July 15, 2003
FSM 373CM/FMJuly 2001
Cover pic: Chris and KK, of the Lardiscipulado (discipleship) Home in Sao Paulo, which for several years has ministered to untold live-outs and friends day and night. Read KK’s log of a week in their Home (can so much really happen in one day?) on page 11. She says, None of us would trade this type of Home life for anything!
Copyright 2001 by The Family
By Spanish Juan, São Paulo, Brazil
I’d like to share testimonies about our live-outs in São Paulo. Freddy and Georgia have been with us for a few years, and they have had the privilege of starting to read the New Wine about the gift of prophecy and Loving Jesus.
Freddy was working for a multinational company and had a very good position, but was not feeling very inspired. One day my wife Eden and I went to see him, and he asked for prayer because he felt like something was wrong. He couldn’t witness much at his company. Finances were very good because they paid him well, but he was quite discouraged. We prayed for the Lord to do a miracle, if it was His will, so that he could find a better job.
The Lord answered prayer!—A few days later, he was fired from the company! It was a surprise, because he was a manager here in South America. They said that the company wasn’t doing so well, so he was fired. We prayed together and heard from the Lord, and the Lord gave us beautiful promises that He had a better place for him to work, somewhere he would be happier, and that it was not a punishment from the Lord but it was exactly what the Lord wanted.
In his heart Freddy knew there was something better the Lord had for him, but he was quite desperate because he had a wife and two little girls to support. They had had a nice lifestyle. For a few months he was without a job, living on severance pay. Every time he prayed, the Lord gave him beautiful prophecies that He’d supply a good job, and he kept trusting the Lord and waiting.
Suddenly the Lord opened up two very good jobs—multinational companies, good money, and good positions in the company, both of them better than the one that he’d had before. One night he and his wife got together and spent three or four hours reading, praising the Lord, hearing from the Lord, and loving Jesus together. They said it was a beautiful experience to love Jesus together and have prayer and prophecy.
The Lord told both of them that neither of these two was the job He had for Freddy, but that in a few days he would have a new job. It happened exactly as the Lord said. A few days later he received a nice offer that he felt was God’s will. It was just an offer, not a real contract. The people who gave the other two very nice offers were waiting for an answer. It was a temptation, and he wondered, Do I take the ones that are here, or something that is not very concrete?
Freddy and Georgia prayed and asked the Lord to tell them in prophecy exactly what to do. The Lord told them to say no to the other companies, to trust Him and wait, because the best was going to come. So by faith Freddy sent an e-mail to those two companies saying, I have a better offer.
That day was a real fight. Freddy told me, I feel crazy for doing this. This is impossible. Why am I doing this? How can I face my family if I’m left with nothing and I just let two good opportunities go?
I sat down with him and we again prayed and heard from the Lord, and the Lord said again, Just wait. This waiting went on for two weeks, and it was a real test.
In the long run he got the job, and it was a wonderful job. It’s much better than his original job, and better than the other offers, with more opportunity to witness. He’s going to be the overseer for that company for all of South America. There’s nobody above him, so he’s free to do whatever he wants and witness to whomever he wants. Before he had someone above him in Brazil, and they were always checking on him, but now he’s free to witness.
It’s marvelous how this couple really believed in what they heard from the Lord, even though they had to take big steps of faith to trust in something that they couldn’t see. The Lord was so sweet to them and gave them a wonderful answer when they spent time loving Him together. It was a beautiful testimony of how to apply the new weapons.
Alexandre has been participating in devotions with our Home for quite a while. Every day in devotions we spend some time hearing from the Lord about different situations for the Home, about people, or about the live-outs’ situations at their jobs. One day Alexandre brought up a question that he wanted to ask the Lord.
He has a company that sells buildings—apartments, houses. Normally in Brazil when you sell apartments, houses, or things like that, people pay with post-dated checks that won’t be cashed for a few months, or for 30 days. Since his company is quite new, money can be a little tight. They keep the check for 30 days or so, and then later they get the money. But sometimes they go to a black market money lender who will cash the checks for them for a fee. (We have encouraged our live-outs not to use this procedure, because it’s like buying or selling on credit and if they can shake the credit habit, they can manage their money more as the Lord leads and tithe.) Alexandre wasn’t feeling good about doing that, because he felt it wasn’t correct, not Christian. He felt that the Lord had money and that He could do a miracle for him. So in our devotions, Alexandre asked us to pray about what he was doing, and in prophecy the Lord confirmed that it was time for him to start trusting the Lord and not do this anymore. The Lord said He would supply everything that Alexandre needed for the company.
Alexandre thought that was fantastic, but a few days later, temptation came. He needed to pay another company that was bringing construction materials, so he needed something like US$15,000. He had the money, but it was in postdated checks. He was feeling, Well, I need to pay today, so I’m going to cash these checks. But it was a fight in the spirit, because he knew that the Lord had told him not to do that. He got in the car to go cash the checks, but the Holy Spirit told him, No, don’t do that. Trust the Lord. Come back and wait.
Here in Brazil the banks close at about 4:00 in the afternoon, and it was between 2:30 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. Alexandre told the Lord, You need to do a miracle. Something has to happen, because I need to pay this company today, and I don’t have the money. It was a test of faith, because the Lord had said in prophecy that He was going to supply everything.
So when it was around 3:30 p.m. and he was still short US$15,000, he was trusting the Lord and had almost forgotten about the situation. One of the employees then came and said, Listen, Dr. Alexandre, we sold an apartment and the guy wanted to pay in cash. Here’s the money. It was not only the money that he needed to pay up that day, but it was more than that. He called us and said, Wow! This thing about hearing from the Lord really works!
The Lord did a couple of other things for him like that. Now he knows that when the Lord says He’s going to supply, He means business.
Caption for pic of Alexandre: Alexandre (right), owner of a construction company, gives two weekly Bible classes and participates actively in the deliverance ministry.
The live-outs really want to love the Lord and to learn about loving Jesus more intimately.
A woman, the owner of a coffee shop, has two sons. One night both sons went out—one to visit his dad and another to visit friends. She said, I was feeling so alone. My house was so empty. It came to mind that it would be good opportunity to spend time with the Lord. She told me how she then had some special moments with Jesus. She made a nice dinner, set the table with some wine, and put out two plates and two glasses—one for her and one for Jesus. She said she really felt the Lord’s presence, and they talked together.
Then she said she went to bed and she and Jesus spent almost the whole night making love. It was incredible, because when we saw her the next day and she told us about this, we could see in her eyes that she had really spent time with the Lord. The live-outs believe what they read and they try to apply these things to their own lives.
In our Home we decided to have devotions with our live-outs daily. Normally we read the Word together and we often read the New Wine, when the Lord confirms and it is something that relates to them. The Keys to Victory series was fantastic for them. They apply a lot—all these things about doing the humble thing, staying humble, having loving interaction, etc.
But I feel that the high point for them of coming to devotions is when, after one hour of Word time, we have 30 minutes of loving and praising Jesus together and hearing from the Lord for that day. This is the highlight of devotions, not only for them, but also for the whole Home. The Lord is always so sweet to say such beautiful things, to lead and guide us, and even correct us. It’s such a wonderful time that we spend with Him and it makes for such a deep relationship between us.
The live-outs feel like we are their family, their spiritual parents. The majority of the people that are in our live-out groups are separated from their wives or husbands, and sometimes from their children, and many are quite lonely. So they feel like they are part of our family, and it’s beautiful.
The older brother of one of our live-out members died. We went to the funeral with him, and he told me with his eyes full of tears, It’s incredible, because I don’t feel that I lost my older brother. To me, you are my older brother. For the last eight years, you’ve been the only one who really took care of me and helped guide me in the right way. The relationship we’ve developed with them is so deep. We are brothers and sisters, fathers and sons.
We’ve been involving the young people in our Home in the follow-up ministry. It’s a combination of the need and the ones who have the potential to supply that need.
Our live-out members, all 40 or 50 years old, have kids of all ages—teenagers and younger. They always want to spend time with the Lord and have classes, but, like all of us, they’re so busy and it’s difficult, because they need to spend time with their kids, too. There are a lot of teens in the Family who really want to do something for the Lord, to take care of people and witness, but sometimes the witnessing opportunities don’t come along beyond the first step of getting somebody saved.
The Lord told Eden and me in prophecy that we could marry the needs of the outside teens with the needs of our teens for doing something for the Lord. (It was a step of faith, because in the past we had worked with teens in the Family and it didn’t bear so much fruit.) We invited a few YAs to our Home, with the idea of helping them to get into this ministry. The results were beautiful.
We started a class by calling our live-outs and arranging a Church of Love meeting for their kids in our Home. The first day about 15 young people came. The YAs in our Home prepared the class—the Word, the prayer, the music, the skit, everything. It was good—very feeding and inspiring for the live-outs. After that, a group of live-out teens formed that began coming every week for Bible classes, Word time, and music. These live-out teens are growing up.
But the YAs in our Home are the ones growing the most; they have really changed. Now they have their own spiritual babies that they need to take care of. And it wasn’t us or any Home shepherds who showed them this. It was the Lord asking them to forsake their own childhood and start to be parents, taking care of the spiritual babies and being the example that they needed to be. The outside teenagers that came to the classes were forcing them to change, through the hunger that they have for the Word and the things of the Spirit. A few of them have expressed a desire to join the Family full time—to leave their studies, their jobs, their future possibilities in the world to serve the Lord. This is a testimony to our teens that the Family is the best place to be, because these young people want to leave the System to join the Family.
Our young people feel more alive. When they need to prepare a class, they pray about it, go to the HomeARC, and study up on things. Sometimes they come to me asking for answers, and I give them a little help. But most of the time I encourage them to study the Word themselves to find it. They give very good classes. We have two teen groups each week now, on Saturdays and Sundays.
The whole Home works on the Church of Love for the adults. I’m with the adults, giving the class, communion, etc. Then there are two YAs working with the visiting teens. My wife Eden gives classes to the OCs and YCs. Another teen works with the preschoolers. Then when it’s all done, we share the testimonies of what happened. The whole Home is involved with the follow-up ministry.
We have a lot of things that we need to change as a Home, and a lot of victories to win, but at least we are together, we’re united, and we have the same goal.
In the beginning I did almost everything in the Bible class—praying at the beginning, praying at the end, plus all the teaching. But after two years together, the live-outs were getting stronger and more able to carry responsibility too.
I trained them first to help with the classes, and also how to take care of and shepherd people. Those in our know they’re going to be shepherds themselves, in turn, and they’ve accepted it beautifully.
That leaves me free for two nights to start new classes, new groups, and to spend more time training disciples, the ones that are going to need more help because they’re going to shepherd and train others.
Here in São Paulo we have invited other Homes to feel free to participate as much as they wanted to in the classes our Home was giving. I have held a class every Tuesday that has been open to the Family here to bring their friends, sheep, and outside members to. It has been an open class that’s geared toward new people, and a lot of people attend. Family members from other Homes participate and are happy that their friends are well fed. It’s great because it has opened a link of communication between all of us. It helps us see that the most important thing is for the work to grow.
We’re working together and the sheep are growing up. There are very potential people who have been brought to the classes by people from other Homes, who are also doing well, helping and giving. They’re not tithing yet, but they’re helping monthly.
A sweet brother brought several sheep to the class. He gave me a donation from the sheep, and said, This is a donation they are giving you, because you take good care of them. I bring them here because I know they’ll be well fed. The brother knows he can keep the donation, because that’s the way we organize it in São Paulo: If a Family live-in brings friends to our meeting, any donation that they give goes to the Home that brought them to the meeting. But in this case the brother preferred to give it to us. It’s an open door for all of us to work together, and it is also getting people closer to the Family.
Our outside members are part of our team. They are live-out members, but they’re still part of our Home, not only because of taking part in Word time and devotions, but because they participate in our Home life. For example, we had outside members who knew that the only two men in the Home were a YA brother and me. I’m very bad at handyman stuff, but one of our live-outs is very good at it. Once or twice a month, he asks Eden to make a list of repairs we’d like him to do around the Home—things like painting rooms or changing telephone cables or whatever. I’m so bad at it I couldn’t even make the list, but he would do all this handyman work for us. He’d come early in the morning on Saturdays and stay until the evening, and then have dinner and a video with us. He has worked hard and helped us a lot. It’s a big house, and big houses start falling apart if you don’t take good care of them.
Sometimes we are very busy with little things, and we only have one car in our Home. So when we need to do provisioning pick-ups, we can often ask our live-outs to pick things up for us, and also to witness to the contact who’s helping us.
With the Church of Love they help us by coming early to help set up and clean the house. Or when somebody’s sick, they’re faithful to come over and help us, taking the place of the person who’s out of commission—going witnessing, cleaning the house, or helping with the children. It’s happened a few times. They’re a big help in the Home.
John and Esther in São Paulo have had a Consider the Poor ministry in the favela (slums), together with a king they have. They’re doing a beautiful work, and nine live-out disciples from our Home help with this CTP project and take it very seriously. I never was able to go and help John and Esther, but I know the live-outs are going to help. They really enjoy it, and are right in there—a few giving classes to the poor people, a few working with the children, a few distributing food. They go early in the morning on Saturday, work until lunch, and sometimes go at other times during the week as well. For these people to participate in this project is wonderful. They feel they are doing more for the Lord. Also it’s wonderful for them to work with another Home that has this project, when our Home doesn’t have ministries like that. It’s also a blessing to John and Esther to have more hands to help them. I’m happy to see them doing something like this for the Lord.
I feel that the work we have in São Paulo is something that people look at and go, Wow, I’ll never reach that point, but this isn’t true. It happened over time. It wasn’t built from one day to the next. The few people that we started with were people that we met witnessing or distributing tools. They received Jesus and we were faithful to feed them as much as we could with Daily Foods, and pray for them.
Then we started this class and that class, and people were happy with the class and invited other people to come. It takes time. It’s not like an instant explosion or some kind of overnight miracle. It is a miracle, but it’s a miracle that takes time.
It’s important for us to be faithful in the little things. Actually we don’t have any great big kings here in São Paulo. Our work is made up of a lot of little people that love the Lord, like the Word, like the Family, and were won over little by little. It was done in small steps.
It’s a matter of having patience. Sometimes you spend a lot of time on one person, and he or she may not catch on to what you’ve been teaching for a year. It’s a matter of being patient, explaining, and being faithful shepherds.
It’s a bit like having children. From the time they’re born until they’re adults they need to receive training about all aspects of life. It’s day after day, year after year. It’s not a matter of big things happening suddenly. It takes prayer, patience, and trusting the Lord. There are times we feel we’re not going to make it because of trouble in the Home, discouragement, or lack of money. Sometimes we feel like we want to stop everything and do something else, like go back to distributing videos. But we know that’s not what the Lord wants for us at this time. He wants us to stay faithful to follow up, day after day.
I think it’s important for all of us to learn that it’s not a kind of instant explosion that makes things like this happen. It’s a process that takes years. I’ve been working in São Paulo for a few years and Tommy much longer. Only now are we seeing signs of the results of what we’ve sown; we are reaping years of patient feeding.
Along the lines of spending time, I want to give a little testimony about sacrifice—sacrifice in the sense of sometimes doing things that we don’t really want to do, if there’s an easier way. Doing follow-up is not much sacrifice, because when you start seeing people’s lives changing, you don’t consider it any sacrifice. You do it because the love of the Lord for them in you is so strong that you feel like you want to do it. You like doing it.
But I want to talk about sacrifice, because sometimes doing follow-up takes a lot of time. It’s a sacrifice in the sense of forsaking your free time. For example, the Lord showed us a few months ago that we needed to have devotions with our friends in the morning. They make a big sacrifice to wake up early every day and travel to our Home before they go to work, to participate in devotions with the Home. They spend one and a half hours daily in devotions, which is time when they could be doing more work. But they make that sacrifice, so the Lord told us to make that sacrifice to attend devotions, too, on our W&R day.
We have devotions five times a week with them and the other two days, Saturday and Sunday, with just our Home. Eden and I have had our W&R day on Monday, but because it was at the beginning of the week and because we are shepherds of the Home, the Lord told us to participate in the devotions on our W&R day, at least for a few months. If they are making the sacrifice to come to devotions, we can make the sacrifice to forsake part of our W&R. We don’t forsake Word and rest entirely—we just have to get up early to participate. So on our Word and rest day we wake up at 6:45 or 7 a.m. like everybody else and go to devotions. Then when the people leave, we go to our room and rest or read.
I felt that if in the beginning of the process we told them, Monday is our Word and rest day, so we can’t participate, then why should they sacrifice to come? The Lord told us not to forsake our Word and rest because we do need the Word time, but to sometimes forsake, for example, video night. It’s happened a few times that it was video night and somebody was having a difficult trial, so they came to the Home and asked for prayer. They knocked at the door and said, Listen, I really need this time.
Of course we try to explain our weekly schedule to them. All our live-outs in São Paulo know that we have a Word and rest day, that we have our own devotions, and what days we have Home meetings, and we’ve asked them to avoid coming at those moments. But we’ve told them in case of an emergency to feel free to come anyway, so that has happened. Or on video nights somebody will call with a broken heart needing comfort. Or you’re going out of the house on Sunday or Saturday, having a free day; you’re tired and want to just enjoy yourself. Then somebody calls and says, Please come, Juan. I want to ask you to pray for me. I really need your help now.
We need to stop thinking about us and start thinking about them. I must confess that I don’t always do that. Sometimes I haven’t been faithful or willing to help and have seen the bad results. We need to change our hearts and be willing to make what are really small sacrifices for the sheep. It really means something.
You can remember their birthdays, or do something for them if somebody in their family dies, or if someone in their family is getting married or is sick or in the hospital. Maybe you’re tired, and maybe you don’t want to do it because you’ve had a full day and this is the only night you have free to be with your Home and relax. Somebody calls and says that somebody is in the hospital, and they need us to be with them there. You don’t feel like you want to do something like this, but we need to do it. It’s the little things like this that comprise our follow-up, and that make their lives different.
Anyone can read the Word with them and teach them classes, but if our life consists of serving them—that is something that really touches their hearts. So when a moment comes along when they can help you, it becomes a friendship. They find out that you mean business, that you are their family, that you are part of their lives. So when it’s time for them to help us economically or in any way, it’s incredible how they’ll mean business too, and they’ll do things for us.
So many times Tommy and I need to go and hold a retreat and spend a weekend or a week away, and it’s so beautiful how they come over and help the girls take care of the children, and participate in life of the Home. It’s beautiful. They feel that this is the time for them to help you by doing what they can do. I needed to go to Spain to visit my relatives and stay three weeks. It was so sweet how all of them passed by to see us and to help Eden as much as they could, to make sure she didn’t feel lonely. They’d come over at night and help her with the children. It was so touching.
We had a teen girl at our Home who was 17. When it was her birthday, at devotions that day all the outside witnessers brought cake and presents and sang to her, and she was so touched. She said it was the first time something like that happened in her whole life. They do things like that because we are their family and part of their life. They want us to know that they love us, the same way we love them.
About How to Bring Friends Closer to the Lord and the Family
By Spanish Juan, Brazil
Usually we explain tithing during the first three months that a friend or contact has known us. Of course, every person is different. It has happened that in the first meeting the subject has come up and we were able to jump right into it. But generally we try to help them get to know us well first. We visit them at their homes; we give them some in-depth shepherding and counseling. After a while it’s fairly easy to explain our need, as by then they realize that we’re serious about the job we do and we are offering them quite a service.
So what I tell the brethren is not to worry as much about the money as they do about the service they’re giving to the sheep. After a while, the sheep feel almost obliged to tithe, as they see the results of our work as shepherds in their personal lives as well as in their professional lives. After all, good service always pays off in the end.
The answer is basically the same as for the last one: We present this after they have known us a few months. During this time, as mentioned above, we try to offer them the best service we can. This way they have already fallen in love with everything that has to do with the Family because of our sample and not so much because of us preaching a sermon like, We’re so good. We do this, that, and the other. They begin to realize how important we are to them and to their families, jobs, marriages, etc., and so everything else is pretty easy to explain.
After all, everyone knows that religious groups all have a founder. The sheep even feel more secure knowing that we ourselves also have shepherds who take care of us just as we take care of them.
By KK, the Lardiscipulado Home, São Paulo, Brazil
A while back a few of our live-outs started showing up for devotions. The ones who began to participate started realizing the difference this united Word and prayer time in the morning had on their lives, and how smoothly the rest of their day would go as a result.
Word began to spread amongst the live-outs, and more and more people began coming until it ended up being quite a crowd each morning. We would read Mountain Streams or some other GP/DFO publication, sing a couple of songs, and have desperate prayer and prophecy for all the many prayer requests that people had.
Since most of the sheep who would come also have their businesses and companies and couldn’t arrive too late to work in the morning, we had to schedule devotions at a fairly early hour. People would generally arrive at 7:00 a.m. We’d have a nice breakfast, with everyone contributing something (quite the 5-star meal!), and then at 7:30 we’d start devotions and continue until about 9:00 at the latest.
Anyone who’s been to São Paulo knows the city’s biggest problem and the deciding factor by which the average Paulistano’s daily itinerary is planned—traffic! Being the third largest city in the world, it’s no small feat to get around, even if you live fairly close to one another. So for someone to arrive by 7:00 at our house he would have to wake up at 5:30, be out of his house by 6:00, and then barely make it here on time.
This went okay for about a year until some people started thinking, Why do I have to get up in the wee hours of the morning, face traffic to drive across the city, only to face traffic again and drive the opposite direction to my job, when I can have devotions in my own house and it can be just as inspiring?
A lot of the live-outs who were participating in our devotions live in areas where fellow attendees of their Bible class group also live. However, some of these other friends or live-outs hadn’t yet caught the vision of how vital this time in the morning is and how spending time with the Lord together as a group makes such a difference to the rest of the day. But some of the attendees to our devotions decided to start having them at their own houses and inviting other members of their groups. The new attendees liked it so much that after a month each of their groups had grown almost to the size of our original one! PTL!
At the time of this writing, there are five different devotions groups scattered across the city, composed of 90% live-out members. In one area they have about 15 people every morning from six families. This group made a schedule to take care of one another’s kids—taking turns feeding them, dressing them, giving them Word time, and then driving them to school.
Another group is led by a live-out member who owns a company, and he started encouraging a few other businessmen to have devotions along with him. Now they have quite a group getting together every morning. What better way to open your firm in the morning than by all members uniting for prayer and Word time!
Caption: Here’s devotions led by live-out member Ricardo, at a live-out’s house—one CMer and nine live-outs!
(See FSM 374, ‘Rise Above’ Retreat, for more pictures of live-outs in Brazil!)
By KK and the Lardiscipulado Home in São Paulo, Brazil
Our Home members dedicate 100% of their time to follow-up, and this is a basic log of our activities. At the time of this writing (summer 2000), we have a flock of around 115 people, which include live-outs and friends—and it’s still growing, thank the Lord!
We are now five voting members: Juan (FGA), his wife Eden (24), Chris (23) and Christina (23), plus Heaven (18). Juan and Eden have two kids. And Chris and Christina (otherwise known as KK) are not married, but have been rooming together for over a year and a half, so call them whatever you want.
First we’ll explain our ministries. One of our goals is to train the live-outs to lead their own classes, which makes it a lot easier on us, as 115 people are a lot for only five CM members to shepherd. These 115 people are divided into different categories: discipleship (a.k.a. live-outs), pre-discipleship and new friends.
There are 30 people at the discipleship stage, divided into two groups. We strive to give these live-outs more intense and meaty training so they will be well equipped for the groups that they themselves lead. Each of them has two Bible classes a week; one in which they receive and one in which they give. Juan also has scheduled weekly personal time with each of them in which he focuses on their personal lives as well as gets instruction from the Lord together with them both for their individual needs and their needs as a group leader and shepherd.
The pre-discipleship group is one step before becoming live-outs. They have a specific course that they follow to prepare them to become the leaders they all have the potential to become. Eden helps Juan with the personal time for these people, as a lot of them are young people and she is a young person herself.
The new friends groups are by far the largest ones, and these are open for anyone who wants to join at any time. These are the groups that the live-outs help to shepherd. We provide a variety of courses for them, most of which are pretty milky, as a lot of them are very young in the Lord and in their knowledge of the Word. The personal time for these guys is not as scheduled, and is divided between the live-outs and Juan as much as possible.
We have Bible classes every night in different locations, and twice a week there are two or three going at the same time. For example, on Monday night we have a women’s group at our Home, which is led by Luz (a live-out) and supervised by Eden, while on the same evening on the other side of town Freddy and Georgia (live-outs) lead another class, which Chris attends to do the inspiration and be a support. On Tuesday night we have two classes in the office of Alexandre (live-out), each of which is led by two live-outs. That same night another class is held at our house, which is led by Paulo (live-out) and Juan. Juan alternates between staying at the meeting at home and going to the ones at Alexandre’s, but since Paulo’s group started recently, Juan spends more time at his group. The vision is for Juan to eventually step aside to let Paulo take over. That night we also have the young people’s pre-discipleship group also held at our house, which is led by Eden in teamwork with Chris. Four in one night! Wednesday through Friday we have one class a night, each in a different place.
On Saturday some of the live-outs, along with a CM couple in another Home, have a CTP project at a favela (slum) in São Paulo. The live-outs have Bible study groups with different families there and have been doing that for quite some time now.
Sunday we have the Church of Love, which takes up most of the day between preparations and the actual classes, which include Sunday school. We are planning to start a young people’s group early Sunday afternoon as we are getting more young guys and they don’t all fit on Tuesday night.
We also have the blessing of working with Tommy, who lives at another Home. Tommy and Juan have been working in teamwork since they formed their first Bible study group, which was over five years ago now (see The Live-out Discipleship Explosion, FSMs 362 and 363). At the time, they were living together, and after about three years the Lord showed them to divide and conquer. So Tommy and family moved out and opened their own Home, and our team has been together for over a year and a half. We’ve had people come and go, but it’s been basically the team mentioned above.
Every one of our Home members is actively involved in the daily activities; however it may seem that Chris somewhat disappears for a lot of the time. We’d like to explain that no, he’s not laid up in bed, and no, he doesn’t take an eternal W&R. Quite the contrary, actually. When we first moved in together we were in desperate need of finances, so he got a job teaching English, which has been taking up a good part of his time.
Recently we re-evaluated our financial situation and due to the increase in friends and live-outs we’ve also had an increase in tithes, thank the Lord! The live-outs have been encouraging their own groups to tithe to us, and that has boosted our income in a big way. And since the Lord has been taking such good care of us by supplying every one of our needs and more, we asked ourselves why one of our members should be dedicating so much of his time to working at a System job when we desperately need help in caring for our ever-growing flock! We prayed about it and the Lord showed us to step out by faith and for Chris to drop most of his classes so that he can be more involved in the Home activities. He is very thankful.
Okay, here’s an idea of what happens in our Home daily. Let’s take last week, for example.
We woke up to a very disorganized house because of a party we’d had with all our friends and live-outs the night before, celebrating the Gemini and Cancer birthdays. It went until about 2:00 a.m., so we had done a quick overall cleanup, but didn’t get into scrubbing floors, washing extra dishes, etc. Thank God we have a maid who normally comes Monday to Friday, but who we’d asked to come and pitch in on Sunday morning so we could have the house in tiptop shape for the rest of the day’s activities.
Today was Heaven’s W&R. In the morning, Juan and Eden took some much-needed Family time with their two kids, Shayna (4) and Antal (3), while KK and Chris helped with the house, lunch, etc., and took some personal Word time.
Sunday afternoon consisted of Juan preparing his Sunday night Church of Love class and Eden taking care of her two darlings, while Chris and KK went around doing touchups on the house, checking the bathrooms like five times to make sure we had a continual supply of toilet paper, towels, and hand soap for the needs of our visitors, making the snack, etc.
At 5:30 p.m. Isabel (live-out) was at the house to get together with Chris and KK to plan the inspiration for the meeting.
At 6:00 p.m. sharp, we started the music, which was led by Rony (FM), Isabel, Chris, and KK. By 6:30 we already had a full house. About 50 people were all singing their hearts out and praising the Lord to the songs we love so much. At 6:45, Eden and Heaven took the two groups of kids to separate rooms and began the Sunday school course. The inspiration ended, and Juan began his class. The class this week was on praise, and we read the story in 2 Chronicles 20, stopping several times for praise intervals to put into practice what we were reading. At 7:30 we had communion, which was led by Renato (live-out), during which everyone had the opportunity to write their personal prayer requests on pieces of paper. Later these are put together and prayed over at the Home’s daily devotions. At 8:00 the meeting ended and everybody eagerly loved their brothers by giving each other hugs and prayers for the week ahead.
At about 8:05, Juan was called by Marisete (live-out) to the adjoining room to have desperate prayer for her brother who is undergoing a serious operation. At the same time three girls who came for the first time were praying with KK to receive Jesus and turning in their addresses for their first issue of the Contato (Activated) mag. Then Eden, Chris, and Heaven were trying to say goodbye to about 50 people as well as keep an eye on the 12 kids, who by now were taking full advantage of the somewhat noisy and confusing atmosphere to let out all their energy by, among other things, playing hide-and-seek between the adults’ legs, knocking over a few plant barrels, etc. Eden was trying her best to diplomatically explain that the personal bedrooms are off limits, so that the children don’t take them apart.
At 9:30, after 70 percent of the people had left, Silvia (live-out) begged Eden to please have a little personal time with her, as she really needed to talk about a few things. So Heaven took over the job of supervising the little ones, while the rest of us were trying to put the living room and house back together quietly in order not to disturb the personal time which was going on right in our midst, and at the same time keeping company with Paulo (Silvia’s husband) and a few people who hadn’t left yet.
Finally, at about 10:15 it seemed like everyone was on their way home and we decided, along with a live-out couple that was still with us, to relax and watch a movie together. Oh, we forgot about dinner! By then we were too tired to make anything worth eating, so our sweet friends divided the expense of some home-delivery pizza with us. The movie went until 12:15 or so, and after prayer we settled down for a short, but much-needed rest.
BRRRRRING!!!!!!! 6:45, time to get up and make breakfast for the crew who will soon arrive! At 7:15 the Home, along with five live-outs, began to get together for devotions, which was led by Juan. We had a little over an hour of Word and prayer, and then Eden asked us if we could please hear from the Lord for Silvia, who was going through a difficult moment in her life. We prayed and the Lord spoke beautifully through us, as well as through the live-out members who were there.
By 9:00 devotions was over and the activities of the day started. Eden was with her two kids, as Heaven had gone to another Home for a teen/YA meeting on witnessing. Juan had business to attend to out of the house, so Eden decided to take advantage of the ride and get the kids out of the house along with him, since the previous parent day had been taken up by appointments with sheep. They turned the outing into some fun Family time.
KK stayed at home transcribing the prophecies for Silvia and making lunch for everybody who came back at 12:00. Silvia also arrived at 12:00 for some more personal time. Eden left the kids with KK and joined Silvia in the living room, giving her the prophecies received earlier. She gladly received them, and said they held the answers she’d been looking for. Thank the Lord! She left at about 1:45 and Eden ran and got the kids ready, as they had to leave at 2:00.
Right on time, Juan, Eden, and crew left for the teen/YA committee meeting about the youth witnessing in São Paulo, which was held at the same place where Heaven was having her meeting. As soon as they got there they needed someone to watch the kids, so Heaven sweetly volunteered. Juan and Eden couldn’t stay for the whole teen meeting as they had a Bible class happening at home, but thank the Lord, during the planning meeting all points were agreed upon and someone passed on the ideas and plans to the teens of the area.
At 2:30, KK at home got a call from Alexandre (live-out), who said he needed a prayer partner to go visiting with him. KK dropped everything, got ready (which included locking up the house, as no one was at home) and in 20 minutes he picked her up. First they went to his office to meet up with Heleno, another live-out. They had desperate prayer together, armed themselves with their Bibles, and continued on to the battle. Their first stop was at the house of a new friend, Reinaldo, who had asked us to please come and pray over his home.
We went through each room in the house, anointing furniture with oil and rebuking any bad spirit that could be caught in some corner, who might’ve been hindering their lives in any way. The whole thing took about three hours, after which Reinaldo’s 17-year-old daughter, who’d been accompanying them through the whole house with her dad, got saved and filled with the Holy Spirit.
At the same time at home, Juan and Eden arrived with the kids and started to get ready for the women’s group that was due to meet at 6:30. Juan gladly took the munchkins so Eden could get together with Luz (live-out) and plan the meeting. Between 6:30 and 7:00 the women arrived and they had a very inspiring class.
Back to Alexandre and KK: It was about 7:15 and they needed to run to the next appointment, so first we dropped Heleno off and then went to Regina and her husband’s store, which by that time was closing down. When we got there we sat down with the couple and prayed. Regina then began to pour out her heart about some different things she’d been going through.
After talking for about an hour, we realized that she needed a more intense deliverance, so we made an appointment for Wednesday afternoon and prayed over her before we left. The Lord had already done a miracle right then and there, helping her get rid of some things that had been hindering her life for about 20 years. Hallelujah! This made it clear that the Devil was already losing his grip on her life.
We left there, praising the Lord all the way home. Alexandre dropped KK off at the house at 9:30 and took off, praying the whole way that he wouldn’t get home to an incredibly angry wife for having missed their dinner appointment. (Ooops!)
By that time at home, the kids were already in bed and the women were on their way home after their group meeting. We cleaned up the house and KK decided to wait up for Chris, who was at a Bible class on the other side of town. Juan and Eden retired to their room and KK tried to stay awake, but to no avail. By 10:30 she was fast asleep, only to be awakened by Chris at 11:30 when he arrived home from the Bible class. We all settled down for a restful night.
At 7:15 breakfast was ready and we had devotions again with our live-out crew. This time instead of five more people, we had three. Juan led devotions with the rest of the Home, while Eden monitored the kids getting up (monitors get to sleep in with the kids, and since she was on W&R she was quite pleased). Today Juan and Eden took a much-needed W&R, so after devotions Juan retired to his room again, along with Eden who had dropped off the kiddos with Heaven, who was with them for the day.
KK took the morning to make lunch and catch up on some office work that had been stacking up. Although they were on W&R, Juan and Eden took calls through the day. The day went on pretty much in that fashion.
At 6:30 p.m. Ana (18-year-old catacomber) arrived for some personal prayer and prophecy time with Juan and Eden. Heaven (bless her heart!) took the kids back from their parents to free them and Chris and KK set up the living room and prepared the songs for the evening class.
At 7:30 people started arriving and by 8:00 we had a full house. Tonight about 20 people showed up. We had about 20 minutes of singing and then Eden took the three young catacombers to a separate room for a more in-depth discipleship class, which Chris joined later on in the evening. Juan, together with Paulo (live-out), led the main class in the living room. Tonight’s class was on unity and forgiveness. It went till about 9:45, and then we went around the circle and everybody said their most important prayer request, which was written down and prayed over at the end of the meeting. At 10:00 the meeting was over and we served refreshments. Everybody fellowshipped for about another half hour, until little by little people started leaving.
By 10:45 the only people still here were three young guys who just couldn’t seem to pull themselves away. As time ticked by, we gently hinted that tomorrow it would all start at 6:45 again for us. They got the hint, gave us all a big hug, and were on their way home. After a quick cleanup, we retired at 11:30.
Up and at’m again at 6:45! Juan sweetly went out in the freezing morning air and gathered some wood for the fireplace to make things more pleasant for our devotions, which KK led. Eden was with the kids today, as Heaven traveled to visit her mom for a few days. KK worked transcribing prophecies and making lunch, while Juan went out to have personal time with Renato and Marisete (live-out couple) as well as to visit João (friend) who wanted him to go to his office for prayer. Normally Eden would’ve been his partner so he wouldn’t have to go out alone, but this week the teacher (Heaven) was gone, so Eden stayed home with them.
At 3:00 Regina (from Monday afternoon) came over with Alexandre for her prayer for deliverance. Alex and Juan got together beforehand to hear from the Lord and see if He had any specific instruction about how to go about the prayer, while KK kept Regina company. Around 4:00, we all went to the upper room (which in this case is a lower room, far away from the rest of the house so the neighbors don’t partake of the somewhat noisy act of rebuking the Devil) and the battle began. Eden and kids were remembering the whole time to keep the situation in their prayers, as it always helps to have prayer warriors outside the upper room as well.
The deliverance took about two hours. After pouring out her heart to the Lord and us, and desperate prayer and crying, Regina was wonderfully set free from the heavy hold the Devil had on her life. PTL! He spoke wonderfully to her, giving her instruction and comfort for the days ahead, and by the end of the two hours there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.
After dinner Juan took off for his weekly Discipleship Group, which he leads together with Tommy at the house of Tania (live-out). The meeting had about 10 people total and went until 10:45. Tommy and Juan then took advantage of the short time they had together to have a private business meeting. By 12:00 Juan arrived home to find everyone fast asleep. He quietly crept into bed.
7:15: Eden led Word time this morning and today Ricardo (live-out) brought a whole box of firewood to keep next to our fireplace. Yes! No more freezing devotions! At 8:30, when we were about to pray for the day, Paulo (new friend) walked in. He told us that he really needed some instruction from the Lord about his life and job, so could we please receive something from the Lord for him? Of course! We were about to begin the prayer when João (new friend) rang the bell. He came in with one of his friends who’d had his birthday the day before, and he really wanted us to hear from the Lord for him, too. Sure! So we first prayed for Paulo and then for João—the Lord spoke wonderfully in both instances. More prophecies to transcribe At least KK never runs out of a job in this Home.
Eden was with the kids again today and KK cleaned the house because the maid didn’t come (she had come on Sunday instead). KK was able to squeeze in a few minutes to transcribe the prophecies and e-mail them to the respective people. Juan had three different live-outs to meet with, as well as a lunch appointment with Roberto (friend). This took him most of the day.
That night a weekly Bible class got canceled due to people traveling, so Ricardo and Luz (he is a live-out and she is FM) asked if they could please come over and bring stuff to make a fondue dinner with the Home. Definitely! They said they’d be over at about 8:30 p.m. with everything.
Right before they arrived, Eden was able to put the kids to bed before they saw the excitement, which would’ve made Mommy miss out on the evening. Whew! It turned out that a bunch of other friends heard that we were having a fondue so they decided to come too. Heaven also returned from her visit with her mom. In the end we had about 12 people in our living/dining room fellowshipping together and having a delicious fondue that Ricardo prepared. It went until about 11:30. We all moved over to the couches by the fireplace, dimmed the lights, and sang love songs to Jesus for another hour or so, stopping between songs to go around the circle and each say what we personally feel for Him. What a beautiful time of fellowship with the Lord!
Unfortunately we had to end sometime, so at about 1:00 everybody was gone. We did as much of a cleanup as we had the strength to do and crashed out at 1:30.
Juan led devotions this morning. Eden was the monitor, and then she took the kids until mid-morning so Heaven could have her get-out. Juan took the rest of the morning to do some provisioning pickups and had personal talk time with Ive (live-out) and then Isabel (live-out). KK spent the morning in the office, made lunch, and packed her stuff as she was going to a nearby city for a singing engagement over the weekend.
At 10:30 an import company, Gourmand, called and said they had a provisioning pickup for us on the other side of town and today was the only day we’d be able to pick it up. My goodness! How in the world could we work it into our schedule? The Lord showed us to call a Home that lives near that area and has a big van to see if they wouldn’t mind doing us the favor in return for a large portion of the gourmet goods. They agreed, God bless them!
At 11:00 Marcelo (18-year-old catacomber) arrived to have his weekly personal talk time with Eden, which included her checking his memory work, praying for personal prayer requests, him telling her how his week went, etc. He then stayed and had lunch with the Home. Juan got home at around that time and worked a bit on the computer, writing relatives as well as e-mails to different sheep. Eden tried to get some Word time in, as this morning the kids had woken up early and she wasn’t able to be in devotions. KK left with Rony at around 3:00 for Campos do Jordão, where their singing engagement was.
That afternoon a prayer for deliverance was planned for Edilma (friend), so Alexandre (live-out), Juan, and Eden got together before it started, in order to get specific direction from the Lord about exactly how to go about it. Edilma arrived a little late, which showed how the Devil was fighting with distractions, as she is never late, always very early. At 5:00 she arrived and the prayer started. As usual, it all went exactly how the Lord said it would. After about two hours of prayer and prophecy she was delivered from the hold of the Enemy on her life. She made a commitment to come every morning for devotions along with the rest of our friends, since she needed the extra strengthening (a commitment that she has been keeping faithfully, God bless her).
At 7:30 a couple arrived to have some question and answer time about the things they’ve been reading recently in their Bibles. We had thought they were only going to stay for a little while, so we had planned a Home meeting for tonight but they ended up staying until 10:30! Way too late to start a meeting. So we put a video on to relax, and after about 10 minutes everybody in the room was asleep. Ha!
We’d also forgotten about dinner, and KK, who usually cooks, was gone on a trip, so we ordered a pizza. Anyway, since nobody lasted for the movie, we turned it off and went to sleep at around 11:00.
Today we got to sleep in until 8:00, but then had to hurry up and reorganize the living room and make breakfast for the monthly meeting with the live-out Discipleship Group, to plan future events. It was supposed to start at 9:00, but only one person arrived on time. We are, after all, in Brazil. We enjoyed the breakfast that each of them brought as they slowly trickled in, until at 10:00 we finally started the meeting. It was a lot of fun (as these meetings usually are), as we planned retreats, parties, and even a nationwide party we’ll hold on Father’s Day to raise funds for a far-flung mission field.
Another reason we held the meeting this week was because Tommy (Juan’s partner) was traveling in a couple of days, so they needed to get the groups in order beforehand. After the meeting John and Ester arrived with the Gourmand provisioning from yesterday, which we were able to share with Tommy and another couple who were attending the meeting. There were still more leftovers, so we’ll be able to give it out at the monthly city council which will be held in our Home next week.
Chris took W&R today (by himself, boo-hoo) and Heaven was with the kids in the morning to free Juan and Eden for the meeting. One really big blessing we have is a large, well-kept park right outside our front door. It is ideal for the kids’ get-out. We live in a fairly well-to-do neighborhood, so there are always guards monitoring the area. The park has proven to be another great witnessing field, as Heaven goes there so often that she runs into the same people almost every time, which gives her a chance to follow up on the ones she’s prayed with together with the kids.
Today she met a guy who became so turned on after Heaven prayed and witnessed to him, and was so impressed by the kids’ good sample that he begged, Can I please come over for classes? Study time? Fellowship? Anything? She explained that we lived right across the street and he promised to come on Sunday for the Church of Love. He’s kept this promise, and has also been coming to Tuesday night Bible classes.
The meeting with the live-outs ended very late and we had to literally shoo people out the door at 1:30 pm. We cleaned up, and then after some rest time, Juan and Eden took the kids for a parent afternoon so Heaven could take some Word time and get-out. They were able to provision free rides at the mall for the kids and then dinner at MacDonald’s. Fun! They arrived home at about 8:00, in time to put the kids to bed. We watched our weekly video, with a little more success than the night before, although a few catnaps were taken throughout the movie.
Thank God there was no party last night like the previous week, so the house wasn’t a major mess—only a small mess, considering the fact that our maid didn’t come yesterday. Eden did the cleanup of the house while Chris cooked lunch and did the dishes. Heaven was with the kids today. She was supposed to be having W&R, but she’d had a little vacation during the week, so she sweetly took the kids instead. What would we do without her?
Sundays in our Home usually consist of cleaning up and reorganizing most of the house for the afternoon meetings or Church of Love, Sunday School, etc. We set up our living room, which thank the Lord, is pretty good-sized, with rows of all the possible chairs we can find throughout the house. We move our dining room furniture around so it looks more like a mini-living room and then the video room looks like a dining room. We do this so we can do activities with the different groups of people and children with as much privacy as possible.
After all that was done, we got together to plan the inspiration. This time a lot of the musicians were gone, so we had a skeleton crew of Chris (who is a regular), Eden (who had to leave halfway to get the older kids) and Luciana (live-out). Only three! But the Lord is not limited by many or few, so the inspiration was just as inspired as usual, if not more so. Praise the Lord!
At 6:00 p.m. sharp the music started, 6:30 the kids went to their respective groups, and at 6:45 Tommy started his class (Tommy and Juan alternate weekly). It all ended at 8:00, and since tonight was an exceptionally cold night, after fellowshipping together everyone left early! 9:15!
Since KK hadn’t arrived yet from her singing trip we couldn’t have our Home council (in a Home of only five voting members each person carries the weight of two). We’d already eaten. What do we do with all this time? We decided to catch up on needed sleep, Word time, couples’ time with each other, etc. Almost everybody retired to bed at around 10:00. Chris waited up for KK, who arrived exhausted from her trip at 11:00, and they went to bed.
We hope this gives you a glimpse into what we do. No two weeks are alike, but one thing is for sure—there aren’t any problems with boredom in this Home! There are new things happening every day, and it’s gotten to the point where it’s impossible to stick to a pre-planned schedule to dictate our daily activities (although we do have one and try as much as possible to keep it). Our team is constantly on call, in season or out of season, ready to go, ready to stay, ready to do whatever, whenever, wherever and however for the sheep. It’s a lot of fun and I dare say that none of us would trade this type of Home life for anything.
By Priscila (of Francesco), Moldova
I am so thankful for the renewed emphasis on training our friends to become disciples.
When we were in the beginning stages of our work in Moldova, the Lord told us in prophecy to emphasize mass distribution, personal witnessing, keeping in touch with the sheep that were more interested, and then training them to do something for the Lord. This was a bit of a hard saying, since we were all nationals and didn’t have any Home support. But on the other hand, witnessing and follow-up were what we all wanted to do.
It wasn’t easy, and at times we almost completely lost the vision for it, but that’s when the Lord used our lack of funds and sometimes even basic necessities. Every time we would hit a low spot, we would figure that if we were lacking some basic comforts in this country anyway, we might as well be sure our hardship was going to really count for something!
Many times I felt embarrassed when we would visit other Homes and the brethren would ask, Why don’t you do clowning? Why don’t you try to find a category of people that the videos would go over well with? Why don’t you try teaching English, or this or that, so you won’t have to live so simply? My reply was that that we were doing what the Lord had told us to do.
Still, in the back of my mind I was feeling condemned somehow. Maybe we were not first-class missionaries, since it looked like the Lord wasn’t supplying so much for us, and since we weren’t able to juggle all these ministries.
I realize now that I shouldn’t have been embarrassed, as after a while we started seeing very good fruit. We have quite a few friends who fit in the category of outside witnessers, follow-up members, catacombers, and live-outs, and they come over at any hour of the day. Sometimes, of course, we need our rest, but they already know that and they feel at home even if we just give them something to read while we go to rest a bit! They are happy to know that our Home is their home.
Since we are the only Home in the country and we do not have much fellowship with other Homes, our sheep are our friends. Sometimes we call them on the phone to ask them to pray for us if we have zero money left, and sometimes they call us for the same reason. We share our joys and our problems. Now I can’t imagine having my birthday without our sheep over, because they are my very close friends. Even before the Activated pubs came out, I had the feeling that we had come to a stage where we are just one big Family, caring for each other and helping each other when we are in need.
Besides the fellowship, we witness together and enjoy the fruit together. We have friends who are organizing small churches of believers in their community. When we visit them, we don’t need to plan too far ahead, because one person will ask us to pray a prayer for deliverance for them, or another person will want to hear a song that she was told we sing, and so on.
So we say amen to bringing our sheep in closer! There is still a lot that we need to learn as a Home and individually, and that’s why we are very thankful for the good counsel coming out. We are very happy for this new direction, because we have seen it work and we know that it is worth it!
By Josh, India
Here’s the exciting testimony of how the Lord turned Sonam, a young executive from the Himalayas, into a full-time witnesser.
After the Activated meetings, our on-fire girls met Sonam on their bus journey home. The next day he was at our Home for our weekly Sunday fellowship. He was so turned on by the Spirit of David that he said he felt a real buzz being around us. We had inspiration, testimonies, Word, and at the end of the meeting we prayed for him and he prayed for us. He got on his knees and was moved to tears as he begged the Lord to bless us and our ministries.
He subscribed to the Activated magazine, and both my wife and I told him of the joy and excitement that the Lord has blessed us with ever since we decided to serve Him full time.
Exactly two weeks later, Sonam was back in town, all excited, telling us the Lord had been speaking to him about the many things that we had talked about. He informed us that the Lord had shown him that he too needs to be a full-time servant! At the Lord’s leading, he quit his high-paying job with the Honda company and has become a full-time witnesser!
He poured out his concerns about how he was going to support himself, as he would no longer have an income and would have to depend on the Lord totally for everything. We gave him the vision of They that preach the Gospel should live by the Gospel, explaining that he could teach the people he witnesses to, to support him. We encouraged him that the Lord was going to blow his mind, now that he had put his all into the Lord’s hands!
He’s presently gone to witness to his friends and family, and will then ask the Lord what the next step should be. We encouraged him, prayed for him, and let him know that we would be there for him if he needed us in any way. The Lord gave us a vision of him setting up little Bible study groups in his tiny, predominantly Buddhist hometown of Ladak, high in the Himalayan mountains.
Armed with the Get Activated books, Sonam is now high in the Himalayas, winning his friends and family to Jesus. This is an area generally hostile to Christians, so please pray that the Lord will keep this new child of David.
By the Bride Home, Romania
When we first met Vlad and Theresa while going shop to shop, we would have never guessed that one day we would be sitting down in their living room taking turns reading from the Who Said They’re Dead interview with Nixon! We never guessed that they would do free dental work for Family members. They’ve also subscribed to the Activated magazine, and Theresa has sought counsel from our childcare expert on how to raise and instruct their two little girls. Vlad—a German-born Jew—became Christian’s partner for get-out twice a week to share the Word and get answers to biblical questions. Last month Vlad was our Home video shiner—he personally distributed eight videos.
This is such a fulfillment of the Activated vision, that after two years of faithfully reading the Activated magazine and receiving personal follow-up, this couple has grown into Family members.
Our Home has been witnessing in this city for four years—the same team, every day out, doing almost the same thing day after day, sowing the seeds! Boring?—Not at all! In fact, it’s very exciting seeing daily miracles of supply, lives changed, sheep growing, contacts turning into friends and getting activated! Thank You, Jesus!
But in all this time, our number of live-outs was very low and the situation seemed to stagnate. So we started to pray desperately daily. And guess what? Our fruit started pouring and pouring and pouring in! Some of our friends began growing so fast, to the point that quite a few of them are planning to move in! Now we face a different challenge: Whoops! Where shall we put them all? Ha!
Here are two testimonies about our live-outs. One morning immediately after our devotions we heard a knock at the door. Puzzled is not enough to describe the expression on our faces when we opened the door. There was a sheep from another country, someone we had met during the summer camp here for live-outs. (Please see the following article on the camp in Romania.) The Home where the camp was held had asked us a few times if we would like to receive her for a few weeks, but we had never given them a final answer. And here she was! She explained us how she got to our Home by a miracle.
It was late at night. I was going through some very rough moments and then I simply prayed, Jesus, do whatever You want with my life. I completely yield to You. Then I felt this strange feeling pushing me to leave the city. I didn’t really realize what I was doing.
I went to the main road and started to hitchhike. Finally a car stopped and, to my surprise, the people in it were going to Bucharest, so I decided to go with them. Even if what I was doing was crazy, I felt so much peace in my heart and that I was truly free. Regardless of how fast things were moving, I knew that He was in control, and that was the only thing that mattered.
They dropped me at the railway station. I didn’t have your address. I just vaguely remembered your house from last summer, when I was on my way to the camp, but with the Lord’s help I found you and here I am.
PTL! It’s definitely a miracle how she made it to our house, as most people (even with detailed instructions) usually get lost coming here. It was a perfect fulfillment of the Activated vision of sheep knocking at our door! We just need to get ready to receive them.
The Lord has done a lot of miracles for our team, which make us feel the excitement of living in the era of action. Listen to this and tell us if you don’t feel the same! Late in the evening we received the following phone call:
My name is G. and I am a friend of C. [one of our live-outs]. I live in a different city and I met the Family a few months ago. At that moment, even though I felt very convicted about the message and wanted to do something meaningful with my life, I didn’t feel ready. In the meantime, I have been in contact with C., who has shared everything she was learning from you.
So after a while, the calling became clearer in my heart. Maybe you are not going to believe me, but I want to become a missionary. The reason I chose your Home is that, besides the fact that C. has told me a lot about you, I want to live a distance away from my mother, who is really trying to push me to do something else with my life. So when can I join?
Dear Family,
In FSM 366, Building the National Church, there were pictures of a discipleship camp held in Constanta, Romania, last summer. The complete story on this camp was delayed in reaching us, but as the event was so inspiring, we’d like to share these additional details with you.
P.S. Latest news flash from our Family in Eastern Europe: As of May 5, 2001, three of the attendees of our leadership training camp in Romania have joined the CM Family, and one the FM Family! Three more are on their way as full-timers. Please pray for them!
The SEEC Area held a two-week-long training camp in Romania. Here’s a report by Bulgarian Rosa.
When we asked the Lord for a confirmation on this camp planned for catacombers, He told us to open the doors and invite a larger range of outside disciples! The Homes were asked to hear from the Lord and get a specific confirmation on each person they were considering sending as an attendee, and to send us the prophecies before inviting them. Thus the Lord helped us to invite only those He really wanted to have there and who He knew were ready for this type of camp.
As a result, our attendees were catacombers, FM, OWs—and we didn’t know how to refer to them collectively. But when He was speaking to us before the first meeting, the Lord called them National Church Leaders.
We expected people of different ages, but it turned out that the attendees were all young (17-28)! Everyone was super on-fire and receptive! The Homes that have taken care of them had done a great job, God bless them. We had 18 attendees, from four countries—ten from Romania, one from Bulgaria, three from Moldova, and four from other East European countries.
The Organization
The Lord said to invite a CM representative from each Home that sent an attendee. So we had nine CMers (in addition to those of the Newday Home where the camp was held), and these wonderful brethren were an invaluable shepherding force and helped keep things running.
We divided everyone into groups, so each CMer was the team captain of two to three NCLs (short for National Church Leaders), and took care of their day-to-day shepherding, answering their questions, keeping a close check on how they were receiving the classes. They also taught them basic practical things, like how to do JJTs, dishes, keep the rooms and the house clean, etc.
One of the things the Lord said He wanted to accomplish by having CM representatives was to give the Homes a chance to know exactly what was shared with their sheep, and a vision of what they could do in their respective cities to train their disciples.
The Newday Home on the coast of the Black Sea was a super help and a blessing! They not only let their Home be converted to a training camp, but contributed a large part of the finances for the running of the camp. Thank you, guys!
It was so touching to see all the Homes in Romania jumping in to help with whatever each could, whether supply, people, prayers, or prophecies. It was a united field team effort! Also thank you, dear Philip, Dawn, and Magda, for your counsel, support, help, prayers and faith! XO!
The team that took care of preparing the classes were Kay (Polish) and Abe (of Love, NEEC VS) and me, Rosa. Kay and Abe are wonderful teachers, and kept the audience fully captivated! We got together as a team only three days before the camp began, so we were often preparing the classes as we went, since we didn’t have time to prepare them earlier. I think it was part of the Lord’s way to get all the glory for anything good that happened at the camp, to keep us desperate the whole time, and to make sure we heard from Him daily and about everything.
Thank the Lord also for computer technology, as if it was not for it, I don’t really think we would have been able to prepare the classes as we went! But having the HomeARC and Infostore* made our life as teachers so much easier. (*Infostore: a program Kay had just finished working on, that could be compared with the ARC, except that it allows handling Word libraries in various languages.) We even brought our laptops to the Questions and Answers meeting at the end of the camp, so we could quickly search to find the answer in the Word to a tough question, which we actually did!
AME Running the Show!
The most amazing thing is that the Lord was running the entire camp via prophecy and AME (Ask Me Everything)! We were praying about every single decision. We got the entire schedule for the two weeks via prophecy (except for a few things which the Lord kept as a surprise). But since the Lord had told us that just getting the schedule wouldn’t be sufficient and that we would need to check each step with Him, we were confirming every single thing through prophecy. We relied on prophecy for the smallest details, like how to set up the room for the movie, etc., and it worked great!
As Kay put it, it seems sometimes that at home it’s much more difficult to implement AME, but when you find yourself in a new situation where you don’t have an established schedule going, it’s much easier to realize what a necessity it is. It was convicting and motivating for me to see the boys’ sample of implementing Ask Me Everything, and it was quite refreshing that it came so naturally! For example, I’d storm into the room and say, This and this came up. What do you think we should do?
They would tell me without fail, Let’s quickly check with the Boss! or Did you ask the Boss about it?
Goals
The Lord defined the aims of the camp by telling us:
That’s the final goal: to establish strong leaders who will be able to lead others, feed themselves and survive, and be fruitful during the days to come. This is the ultimate goal.
He instructed us that that the main thrust of the camp would not be to encourage people to drop out and join, but rather to strengthen them as disciples and take them a step further in their training. He told us to give them the vision for being the leaders of the national churches in their respective countries and to be co-workers with the Family, working hand-in-hand with the Homes they fellowship with, in shepherding the Lord’s flocks. In order to facilitate this job and to help them fulfill this vision, the Lord told us we needed to teach them about the spiritual weapons and truths He has revealed to the Family.
Here is some of the counsel the Lord gave us:
It’s not My will for each of them to join, but My will is that they understand their mission as missionaries, that they would understand their place and their role as My witnesses and My servants. Make discipleship training one of the main classes and main messages. Explain what being a disciple truly is, and what it really is to serve Me. What does it mean?—It means witnessing, bringing souls to Me and establishing them in the Word, turning around and being teachers of others.
*
Teach them how to pray. Teach them how to hear from Me. Teach them how to read the Word and feed themselves from the Word. Teach them how to teach others, so others can yet teach others. Teach them to know the signs of the times. Teach them about the new weapons that I have for My children.
The Classes
The first class on the National Church covered the Lord’s call to them to grow from sheep into shepherds; what the job of being a missionary means; what tools the Lord has given us to do it, both practical and spiritual. We encouraged them to raise up their own little churches, and to help them with that we gave each one a little booklet of basic classes, which they could use to feed their sheep.
But the main tools we wanted to draw their attention to were the spiritual ones. Thus this class served as a platform to give the attendees a clear understanding of what the main thrust of the classes during the camp would be—teaching them the new spiritual weapons the Lord wanted to give them to do the greater works He is calling them for.
The second class, Endtime Christians, presented a general overview of the new weapons, covering more in depth the weapons of meekness, weakness, and humility. The next classes centered on more of the new weapons. Three of the classes—Spiritual Timeline, Endtime, and Persecution aimed to give them a better understanding of the Family, the times we live in, the days of preparation, and the era of action.
The movie The Matrix proved to be a valuable tool, as we drew spiritual parallels from it for teaching about both prophecy and the Endtime.
We found out that most of the attendees had received a very good foundation in the Word from their Homes. From the keynote on, they quickly got used to hearing prophecy, and in preparing our classes we used straight prophecy from the various GNs on the different topics.
For each of the classes there was a key verse from the Bible summarizing the gist of the class, which was their memory work for the day.
After the camp, we sent the classes on file to all the Homes in Romania and Moldova, as the Lord had told us to make them available for the Homes to use in their follow-up. Doing this also helped them be aware of what exactly was covered with the attendees and thus give them a clearer idea where to take them from there.
Special Activities
The schedule was pretty full with classes, but we had a few afternoons when everyone went out witnessing. They won a total of 380 souls!
After the miracle of the rainy day (related at the end of this article), the Lord provided the unexpected opportunity to go to the circus—maybe as a shiner prize for passing the test of faith. One of our witnessing teams provisioned it for all of us.
We had three dance nights; everyone was surprised, but nobody objected, ha! The Lord told us to have one as soon as the camp started to break the ice and help the attendees to get to know each other.
We had regular touch-base meetings with the CMers to counsel and talk about things that came up in the camp. At one of these meetings we took time to talk a bit about how to get the Activated program rolling more in Romania.
Everyone really enjoyed our times of singing together. One of the inspiration nights which they particularly enjoyed was when we all sat around on mattresses on the floor, the lights were low, and Kay led us singing all those oldie-goldie songs that made the Revolution. Having just finished watching parts of the video The Acts of the Revolution added to the atmosphere.
We also had a special Heaven’s night. Some of the girls took time to decorate the room in white veils, flowers, and pictures of Heaven. They even dressed themselves in Heavenly attire! Walking into the room felt like walking into a different world! Then after dimming the lights and putting on some soft piano music in the background, we all took off on a spirit trip to Heaven. Abe and I read portions from Journey to Tricon, stopping from time to time to watch some video clips on Heaven from various Family videos, or to listen to a Heaven song from the FTTs. We also read some of the far-out prophecies from the Heaven’s linkUP (#10).
At the end, girls dressed as angels (oooh, the boys enjoyed that!) served a yummy Heavenly liquid snack. And by that time no one really had any desire to leave Heaven, or even move! The evening flowed into impromptu slow dancing after that, as we left the soft Loving Jesus songs playing.
After the class on prophecy, we gave each attendee a set of My King and I and From Jesus—With Love, which we had previously ordered from the Activated Desk. (A big thank-you to the guys at the European desk who sent the books right on time!) And after the class on persecution we gave everyone a copy of the Human Rights Without Frontiers newsletter, courtesy of the EURCRO Media Desk.
The last night of the camp, besides a special dinner and a sweet dance time with dazzling snacks, we had a special little ceremony giving everyone a diploma to certify that they had attended and completed the Christian Leadership Training Camp, Constanta 2000.
There were lots of hugs and tears at the end, too. Everyone had gotten to love everyone else, and no one was rejoicing at the thought of leaving this special time and place. Thank the Lord for something so special to remember!
The Miracle of the Rainy Day!
Here is an example of how the Lord taught and led us during the camp, through an unexpected experience He brought along the way.
We had planned the first day of the second week to just stay on the beach all day and play, swim, relax, and have fun. We did confirm it with the Lord the day before, because we had to announce it to everyone early enough to prepare. So after the class on the Word, we read to them the prophecy of confirmation the Lord had given us, with all His promises.
But then the next morning—my, oh my!—the sky was cloudy, the weather cold and very uninspiring. We had nothing else planned for the day! What to do? Everyone was looking to us with big question marks on their faces.
Well, what could we have done but get together to ask the Lord what to do? Amazingly enough, He sent us a spirit helper who said that we shouldn’t be misled by the way things looked, but that we should ask the Lord in prayer to change the weather and thus give Him a chance to show His might. She (the spirit helper) gave us the story from the Bible about when Jesus was in the boat sleeping, there was a storm, and the disciples freaked out. They woke the Lord up and He told them, Oh, ye of little faith. Then He raised His hand and calmed the sea.
So we got everyone together and read to them what the Lord had given us. It was a big step of faith for us, I should say! Then we led everyone in prayer for sunshine, and proceeded with packing for the outing.
But try to imagine how everyone felt, when as soon as we started packing it all of a sudden began raining outside. Ha! You could see all kinds of reactions. People were starting to wonder again what we were going to do. God bless Tab (of Tim)! She was our cheerleader of faith! She chimed in enthusiastically with, What are we gonna do? Well, we’ll simply pack the lunch and we are going to the beach. Come on, let’s go! We are wasting time! And she swiftly organized the lunch-packing operation! Neither the weather nor people’s reactions fazed her, thank God!
Some of the attendees, though, weren’t so sure. It was a test of faith for all of us! There were even comments like, I’m not going to the beach. This is nuts! Look at the weather! These prophecies are probably made up anyway. Ha! But we went ahead and we loaded the vehicles. It was still drizzling.
Then the Lord did it!!! As soon as we finished praying and were about to drive off, the sun suddenly came shining brightly through! The weather changed as if from night to day! You wouldn’t believe the transformation!
Oh, everyone in the vehicles rejoiced! And we had the greatest beach day we could have imagined. We played, we swam, the Lord even provided a free volleyball court on the beach for us to use.
This day became the main reference point and topic of discussion for the rest of the camp. And the timing of it was just perfect: It was immediately after the class on The Gift of Prophecy, and right before the class on Prayer and Praise as New Weapons. Hallelujah!
Then there was a slew of reactions, but this time they were saying, Wow, it really works! Prophecy works! I’m sorry for my lack of faith. The Lord humbled me and taught me a lesson I will never forget! The Lord was creating these incidents to bring the classes to life and show the principles in practical application.
The day after the above events, we had planned an afternoon for witnessing/fun at the beach. Lo and behold, the weather was gloomy and dark again. Now everyone’s attitude was, Oh, the Lord’s going to do it again. Let’s pack our lunch. Ha! But when we again asked the Lord in prophecy what to do, He said: This is a different situation. This time I’m purposely creating cold weather, because I want everyone to take extra rest and time with Me today. He encouraged people to rather stay home and get some rest and recuperation, which in fact was very needed, as people had been having long classes, faithfully going out witnessing, and were tired. That’s when we gave them the two Activated books with messages to and from Jesus, which were perfect for that afternoon.
The ML Our Activated Future (ML #3298, GN895) provided a boost of inspiration and courage to go for the camp full steam, following the Lord’s challenge to become feeders and teachers of the nations, and to train new national leaders to help us lead our national churches.
By Mihaela, Romania
It’s just now that I realize the plan Jesus has for me, how important I am to Him, and how much He is asking of me. This training camp was a time for me to learn how to become a more useful tool for Him. I got so much closer to Him, and I have more courage and strength to face the world and the System.
I am really thankful that He chose me—me, though I’m so worthless, so small in the eyes of the people. And He’s given me such an important task—to become a national leader. He must trust me very much, and I’m going to do everything in my power (with His help of course, because He is the One that gives me the power, the strength, and the way to do things) to please Him and to be victorious in every battle that I am going to face.
Officially I received the most wonderful, the most important, and the most useful gift ever for my birthday—the gift of prophecy, which helps me get even closer to Jesus.
I am going to be a real good soldier, an officer for the Lord, and a real dangerous fighter against the Enemy. Thank You, Jesus!
From Elias, Eastern Europe
Of course, the most outstanding and important thing for me about the time here is that finally, after so many years of waiting and being practically out of contact with the Family, I could come to the Family Home, and now can even stay and join! WOW!And, of course, I’m super thankful for meeting so many wonderful Family people and brethren of so many nationalities, and for having so much fun together. The Lord is so good to me by giving me so many of my heart’s desires.
From James, Eastern Europe
(Comment from Rosa: James is a very good cartoonist. He took lots of notes of the classes, ha!—Two whole notebooks of cartoons, illustrating the main points brought out in the classes.)
The most priceless thing I got from this camp is that I got to visit the Family and spend two weeks in a real Family Home. Praise the Lord! During this short time I learned much more than during the last five or six years. Thank You, Jesus, for all the lessons and for all of you!
By Anna, Romania
This camp was the most exciting experience in my life! It was terrific! I’ve known the Family for seven years. I know what it is—the sacrifice and the hard work that is behind it all, but this time being here was like a touch of Jesus’ love on my heart.
I am very, very happy. And though I knew before that it would be nice, I was surprised just how sweet the fellowship was, the songs, working together, witnessing, giving, and caring for each other. I think I learned a little bit about everything, even taking care of children, for example.
About the classes, I guess this was the most beneficial thing! It was lots of fun. The Lord is really a happy and cheerful God, which I learned even more after seeing His Spirit working.
I pray for you and my new friends and I thank you for every prayer you said for me. It means a lot to me, and helps me see I’m not alone in this battle.
By Estera, Moldova
I never realized why I went through so many things. I’ve been looking and trying to find my place, and Jesus through this camp answered many of my questions. I’m so happy that I got closer to Jesus and I see Him working in my life more and more. I feel so stable, so peaceful, and that I have a reason for living.
When I didn’t know Jesus, I didn’t have a reason to live my life. I was searching for the truth and I couldn’t find it. I had a chance to work with people from the medical university, science people from Moldova, NGOs and political party people, and though I had so much variety, something was always missing. But now I found what I was looking for all my life and I want to let people know about Jesus, Who is everything, Who has the answers to every question, Who gives us a reason to live, and Who is worthy to follow. Only now do I understand why.
He showed me so many things and I’m so glad that He didn’t let me get hooked on the System. Instead He gave me love, peace, clean air. He also gave me people who have lots of patience with me and who show us Jesus’ love all the time and reflect His light. I would like very much to make others shine with His light and His unending love.
By Alina, Romania
The most precious thing—out of many precious things—that I received in this camp was the gift of prophecy! I tried for several months to hear from the Lord, but all He said to me was: Fear not, for I am with you! But after a few days at the camp, Jesus began to speak to me so fast after praying, so clearly and so naturally that I couldn’t believe that He could talk to me that way.
Also you made me feel special in the eyes of Jesus. I always thought: Come on, He’s too busy to take care of me, especially me. But now I know I was wrong. It’s still hard for me to understand such love, but I guess I’m not supposed to understand, but to receive it and enjoy it by faith and make the most of it.
I’m really grateful for my eyes and my heart opening more to Jesus. You gave me fish, but also taught me how to fish. I know it’s not going to be easy, but I have Jesus on my side, so there is no need to worry.
There is one more thing I’m aware of now. So far, I’ve considered myself a sheep who has many lessons to learn. It was quite a comfort to be a sheep. But now that I have so many weapons and I’ve learned so many things, I realize that I’m no longer only a sheep. Jesus has already given me a few friends who need love and need to find their way in life. I know He wants me to reach out to them so that He can be closer to them. I take it as a privilege that He trusts me that much to give me such a job.
Copyright © 2001 by The Family
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