30 APRIL - 4 MAY 2010
Peter threw us (Keith and Jean Perrin) in the deep end this last weekend, sending us on our own, without the comforting presence of any other team members, to take a 4 day conference on spiritual warfare at the House of the Lord, International Christian Center in Wieringerwerf, Holland.
We have to confess we were somewhat nervous but we shouldn't have worried because our amazing God was with us every moment and poured out his anointing and blessing in a way that left us even more in awe of Him.
After rising at the unearthly hour of 3.45 am we made our way to Peter's home and he and Glenys drove us to the airport to catch the 7am flight to Amsterdam, where we were met by our host Jan van Damme. He then drove us to the lovely house beside their church centre where we were welcomed and fed, by his daughter Marcia and her husband Jan Rudolph and their two delightful children. Jan's wife, Grace, soon also joined us and we spent a few hours getting to know the family and exchanging experiences of the Lord's work in our lives.
A couple of hours sleep refreshed us enough to be ready for the first meeting of the conference at 7.30pm. Keith and I shared the teaching on spiritual warfare and deliverance over several sessions on Friday evening, Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening. There were probably 30 to 40 people at each session and we commend them for their staying power as the sessions were long and in depth, but they all seemed so desperate for breakthrough in their lives that they soaked up all we were sharing with them. Many people came for prayer after each session and we ministered to them often until well after midnight in the evening sessions and in the afternoons practically up to the start of the evening meeting, with quick breaks for food. The earliest we were in bed on any day was about 1.45 am. We were also able to minister some deep healing and deliverance to about 10 people during the weekend giving them 2to 3 hour sessions which was wonderful, as the Lord unbound the chains of years of bondage to the enemy and brought healing to areas of deep trauma and wounding from childhood and even in the womb, to see joy light up their faces as they began to experience freedom, in some cases, for the first time in their lives was something to behold. Some had grown up in Africa where witchcraft and voodoo had been the norm in their family lives and God delivered them. Others had lived with rejection, low self worth and a complete lack of love all their lives and God delivered them and poured His love into them.
Even as I write this report I can feel the anointing of the Holy Spirit which flooded the building as the worship group led us into that place with the Lord where He just poured out His love and healing on His people. It was also so special to see the excitement of Grace and Jan as they began to catch hold of the teaching and see how God was going to enable them to use it to carry the church forward into the vision He had given them and which they had been holding onto waiting for His perfect timing and direction. These two are such a special couple, together with their family. We felt such a bond with them all. The Lord has given them so much compassion for hurting and broken people and I believe He is going to use them in a mighty way to restore many.
On Sunday morning Keith spoke powerfully on "What is Love". I loved this example he gave at the beginning where he said action spoke louder than any words. "The elderly gentleman next door had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the old man crying, his neighbour's four year old son went into the old man's yard, climbed onto his lap and sat there. Later, when his mother asked him what he had said to the old gentleman, the little boy said, 'Nothing, I just helped him to cry!'"
Keith went on to talk about God's love for us and how He longs for us to spend time with Him, just being with Him, listening to Him instead of only coming with our prayer shopping lists. We had talked with Grace before the meeting and said we felt it would be good to introduce a time of 'Soaking in the Lord's Presence' after this message and she readily agreed. So following a short break for a drink, everyone settled themselves down around the room, either with their feet up on another chair or lying on cushions on the floor and we put on some quiet 'soaking' music and began resting in the Lord's presence for about an hour. To our surprise even the children joined in.
At the end Grace asked if anyone had a testimony they would like to share about their time of soaking and several people came up to the front and told how God had spoken to them in pictures, visions and words. It was an amazing time. Two of the children came out. One young 9 year old girl had been writing away on the floor and I thought she was just amusing herself whilst the adults did what they were doing, but she told us that she had seen Jesus and He had shown her a mansion in heaven and taken her to see her room which He said she could have because she believed in Him and loved Him! A young boy, probably about 10 years old, also came out to tell us that although he always went to church and knew he should read his bible he didn't do it very often, even though he kept promising himself that he would. He said, "I just didn't really want to, but after we all prayed the prayer at the end of the deliverance teaching sessions, I suddenly found that I really wanted to read the Bible and now I can't put it down"!! His eyes were really shining as he spoke.
Most of the rest of Sunday and all day Monday until the evening session was taken up with the individual in depth sessions with various people.
The Monday evening meeting was on the programme as a Healing Room. It started at 7.30pm and after more anointed worship Keith gave a short talk on what God's Word says about healing and how Jesus said in John 14: 12-14, "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father………." Then the people were invited to come forward if they needed healing, physical, emotional or whatever. Again we were praying for some long time as many came forward. God did amazing things. Two people had their leg lengthened, so backs and hips came back into line to release them from pain. One of those was a lady who had been prayed for the day before because she was having trouble in her pregnancy, the baby had stopped growing and the uterus had already grown to its fullest extent, and the medical people were very worried about it. After we prayed she had gone back to the hospital and she was given the news that the uterus was now OK and the baby had begun to grow again!!
Another elderly lady asked for prayer to be cut off from something generational. She said there was a history of psoriasis in the family, which would either manifest as the skin disease or as very bad rheumatism. In her case she had the rheumatism and for several weeks it had attacked her feet and she could hardly walk. We cut her off from the generational curse, and asked her to forgive whoever had caused this curse to come about and prayed for her to be healed. As we prayed she said, "Ooh, I can feel the Holy Spirit going right down into my toes." At the end of the evening she testified that all the pain had gone and she proved it by dancing at the front of the church!! What a wonderful Saviour we have. But for Jesus and His willingness to walk the way of the cross none of this could happen.
Others experienced God's love as He released them from fears. Many were set free from feelings of rejection, uselessness and lack of self worth. Two young girls who had both suffered all of this from their childhood, having received no love in their lives as children were set free from the demonic that had latched on to them in these areas and began to sense what freedom was like. We hadn't known anything about them at the time except what they told us but afterwards I was told that in the church they had always been rebellious and had no time at all for any elderly people. At the end of the service they were seen in deep conversation with an older lady who had happened to testify to the fact that God had shown her this weekend that many years ago in her teenage years she had dishonoured her parents by rebelling against their advice about the person she chose to marry. She had then suffered many years of abuse at the hands of her husband and recently had been so depressed that she had even had thoughts of not wanting to go on living. God had set her free of all of this the day before, even to the fact that she was now able to smile and sing again. She said that her face muscles had become so stiff and set that she was unable to do these things before the Lord touched her. She was so animated and excited that these two young girls must have seen something in her they could relate to and we pray that it will help them to see their lives turned around.
What a weekend! What an awesome God! We praise Him for all that was accomplished in those 4 days, for all the lives changed, for bondages removed and for all that He has in store for the wonderful people in that Church. Please pray for Jan and Grace as they step out and move forward in all God has prepared for them.
Jean & Keith Perrin, RoFMI 5 May 2010
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