Salama!

Salama! (That’s “Hello” in Makua).

Over the past few days we’ve been blessed to hear powerfully anointed speakers with amazing testimonies including Rolland and Heidi themselves. We’ve seen powerful moves and manifestations of the Holy Spirit among a large percentage of our student body (prophetic words, visions, etc). It’s amazing and inspiring how hungry our student body is for the Lord!

We’ve talked to several students in our free time and have found that a very large percentage have had a similar experience as ourselves….the Lord calling them to sell all they have and come follow Him. It has been comforting to all of us to know we aren’t alone in such a huge life change.

This student body is smaller than some they’ve had in the past. We have only about 60-70 students. We have about 12 staff members on top of that. Many of the staff, in fact, had also attended the school at some point in the past four years since it began. Nations represented among our students (and staff) include Britain, Scotland, Norway, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, the US, Kenya, Korea, Malawi, South Africa, Switzerland, and Canada. Among our housemates are two young ladies from the U.S. (one whose parents are Ukrainian and she speaks fluent Ukrainian as well), a lady from Britain, and a young lady from Canada.

The daylight hours are very different here. Sunrise comes at 4am, a fact to which the noisy sparrows are very much aware of. Sundown comes very early as well-- 5pm. It’s taking a while to get used to.

Class time is truly enjoyable. We get to sit in a lovely circular hut on the hillside with a view of the ocean. The design and location of the hut allow for refreshingly cool breezes to sweep across everyone as we sit on grass mats on the floor.

Our sessions begin with a half hour to an hour of praise and worship and just connecting with our Father. We are already learning so much about ourselves, missions, and just how much He loves each and every one of us.

We’ve learned so much from Rolland already this week. He reminded us that we receive more of the Holy Spirit the more humble and “low” we become. He asked us, “Why does revival tarry?” The answer…because we can live without it. We’re not hungry enough for revival, and until we get that hunger, it will continue to tarry.

We’ve also been blessed with another teacher this week who is a powerfully anointed and musically talented missionary to Sierra Leone (now the poorest nation in the world). He could not read, but God filled him with the Holy Spirit and gave him the ability to read the Bible like he’d always known how to read. No person taught him-just God! Now he’s even writing a book! He told us that God has more than revival for us. The only thing He needs is our lives. The day Moses stepped into the glory of God he shed himself.

There was another missionary who really impacted me as well. She is a first generation Christian. She had such a powerful testimony. Before she got saved and transformed by the Lord, she was in a state of severe depression. She was addicted to drugs and alcohol. She had also been a nude dancer for seven years. She told us how her whole life she was looking for love, but she always kept feeling empty. She jumped from relationship to relationship trying to find that love. When she got saved and delivered she finally found the love she’d been looking for--the love and fullness that can only come from a relationship with Jesus.

She is married now, and she and her husband both serve as Iris missionaries. She gave us an interesting analogy on marriage too. She said that Jesus is the cake. Our husbands are the icing. We can’t survive just on icing. We need sustenance, and Jesus is that sustenance.

She also told us that God wants us to surrender every part of our hearts to Him and that our pain is a treasure inside us that we can use to minister to others. But first we must walk through the dark room of our pain hand-in-hand with Jesus to get out the door to freedom.

On a different note, this afternoon we finally got to meet Heidi and hear her speak. She had been traveling and just got back Wednesday night. She has such a love for the Lord, and it just pours out of her as she ministers. We’re so eager to learn more from her. We all want her passion and love for the Lord and His people.

We are getting a unique opportunity in this school also--the opportunity for some hands-on experience in one of a wide variety of ministries they do here. It’s a new program and we are the first school to get to experience it. We are all looking forward to it.