California Trip Day 4

 Hey Guys,

So we woke up this morning in LA which was great! We woke up to a breakfast from Pablo's mom, it was great to wake up and have food we have been so bless over these few days having a place to stay. She was an amazing blessing upon us. You have no idea how amazing it is to have a house opened up for you. At the beginning we were having such troubles trying to get places to stay and now so many doors have been opened. When someone offers up their house to have you stay there means they are willing to sacrifice and help you out!

One of the thing that happened over the night for me personally was a dream. I am not a dreamer to begin with so having two vivid dreams was interesting for me. So I am going to share those now:

Dream 1:

I had a dream that I was watching from a distance a girl and a guy discussing the trip. Insult and saying that those things could never happen. Making fun of being drunk in the spirit and the gift received. I saw this from a distance until my body rejoined from the spiritual to the physical. I lashed out in hostility attacking her character and attacking her walk with Christ. I told her that she was one to talk that she above all would not know a living God. They were at two chairs next to a fire and my body was at the door way. The man was older and a close friend I cannot tell. As she walked away, she was angry. I was not upset but triumphant over the questioning and doubt. But don't know if that is the right feeling. We are trying to figure out what this dream meant.

Dream 2:
I had a second dream where I was talking to the girl I liked and we were going to hang out and talk. When she came over it was not her but another girl tempting me and wanting to be physical. I resisted and threw her away and then jumped on my bad as I threw her away again. She tempted me again to give into physical activity again like I had done in my past. I continued to fight off literally fight off. It was a continuous attack all day until I finally got rid of her.

This is one dream we have figured out more then others. This is something I have struggled with and will continue to struggle with and I will have to wrestle with temptation. These were the dreams I had last night and together as a team we are trying to figure out what they could have meant and what they mean. Also this day began with just a celebration of God's creation, this picture was us driving down the mountains towards LA. I am sorry for everyone in Langley but look how beautiful it is. I know people bash on LA for the smog but up above it is a beautiful valley!

 So the first place we stopped for the day was Hollywood. We took a pictures of a bunch of stars and I just decided to put up Johnny Cash's. But Hollywood was great, it was weird to walk the streets with the names of 'Famous' people because sadly I do not hold them in a revered status. The Audio Adrenaline song came to my mind, never going to be as big as Jesus. Something I have seen especially this week is that God is bigger then anyone can ever be even close to how BIG JESUS is. It is an encouragement and anyone who is not a Christian reading that I know that is weird to hear. But when I look out into the land I do not believe for a second how a big bang or evolution could create this only a great creator could

 Sooooooooo I am sorry to anyone who did no get to see God's creation like we did today. This is Venice beach and we walked around it today. We saw two sides of Venice beach during the day we saw the side during the day and the side at night. This post I am going to be talking about just what it was like to walk down a beach because sometimes I think we forget what it is like to walk on a beach. I am not talking in a physical sense but in a sense of spiritual and restoration. Taking time out of our day, our week and our lives to just walk and enjoy what has been given to us. I think by now most of us have heard the poem of Footprints where we see two set of footprints etc... but walking on the beach there I turn on some David Crowder and really felt like I was walking besides God which was crazy. But then again I just need some relaxation I think I got the most relaxation out of anyone today.

 So this was sunset for us probably one of the most beautiful things that I have ever seen and it was weird being at Venice at the time. Venice beach is not a beautiful place minus the creation that God has given. While walking down the boardwalk of Venice beach it was an interesting place we got offered weed about 8 times, alot of interesting types of people and just a completely different culture then I am use to. But that is not to say they are not loved by God anymore then I am. And this is how we ended our day was with a sunset.

Something that has been talked about alot of this trip by the people that was have stayed with and listened too was this speaking of revival. Now this is a great but this has been preached about for a long time. This has been something placed on our hearts on this trip is a bigger understanding of what a revival is and looks like. We still have no idea what the looks like or should take place. What we would like to ask for is just prayer for everything!

The last thing I want to talk about is something that is going to be directly at the LEFC and the staff. Something that has come up on this trip alot was this idea of Freedom, Networking and Reproducing. Further more the feeding of five thousand. This was mentioned by Darren on Thursday night and we took it to heart being apart of the cluster group. So the first reference was made by Forest when talking about expansion and this was the most vague reference but it was the first. The next was what the blessing giving to us in Seattle where he talked about starting about a little bit more about bring things back to Langely. After that was Bob Jones who started to talking exactly about the older vision on LEFC. He talked directly of Freedom, Networking and that is going to start the revival of the next generation. This was pretty freaky to hear because of the similarity between the two messages. After that we were given prophetic word from Chris who started to talk about feed the five thousand and now that is a reference to something shared by Darren. After that he also talked to us bringing back the gifts we have learned and to bring them back to Langley. Next was Daniel who spoke over us and shared of a rainbow over a cloud (the same cloud idea that Forest made reference too) and that we were going to need to bring our gifts back to the border no just to the physical borders but the borders of spiritual borders past Langley. There has been a few more that have gone on. But I think that is as much as we have confirmed and go over together so far together. Tell us what you guys think.

Goodbye for now,

Christian Sawka

P.S. Continue to pray for us and have us in your thoughts.

California Trip Day 3

Hey Guys,

So today we finally did it! We are in LA we took the trek from Redding, Cali all the way to Simi Valley, Cali. This day was a day of travel and just basking in the glory that was God's creation. We finally said good bye to our friend Dave who blessed us by opening up his home to us. He left us with some more knowledge that he has learned while attending bethel. It is always great to discuss and understand. I am a firm believer that understanding God comes through discussion, questioning and figuring out what is being said.

 So once we left Redding it became pretty wide open and we started seeing these mass fields of these tree's as you see below. It was a big change to go from a church service at Bethel to seeing the creation of God. Both were rewarding and it was nice to just travel through California just enjoying each other's company, enjoy God's creation and rocking out to worship music, techno music and also a little Top 40 stuff. I still agree that Canada is the most beautiful place in the world especially Vancouver but driving through California was amazing just to see how beautiful blossomed tree's are. I know that sounds weird but something that was said was how beautiful TWU is when all the Cheery Blossoms are bloomed. This just gave us a little tid bit of what spring will be like again at TWU. Unfortunately we live in the west coast so our tree's may not blossom until April :)

 So this was one another one of our stop's along the way, one thing we noticed is with a group of 6 people someone is either hungry or wanting to go the washroom. Especially Dan Lowen he always seems like he has to go to the washroom for some reason. But dude CANADIAN's step it up everywhere we went there was a picture like this below... a massive flag blowing in the wind being patriotic!

 Our next major stop is when we stopped for lunch which was some where around 4pm and we stopped outside this Best Western. Now the reason we stopped out here was because they had free wireless :) so we definitely took that opportunity to call some people, try and find a place for tonight and also just check emails and figure out what was going on. As some of you have noticed by now a few of our 'plans' have fallen threw. Well God will provide right? At this point in the day we had ZERO idea about where we were staying, these were our options... Sleep in the car or hope something works out.  Well ill tell you that story a little later on. But this has sort of been the tale of our trip thus far, we stopped in the middle of no where, pulled up to a hotel and hoped that one of our contacts had come threw! God will always provide.

Today was a somber day a day of reflection in alot of ways and just as I mentioned just taking in the trip, thanking God for the ability to get away and everything he has provided. We are continuing to learn about what God has shown us this trip and I just wanted to share with you guys a few verse that have come up and you can see what is going through our minds a little.

Luke 11:33-36

The Lamp of the Body

    ³³ “No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light. ³⁴ Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness. ³⁵ See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. ³⁶ Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be just as full of light as when a lamp shines its light on you.”

Hebrews 3: 7-14

Warning Against Unbelief

 ⁷ So, as the Holy Spirit says:    “Today, if you hear his voice,
 ⁸ do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
   during the time of testing in the wilderness,
⁹ where your ancestors tested and tried me,
   though for forty years they saw what I did.
¹⁰ That is why I was angry with that generation;
   I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,
   and they have not known my ways.’
¹¹ So I declared on oath in my anger,
   ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”
 ¹² See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. ¹³ But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. ¹⁴ We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.

We have been praying and reading the word together to hopefully understand what God has in store for us. The picture below is an orange field cause what is the other thing they are known for eh?

This is the last picture we took of the day and it sort of summarized the whole day for me. Take a second and take it all in this is what we drove through all day. At that moment the sun was setting, the clouds and sky were mixed and we could see over a field of trees, through rolling hills and on ward further then our eyes can see.

Psalm 24:1 

A Psalm of David.

The earth is the LORD’S, and all it contains,
         The world, and those who dwell in it.

Genesis 1: 9-23

⁹ And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
    ¹¹ Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. ¹² The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. ¹³ And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
 ¹⁴ And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, ¹⁵ and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. ¹⁶¹⁷ God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, ¹⁸ to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹ And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day. God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.
 ²⁰ And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” ²¹ So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. ²² God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” ²³ And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.

As we are doing the same I encourage you guys to take a day or rest, relax and just enjoy God's creation for everything it is worth. As much as we have gone through we have been remind that God requires rest and meditation too. You need to relax, rejuvenate and then get going again :) Thank you for all the prayers and thoughts as we have been going along this trip is has been great! We do not know what tomorrow has in store for us only God knows that! I encourage everyone reading this to take a day of rest and go outside into God's creation!

Lastly here is Paul the great man who opened up his home to us! It was great to the end of the day to have a place to stay his family is great opened it up to us and have been such a bless.

 

 

Goodbye for now,

Christian Sawka

I leave you with this if you have more time to read:

Habakkuk 3

Habakkuk’s Prayer

 ¹ A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet. On shigionoth.

 ² LORD, I have heard of your fame;
   I stand in awe of your deeds, LORD.
Repeat them in our day,
   in our time make them known;
   in wrath remember mercy.

 ³ God came from Teman,
   the Holy One from Mount Paran.
His glory covered the heavens
   and his praise filled the earth.
⁴ His splendor was like the sunrise;
   rays flashed from his hand,
   where his power was hidden.
⁵ Plague went before him;
   pestilence followed his steps.
⁶ He stood, and shook the earth;
   he looked, and made the nations tremble.
The ancient mountains crumbled
   and the age-old hills collapsed—
   but he marches on forever.
⁷ I saw the tents of Cushan in distress,
   the dwellings of Midian in anguish.

 ⁸ Were you angry with the rivers, LORD?
   Was your wrath against the streams?
Did you rage against the sea
   when you rode your horses
   and your chariots to victory?
⁹ You uncovered your bow,
   you called for many arrows.
You split the earth with rivers;
 ¹⁰ the mountains saw you and writhed.
Torrents of water swept by;
   the deep roared
   and lifted its waves on high.

 ¹¹ Sun and moon stood still in the heavens
   at the glint of your flying arrows,
   at the lightning of your flashing spear.
¹² In wrath you strode through the earth
   and in anger you threshed the nations.
¹³ You came out to deliver your people,
   to save your anointed one.
You crushed the leader of the land of wickedness,
   you stripped him from head to foot.
¹⁴ With his own spear you pierced his head
   when his warriors stormed out to scatter us,
gloating as though about to devour
   the wretched who were in hiding.
¹⁵ You trampled the sea with your horses,
   churning the great waters.

 ¹⁶ I heard and my heart pounded,
   my lips quivered at the sound;
decay crept into my bones,
   and my legs trembled.
Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity
   to come on the nation invading us.
¹⁷ Though the fig tree does not bud
   and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
   and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
   and no cattle in the stalls,
¹⁸ yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
   I will be joyful in God my Savior.

 ¹⁹ The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
   he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
   he enables me to tread on the heights.

   For the director of music. On my stringed instruments.

California Trip Day 2

Guess what Guys?

DAY TWO WAS JUST AS INSANE AS DAY ONE!

So this was where we started off our day was at Bethel Church / Bethel Christian School which was amazing I had no idea and I dont think we had any idea what to expect! When you go to a different church or universities worship you have no idea what you are going to expect. It was amazing though was this, Dave said it the best there is freedom in their worship within structure. Maybe it was just me but I felt completely free to worship. It was one of the longest services (so I thought) that I had ever been too it was approximately two hours long and I did not even believe how fast time went past! Before we knew it the service was over, we were a little over exhausted and missed a little bit about what he was saying but there were a few things that still sat into us. Which was this all roads lead to Zion and that water should be a spring out of us. Zion was the biggest thing that sat with me... Zion is not something from the matrix or a made up place but it was the place of tabernacle where David had 24/7 worship for many many years. He asked us this what happened to Zion?

Reference to Mid-day Break this is what went on during this break. Then the PARTY started we got back to Bethel and we went to this picture below which was the house of prayer. Now this room was pretty great I believe every Christian Campus should have one which is a prayer room where you can go and just relax. I went there and read one chapter in the bible and then went to sleep and took a nap before getting up for Church again. The Chapter I read was this Ezekiel 37:

The Valley of Dry Bones

 ¹ The hand of the LORD was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. ² He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. ³ He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”    I said, “Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”
 ⁴ Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! ⁵ This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. ⁶ I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’”
 ⁷ So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. ⁸ I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.
 ⁹ Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’ ¹⁰ So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.
 ¹¹ Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ ¹² Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. ¹³ Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. ¹⁴ I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD."

I did not understand the significance of this until later. Actually until writing this blog now I did not see how important this passage was. Quick spoiler this entire night was a night of prophesy upon me, us and our group together.

 So you know how I mentioned that the first church service was the longest I had ever been through? Well that was the truth until this service we enter the church at 6pm and left somewhere around midnight. Yes you are reading that correctly we were at church for nearly 6 hours :). Well worship was great again, there was so many different forms or worship in the church, there was a dancer, flag dancer and also people painting. It was great to see and then the night became interesting in a GREAT way. BOB JONES came back up to speak and was the main speaker for the night and absolutely laid a ton of things out that impacted our group and I will summarize what happened. First is this was the calling of David and living as a Champion. Now this significance was this FOREST GIBS 48 HOURS EARLIER told Dan Lowen

 After the Church service had its first 'ending' there was a FIRE TUNNEL that was opened up which was basically the ministry teams set up like a gauntlet and you walked through well they spoke words into your life. I do not think I have seen so many people drunk without having a sip of alcohol before. It was insane they were bless with the holy spirit and were just passing things through. Bethel has a really crazy push for having the holy spirit coming down. We did not experience it like others that were attending that night but that is alright. It was something foreign to us and something that was difficult to understand. It was amazing so see though going there and seeing this worship makes God feel a lot more real and that you can see him moving!

 Then started the prophetic speeches the first one was laid over Dan Lowen, they encouraged him to continue what was on his heart and told him that whole cities would move through him (cool huh?). Next we were in line to get some words for us and Fooda came up to me and told me he had a word. Said I had the spirit of healing maybe not physical healing as much as the healing of souls, through caring, compassion and understanding. Then next Chris came up to our group and talked to us about what he saw and where we were going. He mentioned that Robyn was an artist (she paints and only Rebecca knew that) and that I was a spiritual dancer. That has so much significance because at this point in the trip that has been the third time I have heard that after Forest said I dance in the spiritual realm. He encouraged our group to not only continue to go down the path we are going but to also bring back the gifts we have been given to Canada. That when we cross the border it will not just be a physical but also a spiritual, that we will have to pass through the fog/cloud and use these gifts to spread the kingdom. It was interesting he said it that way because Forest Gibs mentioned just 48 hours before that he saw a cloud over the Canada and that God was ready to come pass through. I know I have not shared all this but we as a group are still working through out tapes from Forest and now our next tapes from tonight. The next update I will get each member to share what has been going on in their lives on this trip so far. Unfortunately they are all sleeping :)

 After we received prophetic words we were talking with Daniel who gave us some more encouragement/blessings. Just that our group would again use our gifts to bring them back to Langley. He also mentioned some gifts and things he saw in the spirit that was interesting as we will share tomorrow because they reinforced exactly what had been told to us earlier. Kinda of crazy eh? Then a guy named TJ came up and gave us some more encouragement about our crew which was this... What a mole? It was shown this way that as a group we can accomplish greater things that if one member misses one thing, the next member will pick it up. TJ left us with some blessings which were these:

Manuel: He words are like Lava, hot burning slow moving be paintent

Christian: Sports, striking out 15 times before hitting a home run, that there would be a learning of Resistance

Rebecca: Arts that she is a writer she would write down her thoughts

Dan: That if you were on a road trip this is who you want? Is not the center attention but when he speaks his insight, wisdom and humor are a blessing

Robyn: He pictured her as a comfort person that when people are going through hard times she was be a support for them.

Andrea: That she is elegant that she is a princess of the Lord

This is what our WHOLE night was like one blessing/prophetic speech after another there will be alot more to share but that will be at the digression of each person.

 Sure enough though at the end of the night we got some In-n-Out because you know what a night of emotional growth, spiritual understanding and singing is taxing on the body. We end the night just talking to Dave about digression and understanding through everything.

 

That is the prayer I leave you with guys is this and please pray for us on a the trip and remember these things. We pray for digression that we might understand what God has in store for us, that we would be able to grow the spiritual gifts he has given us this trip, and that we may in return pour out the blessing to the people around us. Please pray for us for safe travel and freedom from sickness!

Thank you for all the blessings and support so far we are cannot wait to see what is to come!