than any college or high school graduation that I've ever been too. Even though this was not a regular service we again felt that this was not the church God wanted us to be at.
Saturday was our Six Month Anniversary, so we celebrated all day long. I took Brooke to Laguna Beach, which is the prettiest beach in Orange County and then we went to an spectacular Art Festival in Laguna Beach. What's really cool is that all the artists are local artists from the Laguna Beach area, but what's not so cool is that everything is so, so expensive.
In the evening, we went to the movies at The Block, the coolest mall in Orange County. But before we watched a movie Brooke had to have her shopping spree at Old Navy and then checked out Forever 21 too.
Then came Sunday (i.e. yesterday). We went to Pasadena to visit Harvest Rock Church. The moment we stepped into the Lobby of the church we immediately felt the presence of the Holy Spirit and we felt an immediate connection. Immediately, we knew that this was our church, our family. Within one minute we were already plugged into a cell group of newlywed couples and met several on fire young people. The church is definitely the most diverse church I've ever seen in my life. The Senior Pastor is Korean, the next pastor is American, the Worship leader is black, the second worship leader is Latina, the back up vocalist is Asian, and the musicians were all white. The church is a fairly even mix of whites, Asians, blacks, and hispanics. The worship was off the chain. We danced like crazy. The guest speaker was Bulgarian and he was totally awesome. If you were new they gave you a free CD of a preaching and they would pray over you and prophesy over you. It was awesome.
Harvest Rock Church is the church that Lou Engle was a pastor at and the church that helped him birth The Call. They were founded in 1994 and now have established 5,000 churches in 35 nations. They are totally on fire. The Pastor Che Ahn just recently began having a tv show on GODTV. The church has at least 1,000 members and has 400 cell groups. It's bumpin' man.
So after the service we prayed and sought God by a brook next to the church and then we went to the night service at 5:30. There we danced even crazier. Brooke and I are really sore today as a result.
So we are overjoyed that God has shown us which church to be a part of and now we are praying for God open the doors to give us a great place to live near the church. And Pasadena is a gorgeous area, so we really need a miracle to move there. Please pray for us concerning this. We know that this is the next big miracle God is going to do in our lives. So we are excited.
Please pray for God to bring around us a team of wise men and women of God to help us establish the Global Gospel Movement.
We love all of you guys very much
Your Friends,
Joshua and Brooke Carvalho
We arrived on the night of August 14th and it is now August 25. In these ten days lots of great things have happened.
First of all, we are currently staying in Meire and Kent's house in Anaheim (Meire is my mom's best friend). It has been really fun being with them. They are family to me and now to Brooke also. Their son Rafael is coming from Philadelphia to visit for one week, so that will be awesome.
The first day we were here I called Tim Fish, my former youth pastor, to see if they were going to join in prayer with The Call DC via God TV and it so happened that they were. Also, Tim just so happened to be doing business near Orange County, so he came by and picked us up. We spent the whole weekend with them.
Saturday was The Call, so Brooke, Tim, Bev Fish, and I joined in for the full 12 hours of prayer and fasting. IT was GLORIOUS!!! From 7 am to 7 pm we were completely united in fervent prayer together with The Call. God truly moved.
Furthermore, upon arriving we began hearing about several different prophecies that have been declared over California in the past couple months, by several major prophets. All of the prophecies have been of judgement on the whole state of CA, but especially San Francisco and the Bay Area. IN fact, just before we had arrived in CA 7 CALL solemn assemblies were held all throughout the state crying out for mercy and revival in CA. The moment we crossed the border of CA and drove in we felt that the Heavens were open over this place and this is exaclty where God wants us to be at this time. And now after hearing these prophecies we are even more certain.
We went to Jubilee Church that Sunday and it was totally awesome. The message given by Pastor Steve was so powerful and mature. I was truly blown away. As a youth I hadn't appreciated his sermons so much, but now as an adult I can see why. His sermons are so mature that it takes several years of following Jesus in order to be able to relate to them.
We hung out with several of my old friends from my youth group in CA and had some good time catching up with each other.
I felt like Jubilee could be the church God wanted us to be with even though I wasn't 100% sure, but Brooke didn't feel like this was the church. We felt like many people in Jubilee were our family, but that it wasn't necessarily the church God wanted us to work with for IPO
Which brings me to another point. Brooke and I have been praying and we have decided to change the name of the organization to Global Gospel Movement. We feel like Itinerant Preacher Organization is too boring and sounds to much like an organization. We don't want this to be an organization. We want this to be a Movement and thus the name change. Please give us feed back about what you think.
Moreover, I have been writing like crazy trying to complete this book, but the more I write the more I realize that this is gonna take a lot longer than I thought. I'm pretty much rewriting everything again.
Brooke has been learning a bunch of graphic design stuff, making beats on reason, and helping me with the organization's website. She's loving California.
Also, on Tuesday we went to a church called Expression 58 who's pastor is Shawn Bolz. The name comes from Isaiah 58 (read it) . The church was absolutely AMAZING!!! Brooke said that AMy would love it. The worship was amazing, the preaching was absolutely glorious, the people were super cool, and they had a woman painting during the worship who painted the most beautiful painting I've ever seen in my life right before my very eyes. I am not exaggerating. She even has a website where she sells prints of her paintings. They're amazing. Check them out at: http://www.janethyun.com/
The church is only one year old and it already has more than 200 people. It's supernatural. We were able to talk with Shawn Bolz and another church leader named Jesse. It was great.
Again, we loved the church, but this time both of didn't feel like this was the church for us. However, we are certain that we will be working together with them.
On Thursday night Meire was having a graduation for a 10 month counseling class she took at Saddleback Church and she invited us. We went and it was amazing. The graduation was more awesome and powerful than any college or high school graduation that I've ever been too. Even though this was not a regular service we again felt that this was not the church God wanted us to be at.
Saturday was our Six Month Anniversary, so we celebrated all day long. I took Brooke to Laguna Beach, which is the prettiest beach in Orange County and then we went to an spectacular Art Festival in Laguna Beach. What's really cool is that all the artists are local artists from the Laguna Beach area, but what's not so cool is that everything is so, so expensive.
In the evening, we went to the movies at The Block, the coolest mall in Orange County. But before we watched a movie Brooke had to have her shopping spree at Old Navy and then checked out Forever 21 too.
Then came Sunday (i.e. yesterday). We went to Pasadena to visit Harvest Rock Church. The moment we stepped into the Lobby of the church we immediately felt the presence of the Holy Spirit and we felt an immediate connection. Immediately, we knew that this was our church, our family. Within one minute we were already plugged into a cell group of newlywed couples and met several on fire young people. The church is definitely the most diverse church I've ever seen in my life. The Senior Pastor is Korean, the next pastor is American, the Worship leader is black, the second worship leader is Latina, the back up vocalist is Asian, and the musicians were all white. The church is a fairly even mix of whites, Asians, blacks, and hispanics. The worship was off the chain. We danced like crazy. The guest speaker was Bulgarian and he was totally awesome. If you were new they gave you a free CD of a preaching and they would pray over you and prophesy over you. It was awesome.
Harvest Rock Church is the church that Lou Engle was a pastor at and the church that helped him birth The Call. They were founded in 1994 and now have established 5,000 churches in 35 nations. They are totally on fire. The Pastor Che Ahn just recently began having a tv show on GODTV. The church has at least 1,000 members and has 400 cell groups. It's bumpin' man.
So after the service we prayed and sought God by a brook next to the church and then we went to the night service at 5:30. There we danced even crazier. Brooke and I are really sore today as a result.
So we are overjoyed that God has shown us which church to be a part of and now we are praying for God open the doors to give us a great place to live near the church. And Pasadena is a gorgeous area, so we really need a miracle to move there. Please pray for us concerning this. We know that this is the next big miracle God is going to do in our lives. So we are excited.
Please pray for God to bring around us a team of wise men and women of God to help us establish the Global Gospel Movement.
We love all of you guys very much
Your Friends,
Joshua and Brooke Carvalho
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
The Rest of Our Road Trip
God is continuing to move powerfully in our lives and continues to faithfully open amazing doors during this road trip.
In Atlanta, God opened more doors than we expected. During a pastor's prayer meeting we went to we were given the opportunity to share the IPO vision with them and they all prayed for us. Two pastors prophesied over us. It was powerful. After the meeting one of the pastor's began talking with us. He told us that he did the same thing in Brazil that we are doing right now. He gave up everything and by faith went to a region of Brazil that had very little churches and began establishing churches over thirty years ago. Now they have missionaries and churches all over the world. He has a PhD and has a online Christian University that he made in order to train their missionaries abroad. He also told us that he has tons of space left in his huge server that he uses for his online university and that he would let us use his server if we ever needed it for our website. That's pretty awesome!
On Friday night we went to a prophetic meeting that Edward led. Edward is the man who prophesied over us in the pastor's meeting. ON this meeting they prophesied over us for about 30 minutes. It was so, so intense. We truly felt that God was commissioning us to establish His kingdom on this earth. We have the whole thing on tape. One thing he said was: "You have the anointing of Joshua...no John the Baptist." Then another woman confirmed it saying: "As soon as you began singing earlier God told me that you had the anointing of John the Baptist. You thought you were hiding, but I saw you as soon as you came in (we sat right behind her, but she never looked behind her once because she was leading worship looking away from the audience). When you stood behind me I saw two huge shadows appear over me and I heard the Lord tell me, 'There are two giants standing behind you.' Because you guys are giants in the Spirit." It was so crazy man.
Then we went to IHOP to eat and when we left there was a group of about twenty-five extremely raggedy teenagers smoking and cussing on the step of IHOP. Brooke felt a huge burden to speak to them, but I was so exhausted because it was already 12:30 a.m. But I told, "If you start it I'll go with you and talk too." So she did. Her and I went up to these twenty or so crazy kids and Brooke began preaching the Gospel to them. Surprisingly, they were extremely attentive and respectful.. We ended up talking to them for two hours. It was amazing. What a woman God has given me! Praise God!
On Sunday Edward took us to a church called North Gate Church. It was absolutely amazing! The worship was off the chain, the preaching was one of the most powerful sermons I have ever heard preached in a church building in my entire life, and they had amazing art everywhere. But what was the craziest part of it all is that the whole left side of the wall was full wheelchairs, crutches, neck braces, medical pills, etc. nailed to the wall. They had belonged to people who had been healed in their church services!!! Isn't that crazy! I was so blown away. I felt like I was in one of those old tent revivals from the healing movement! We connected with the pastor's son at the end (he's the one who preached that day) and we got his card and he got ours. We told him about GGM and he got really excited about it too.
The day before on Saturday we preached in Videira's youth group (the largest Brazilian church in Atlanta: about 800 people.) It was awesome. We preached about our courtship that led up to our marriage. We hung out with everyone afterwards and it made me feel like I was back in Brazil again. It felt like they were all our family.
Then on Sunday night we went to the service and it was one of the most powerful church services I've ever been to. The worship was at least an hour and a half long, people were worshipping like crazy, and during the worship goldust appeared all over our bodies! You heard me. GOLDUST!!! Don't ask me why or how all I know is that God did it. We were worshipping with all our hearts and then a young guy walked up to me and said "look" pointing to my hand. It was sparkling with tons of little gold glitter. I thought to myself, "Maybe I rubbed my hand on some glitter or maybe it's just because my hands are sweaty," but then I looked more and it was all over my body and it was all over Brooke too. Both Brooke and I had it all over our faces, necks, arms, backs, etc. It was crazy! And a bunch of other people had it too. Personally, I believe it was simply a physical sign to us that God is here.
Pastor Napoleon preached as a man absolutely desperate and broken for God. It was amazing. He is truly one of the most humble and genuine pastors I've ever seen. Five people were baptized in water during the service and at the end of the service they prayed for the sick and many people were healed right on the spot. It was extraordinary!
Pastor Napoleon asked us to pray about staying in Atlanta and starting GGM there. He said they would support us financially and he desired to be a spiritual father for us. His love towards us was so amazing. We still feel like California is the place God wants us, but I know that if God tells us to go to Atlanta that Videira is where we will be.
Next, we went off to Hammond, LA and stayed with my friend Dustin who goes to the G12 church there. We had a great time with him and his friends. We were only there for one day, but in that one day God set up a divine appointment. A friend of Dustin called him and invited him to eat lunch with him at a Mexican restaurant. Well, as we talked we found out that this guy is an amazing piano player who plays full time for Rocketown Records (label owned by Michael W. Smith), Tooth and Nail Records (Underoath, Supertones, As Cities Burn, Anberlin, etc.), and BEC Records (Jeremy Camp, Bebo Norman, etc.). We eventually told him that we recorded our first CD in Brazil and he got really excited about it and said, "Well hey man. Whenever the CD comes just mail it to me and I'll personally give it to the president of BEC and Tooth and Nail Records for you." We were blown away. God was just opening huge doors and we weren't even trying.
From there we went to Texas and had a great time visiting all of Brooke's family and friends. We stayed with Brooke's grandma in Livingstone, her best friend Cody in Montgomery, her sister (and now my sister-in-law) Chelsea in Austin, and Aunt B in Waco. We toured the whole state of Texas. We even stayed the night in a friend's house in El Paso.
From there we went to Phoenix, AZ to visit Kelvin. It was awesome. We went on an amazing hike through these gorgeous red rocks, but Brooke vomitted because she had just eaten Jack in th Box before and it was 114 degrees outside. So we went back. We had a great time with Kelvin and keeping up with the Olympics.
Finally we were off to California!!! We arrived at Meire's house around 11 p.m. and they were still watching the women's gymnastics, so we watched it with them.
As we approached the border of California we began interceeding, when we entered CA we gave a big, long shout of conquest and victory, and as we drove through CA we prayed for nearly an hour. It was glorious. This is truly where God wants us to be. We could feel it every day while we're here.
Keep praying for us please for God to guide us and provide for us.
In Atlanta, God opened more doors than we expected. During a pastor's prayer meeting we went to we were given the opportunity to share the IPO vision with them and they all prayed for us. Two pastors prophesied over us. It was powerful. After the meeting one of the pastor's began talking with us. He told us that he did the same thing in Brazil that we are doing right now. He gave up everything and by faith went to a region of Brazil that had very little churches and began establishing churches over thirty years ago. Now they have missionaries and churches all over the world. He has a PhD and has a online Christian University that he made in order to train their missionaries abroad. He also told us that he has tons of space left in his huge server that he uses for his online university and that he would let us use his server if we ever needed it for our website. That's pretty awesome!
On Friday night we went to a prophetic meeting that Edward led. Edward is the man who prophesied over us in the pastor's meeting. ON this meeting they prophesied over us for about 30 minutes. It was so, so intense. We truly felt that God was commissioning us to establish His kingdom on this earth. We have the whole thing on tape. One thing he said was: "You have the anointing of Joshua...no John the Baptist." Then another woman confirmed it saying: "As soon as you began singing earlier God told me that you had the anointing of John the Baptist. You thought you were hiding, but I saw you as soon as you came in (we sat right behind her, but she never looked behind her once because she was leading worship looking away from the audience). When you stood behind me I saw two huge shadows appear over me and I heard the Lord tell me, 'There are two giants standing behind you.' Because you guys are giants in the Spirit." It was so crazy man.
Then we went to IHOP to eat and when we left there was a group of about twenty-five extremely raggedy teenagers smoking and cussing on the step of IHOP. Brooke felt a huge burden to speak to them, but I was so exhausted because it was already 12:30 a.m. But I told, "If you start it I'll go with you and talk too." So she did. Her and I went up to these twenty or so crazy kids and Brooke began preaching the Gospel to them. Surprisingly, they were extremely attentive and respectful.. We ended up talking to them for two hours. It was amazing. What a woman God has given me! Praise God!
On Sunday Edward took us to a church called North Gate Church. It was absolutely amazing! The worship was off the chain, the preaching was one of the most powerful sermons I have ever heard preached in a church building in my entire life, and they had amazing art everywhere. But what was the craziest part of it all is that the whole left side of the wall was full wheelchairs, crutches, neck braces, medical pills, etc. nailed to the wall. They had belonged to people who had been healed in their church services!!! Isn't that crazy! I was so blown away. I felt like I was in one of those old tent revivals from the healing movement! We connected with the pastor's son at the end (he's the one who preached that day) and we got his card and he got ours. We told him about GGM and he got really excited about it too.
The day before on Saturday we preached in Videira's youth group (the largest Brazilian church in Atlanta: about 800 people.) It was awesome. We preached about our courtship that led up to our marriage. We hung out with everyone afterwards and it made me feel like I was back in Brazil again. It felt like they were all our family.
Then on Sunday night we went to the service and it was one of the most powerful church services I've ever been to. The worship was at least an hour and a half long, people were worshipping like crazy, and during the worship goldust appeared all over our bodies! You heard me. GOLDUST!!! Don't ask me why or how all I know is that God did it. We were worshipping with all our hearts and then a young guy walked up to me and said "look" pointing to my hand. It was sparkling with tons of little gold glitter. I thought to myself, "Maybe I rubbed my hand on some glitter or maybe it's just because my hands are sweaty," but then I looked more and it was all over my body and it was all over Brooke too. Both Brooke and I had it all over our faces, necks, arms, backs, etc. It was crazy! And a bunch of other people had it too. Personally, I believe it was simply a physical sign to us that God is here.
Pastor Napoleon preached as a man absolutely desperate and broken for God. It was amazing. He is truly one of the most humble and genuine pastors I've ever seen. Five people were baptized in water during the service and at the end of the service they prayed for the sick and many people were healed right on the spot. It was extraordinary!
Pastor Napoleon asked us to pray about staying in Atlanta and starting GGM there. He said they would support us financially and he desired to be a spiritual father for us. His love towards us was so amazing. We still feel like California is the place God wants us, but I know that if God tells us to go to Atlanta that Videira is where we will be.
Next, we went off to Hammond, LA and stayed with my friend Dustin who goes to the G12 church there. We had a great time with him and his friends. We were only there for one day, but in that one day God set up a divine appointment. A friend of Dustin called him and invited him to eat lunch with him at a Mexican restaurant. Well, as we talked we found out that this guy is an amazing piano player who plays full time for Rocketown Records (label owned by Michael W. Smith), Tooth and Nail Records (Underoath, Supertones, As Cities Burn, Anberlin, etc.), and BEC Records (Jeremy Camp, Bebo Norman, etc.). We eventually told him that we recorded our first CD in Brazil and he got really excited about it and said, "Well hey man. Whenever the CD comes just mail it to me and I'll personally give it to the president of BEC and Tooth and Nail Records for you." We were blown away. God was just opening huge doors and we weren't even trying.
From there we went to Texas and had a great time visiting all of Brooke's family and friends. We stayed with Brooke's grandma in Livingstone, her best friend Cody in Montgomery, her sister (and now my sister-in-law) Chelsea in Austin, and Aunt B in Waco. We toured the whole state of Texas. We even stayed the night in a friend's house in El Paso.
From there we went to Phoenix, AZ to visit Kelvin. It was awesome. We went on an amazing hike through these gorgeous red rocks, but Brooke vomitted because she had just eaten Jack in th Box before and it was 114 degrees outside. So we went back. We had a great time with Kelvin and keeping up with the Olympics.
Finally we were off to California!!! We arrived at Meire's house around 11 p.m. and they were still watching the women's gymnastics, so we watched it with them.
As we approached the border of California we began interceeding, when we entered CA we gave a big, long shout of conquest and victory, and as we drove through CA we prayed for nearly an hour. It was glorious. This is truly where God wants us to be. We could feel it every day while we're here.
Keep praying for us please for God to guide us and provide for us.
Monday, August 4, 2008
We are no longer going to Biola University
We have a huge announcement to make. We are no longer going to Biola University. You guys might be surprised, but we were more surprised than any of you were. We were set on going to Biola and very exited about it. We were attending Biola because it was the most wise and next logical step to take in our lives. We asked God to speak to us about it whether it was His will for us to go or not, but He never really spoke. In Brazil, we sought him long and hard to give us an answer and in the midst of desperation and confusion I thought that I heard God say 'Yes' to going to Biola, but earlier Brooke had felt God saying no. So we were slightly confused, but we acted out in faith believing that God had said 'Yes'. But since the answer to our question was not so clear, before I went on the road trip we said to God that if it was not His will for us to go to Biola and if we had heard wrong that He would speak so many times so clearly to us throughout this road trip that He didn't want us to go then we would not go. But otherwise we were going.
Then when we got to The Cause I felt God asking me if I was willing to surrender Biola into His hands. I said,"God, You're freaking me out. We're going to Biola, but Lord, I surrender it to You." The next day I talked to Chuck Mervin and it was amazing. We talked about many things, but one of the things we talked about was Biola. He asked me why I was going and I told him my reasons. He said may things to us, but one thing he said that stuck out was, "Joshua, you're a racehorse. Going to Biola is like going to a school for plow horses. Why would a racehorse go to a school of plow horses? You'll learn great things, but it won't have much to do with racing."
So that made me think, but I was still completely determined to go to Biola. Then we went to Atlanta and I preached in a Brazilian Assemblies of God church. It was awesome. Pastor Saulo told me how he left Brazil and his career as a professor in one of the best universities of Brazil to come to Atlanta and start a church. Then he began speaking into my life looking me straight in the eyes. He had no idea about our plans to go to Biola, but after hearing him speak to me for over an hour I was absolutely convinced that God did not want me to go to Biola. It felt like God himself was speaking through him into my life. God wanted me to focus all of my efforts to start IPO.
Brooke had been pretty convinced that she was supposed to study graphic design at an art school instead of going to Biola after our talk with Chuck and my talk with Pastor Saulo convinced her even more that that's what we were supposed to do.
So we asked God for a definite confirmation. Pastor Saulo talked to us on Saturday night and on Tuesday morning we went to a pastor's prayer meeting. They gave us the opportunity to talk about our vision for IPO adn afterwards they all gathered around us and prayed for us. It was a humbling and powerful experience to have several veteran pastors praying over us. One man who we had never met began prophesying over us. He said many things, but some of the things were really crazy. He looked at me and said, "God has given you a Joshua anointing and He will use you as a Joshua to lead this generation." What's crazy is he didn't even know my name. Then he began praying over Brooke and saying, "You think that you are only going to work in ministry, but I tell you that God has called you to the arts. And the arts that you do will not just influence the church, it will influence the world." Then a woman pastor began prophesying over us and said, "You don't need any credentials. God is your credentials. Your only credentials will be God."
So that's why we are not going to Biola. Brooke is going to study graphic design, but she is still deciding where she will study. I will focus on establishing IPO and writing my book. Also, we will be focusing on music.
Then when we got to The Cause I felt God asking me if I was willing to surrender Biola into His hands. I said,"God, You're freaking me out. We're going to Biola, but Lord, I surrender it to You." The next day I talked to Chuck Mervin and it was amazing. We talked about many things, but one of the things we talked about was Biola. He asked me why I was going and I told him my reasons. He said may things to us, but one thing he said that stuck out was, "Joshua, you're a racehorse. Going to Biola is like going to a school for plow horses. Why would a racehorse go to a school of plow horses? You'll learn great things, but it won't have much to do with racing."
So that made me think, but I was still completely determined to go to Biola. Then we went to Atlanta and I preached in a Brazilian Assemblies of God church. It was awesome. Pastor Saulo told me how he left Brazil and his career as a professor in one of the best universities of Brazil to come to Atlanta and start a church. Then he began speaking into my life looking me straight in the eyes. He had no idea about our plans to go to Biola, but after hearing him speak to me for over an hour I was absolutely convinced that God did not want me to go to Biola. It felt like God himself was speaking through him into my life. God wanted me to focus all of my efforts to start IPO.
Brooke had been pretty convinced that she was supposed to study graphic design at an art school instead of going to Biola after our talk with Chuck and my talk with Pastor Saulo convinced her even more that that's what we were supposed to do.
So we asked God for a definite confirmation. Pastor Saulo talked to us on Saturday night and on Tuesday morning we went to a pastor's prayer meeting. They gave us the opportunity to talk about our vision for IPO adn afterwards they all gathered around us and prayed for us. It was a humbling and powerful experience to have several veteran pastors praying over us. One man who we had never met began prophesying over us. He said many things, but some of the things were really crazy. He looked at me and said, "God has given you a Joshua anointing and He will use you as a Joshua to lead this generation." What's crazy is he didn't even know my name. Then he began praying over Brooke and saying, "You think that you are only going to work in ministry, but I tell you that God has called you to the arts. And the arts that you do will not just influence the church, it will influence the world." Then a woman pastor began prophesying over us and said, "You don't need any credentials. God is your credentials. Your only credentials will be God."
So that's why we are not going to Biola. Brooke is going to study graphic design, but she is still deciding where she will study. I will focus on establishing IPO and writing my book. Also, we will be focusing on music.
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