Going Higher, Going Deeper

The past week, as I mentioned before, was conference time. We started the week with a soaking school on the Monday and Tuesday. This is basically a very short version of our 'core value month' with soaking time to let God deal with the stuff that came up. Most of it was repeating stuff from our first month, but even so it was very useful for a number of reasons, 1- You always have more stuff to deal with in your hear, so another opportunity to work it out is a good thing, 2- I am writing my sermon on hearing God's voice and so to hear someone else preach it was really helpful (I took plenty of notes!). We all got to catch up on a lot of our missed rest as well, what with the 45 mins we had at the end of most of the sessions where we all just grabbed some floor space, listened to some gentle music and just soaked up God's presence. God loves it when we are willing to just be with him, not trying to do anything, not striving to get closer, just resting in his presence and soaking him up! I did find that it messed up my sleeping patterns a bit though because I was so rested that I wasn't tired come bed time!
Come Wednesday it was time for the main conference. The soaking school was for those who were going to be on the ministry team (ministry team meaning those who have been given permission by the church to go and pray for people). The rest of the week had hundreds more people from all over the world who were there for the “Going Higher, Going Deeper” conference. So 9am Wednesday morning I was there reporting for my work duty. I was once again in the kitchen with Francis. I must admit that I was quite disappointed when I first found out, because I did that for the last conference and wanted to see something different. However I love working with Francis. He is an absolute sweet heart and we were some of the very few who ever got let off early from our shifts. Mikayla and I were chopping tomatoes and celery, unpacking chicken & salmon, and defrosting about 50 packets of mash potatoes for the 4 days we were there. I am now an expert at chopping tomatoes!
After kitchen duty I was always off to get some food and then go to the afternoon sessions. Since being here we have had about 40-45mins of worship at the beginning of every week day. The soaking school was the first time we hadn't had it and I missed it so much. It came as a relief when the conference started up and I could leave my shift and go to worship. I'm not quite sure who I'm going to survive when I leave. I guess I'm going to have to get up half an hour earlier each morning and have my own little worship session!
It was really exciting getting a chance to hear all about the things God has been doing all over the world. We had people from England telling us about the string of nightly meeting they had been having because God was showing up so powerfully that they just couldn't get enough. Reports form Iceland about how the country is lighting on fire for Jesus. Patricia King (on of the speakers) had actually just come from Lakeland in Florida, so was buzzing with all God is doing over there in what has become the largest healing revival that we have ever seen. But then God showed up in a powerful way here in Toronto. We saw a lady who hadn't walked in 4 years, due to Lupus, get up and walk with help one day and the next day she was running and jumping and preaching the power of Jesus. She had been a Christian who most definitely didn't believe in the power of the holy spirit – God sure showed her how wrong she was. We saw other people healed of muscle pain, back ache and headaches among others. One of my friends had a set of prominent scars on his fore arm and God completely removed them. I was standing next to him at the time and his face was an absolute picture! Other people (including a few of the other students) had supernatural money appearing in their wallets and bank accounts. It was crazy cool.
The talks were good, my favorite was a talk Duncan Smith gave on Boldness. He was talking about a fairly obvious thing really, that if you want to blind healed, you need to pray for the blind! So he was talking about stepping out and trusting God to fill the gap. He also prayed an impartation of his boldness to us. There was a lot of impartation at this conference actually. The thing with the holy spirit is that whatever you have can be given out. So Duncan Smith has been given a real spirit of boldness by the holy spirit, so he was giving it out to us.
The hardest thing about the conference for me was probably not singing. I was trying to take care of my voice and not damage it so I was limiting myself to talking. But when you are so used to singing in worship it is really hard work not to sing. Thankfully the school has taught me enough about being creative during worship that I just sat there drawing pictures instead :) Actually the Saturday morning I was described as a female Barry White because my voice was so low when I woke up.
We finished of the conference in the normal fashion, with one of the student's favorite pass times- fire tunnels. They are so much fun, but absolutely exhausting. I was very ready for bed when it came to it.