El Salvador - Serena H

I have been having a great time here in El Salvador, staying with my team at a YWAM base in San Salvador. This city is very modern yet the amount of barbed wire, locks, and violence here is interesting to say the least! Many cars have signs on them with "Do Not Murder - Exodus 20" written on them. The country is highly evangelised, yet not many have close intimate relationship with Jesus.

Ministering in local Churches

On Sunday our team ministered at 4 churches. I had the privilege of helping to lead the morning church into an atmosphere of worship, as they had a keyboard and not only that but a pedal as well! We also went out to the skate park to play with the kids - about 10 of them and most of them have parents in jail. In their neighbourhood alone there has been 8 gang shootings in the past week.

Sunday night the Lord gave me a word to share with the congregation there. Breck, one of the guys on the team shared just before me and we neither of us knew what the other was sharing, but Breck spoke out most of what was on my heart! God is so good in how he confirms that we are hearing Him rightly! This church was the most like my home church out of any so far this trip. A few things I noticed - they had a spirit of honour. Honoring us as well as God. They agreed vocally with whatever the pastor was saying and also with us. They also were hungry and passionate in their pursuit of Him through worship and praise. They went crazy dancing even before the word was preached! So these are a few things I feel were key in their ability to receive all God had for them! We prayed for the sick at the end, and opened up the altar for anyone who felt dry or just hungered for more of God. I had shared on the night season - this being the night until Jesus comes back - that is when the day breaks. Psalm 91 says that those who DWELL in the shelter/secret place of the Most High will rest/abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

Dwell - one of the origins of the word (english) means to be distracted. Tarry.

Abide - means to stay overnight.

The key to lasting the night season until Jesus comes back, the key to LOVE and loving the one in front of you (us disciples will be known by our love) is to live distracted by Jesus. You are constantly thinking about Him and distracted from what you're supposed to be doing. He gets in the way of "ordinary" life sometimes but thats how we need to live! To stop for HIM before stopping for the one. To live constantly distracted by Jesus and in love with Him and knowing that He loves me. In my own strength I cannot love the person who may annoy me or the person who hates me. When I am crazy in love with Jesus, I can. Because it is HIS love that I have. Supernatural love

Many people came forward and were touched powerfully by the Holy Spirit. We also had a fire tunnel that the whole church went through (the children went through at least 5 times!). By the end there were bodies all over the floor and we had to keep moving the fire tunnel...!

How Jesus LOVES to pour out his LOVE on His people! He is the business of Healing, Filling, Refreshing, Mending broken hearts, and OVERFLOWING us with JOY! Our team had a dance party all the way home in the car.

Visiting the Least of These

In the last couple of days I have also had the privilege of visiting an all boys home (10-17years old) - some have parents in jail, some are unwanted, some are true orphans. Most of them are in this particular centre because they made trouble and were kicked out of other centres. They have no transition in place for when they turn 18. On one side of the centre is a women's prison. On the other is a teenage girls prison. Please pray for the children of El Salvador!

We have also ministered to men in a drug rehabilitation centre, and the rest of the team visited a village affected by recent mudslides and ministered to the homeless. God is LOVE and no-one is unloveable to Him! He can break through to the most hurt, abused or hardest heart!

Australia

I will be back in Australia from 23rd December until at least the end of January. This will be an awesome time for me to catch up with Family, with Friends, with all of you!! I will be making myself available to share stories/news of what has been happening in the nations - South-East Asia, Mozambique, North and Central America. So please let me know if you would like to have me share in a group situation.

Many, many hugs and blessings!!!

I pray MORE for you!!! Of everything that He has! and that this month and a bit leading up to Christmas would be a time of deep GROWTH and INTIMACY with the Lord!

lots of love

Serena

Guatemala 2011 - Serena H

The Itza People

We visited the Itza people last Thursday 3^rd November. Jesse and Christian had already gone to scout out the village earlier. They asked to speak to someone who still spoke Itza and were introduced to one of the last men who spoke the language. He is now the person in charge of a group trying to bring back more of the culture and language to the younger generation. He had a table set up in his house with bowls in it and when they asked what it was, he said it was sacrifices to the same winged god that they sacrificed to in ancient times. However obviously they weren’t human sacrifices anymore..!

Jesse and Christian were able to share the whole gospel with this man, who softened toward them as he realised they weren’t there to push anything on to him, just to share what we believe and to love on the people.

When we went back as a group later, we visited this man first, all 21 of us (a couple of us didn’t go house to house) squeezed into his living room. As we visited it started to pour rain so loud that we could hardly hear each other speak! The people there mostly have corrugated iron roofs so it made everything louder. When it lessened from a downpour to more of a steady medium rain, we got up and split into groups to go door to door.

My group visited a couple of elderly ladies in a house not too far from the first one. They both were healed (they warmed up to us more after they realised they were healed!), and one of them then asked us to come with her to see her daughter’s family, as her daughter needed prayer. So we walked up the hill around the corner to another house. One daughter had been in pain since having her most recent child. Her head was in pain and part of her back. We all felt a sudden increase of faith as we laid hands on her, and when talking about it later discovered we all felt a strong sense of burning fire on our hands. As we prayed we literally felt the Lord working as the pain left her head, left her back and she also told us that her chest had been in pain too and that it too was pain free! She was evidently happy about this and then asked us to pray for her son, who was very destructive and would constantly grab things and break them (he actually was in the process of breaking something as we came in the door). They then grabbed another daughter (of the elder woman) who had been bleeding non stop for 20 days. We prayed for her and loved on her, and shared the story of the woman with the issue of blood. She became very joyful as we prayed and we laughed together as God’s presence came. We are believing for total healing.

Halfway Across Guatemala in 1^st Gear!

Earlier on as we were travelling into Guatemala, the transmission on Shekinah, one of our 4WDs completely failed. We hitched the camper to the small RV and then towed Shekinah behind Open Heaven (the big RV) to a mechanic, the only transmission specialist in the area. We were told that he didn’t have any parts in Guatemalaand we should go look back in Belize. So Jesse and Christian got a lift back to the border (1/2 hour away) and checked in every mechanic in Belize, but to no avail. We figured we would have to buy new parts from the USand get them shipped to us, a cost of at least $1800. However the mechanic then said that he found some 2^nd hand parts inGuatemala City and was able to fix Shekinah for us for $600. We were so overjoyed and happy at this news!

So on Friday we received Shekinah back and on Saturday, started to head closer to the border. However about one hour into the journey, Shekinah again lost all her gears except for first. We called the mechanic who refused to come help us. So we kept driving, praying all the way and camped the night at another lakeside. We decided to sleep overnight asking the Lord to speak to us what to do and in the morning as we worshipped, a few people got the words to “Go slow”, to keep on going with the original plan for driving and that God wanted to amaze us. So we headed off again at 10am, going 30 miles an hour (about 50km) as our highest speed. We drove trying not to stop too much as we had heard it was dangerous to be on the road in this country after dark.

Following the GPS’s instructions as well as a road map we had bought at the border, we found ourselves suddenly on a dirt road in a town where the road became just too narrow for our vehicles to even pass! Backing up 2 RVs, 2 4WDs pulling campers and a station wagon is no easy feat but we managed it, and were directed by several locals to turn down another dirt road where they said the next town “El Cho” was straight through only an hour away and from there an easy drive to where we wanted to go. It was just starting to get dark so we figured we would go down that road, and either stay in El Cho or continue on.

The dirt road soon turned into steep 4WD trails on the edge of cliffs, however it would be impossible to turn around as they were only just big enough for one car at a time. It was so steep that we had to keep stopping to let Shekinah have a break, as the transmission heat light kept coming on. However Open Heaven the big RV was just behind us and would not be able to stop as we could. So we drove further apart and finally took a left fork which took us onto the original road on the GPS. We waited for the other vehicles to arrive but no one came. So Ted got out and walked back to find out what was happening. He took my pink headlamp with him (thanks Katie!), which we thought was quite funny. Visions of jaguars jumping through the windows filled our heads as we were still in jungle and knew that jaguars only come out at night! Christian was in the front seat and keep jumping and going “AHH! Did you hear that?? What was that sound?” He has a habit of loving to scare us. So we mainly didn’t get scared. But we did hear a swarm of bees somewhere which we felt safe from as they wouldn’t be flying at night.

Eventually Ted came back after at least 20 minutes saying that the boys station wagon had overheated and they were all back there. Jesse and Ben then came running up saying they had walked all the way from the other vehicles and been chased by many dogs. Also the other camper had started to slide off the cliff they all had to struggle to pull it back. We unhooked our camper from Shekinah and drove to a place where we could turn around, to go back and get the other vehicles as the dogs were too dangerous for the guys to go back. It was quite funny and felt like a movie as we first found Open Heaven (filled with some of the girls and Zoe) and the Buick wagon (closed and abandoned) in the dark, and later found the other two vehicles way back down the road. We were able to lead them up the hill to the others, and found out from some passing locals that El Cho was now only 40 minutes away. We decided to keep on going as they said the road was paved beyond El Cho.

We ended up driving another 4 hours, sometimes driving where there were steep drops on both sides of the road and sometimes having to pass other trucks (utes for the Aussies!), mostly which were police vehicles loaded with soldiers and other people. It was election day inGuatemalaso we figured they were carrying all the ballots. At one point we had to drive through mud and water past another steep drop, we went first, then Open Heaven came next. As Open Heaven went through the mud the sewage pipes broke off, spewing sewage all over the road! The people stuck behind it smelt the full power of the fumes and then had to drive through it… Needless to say there is now no usable toilet in Open Heaven, unless you want it to go straight on the road!

We arrived in El Cho as everyone was partying and drunk after the elections, and found a hotel to park in – some got rooms with showers roaches while a few of us stayed in the RVs. We went to bed with the sounds of partying and some gunfire, glad to finally get to sleep and full of joy that we had made it and that the roads were meant to be better from then on…

Chimaltenango

Currently we are staying in the driveway of a special needs orphanage here inChimaltenango,Guatemala. Yes, the roads were better since El Cho J We ended up here as Christian has a friend who is part of a team called the “World Racers”, who take one year and spend one month in each country in one place. We arrived on Tuesday, they left Wednesday afternoon toHonduras(later they will be inAsia) and now we are still here, waiting for our transmission to be fixed by another mechanic.

The kids here are gorgeous. Even as I write I can hear the sound of them singing to Jesus, led by Daniel, who is one of the older kids and can speak some English. There are 5 girls and 5 boys and they are very sweet and so filled with joy! There are 4 Guatemalan nannies who work 2 day shifts and other nationals who help out. There is also an American family in the area who have 10 children. They are helping out in this orphanage until their paperwork goes through to start a similar orphanage in another town not too far away. I met three of the girls who were teaching the orphans simple ballet. Families doing missions together so inspire me!

There is a mall here about 15-20 mins walk (about the size of a small shopping centre inAustralia) and it has a movie theatre. ! We watched the 3 musketeers the other night for 20 Quetzales each (under $3)! God spoke to me through it as he reminded me about the part of my call to raise up the next generation to be spiritual warriors and also raise them up in all boldness courage, honour and nobility. Knowing whose sons they are (and daughters) and knowing that their lives are for the kingdom… also for the King and the enjoyment of Him J It made my eyes tear up as there is a major part of me that is really looking forward to having a home, to putting down roots again and to start long-term investing into children and young people. They have no Junior Holy Spirit – they have the same God that us adults have and I long to see the schools of this nation (whatever nation I end up in) and the streets of these nations completely turned upside down as heaven invades through their lives. Young people long for a cause to live for, to fight for and the cause of Jesus is the only thing that will satisfy.

Thank you so, so much each of you who are praying and to those of you who have given.

Please continue to pray for financial provision for the rest of my time here. I am flying back to Australia for Christmas with my family, as God provided through my tax return for my ticket home J I will also be going to Melbourne for at least a couple of weeks to get my things together that are spread throughout several peoples houses and garages! I will be taking it back up to Brisbane to store in my parents house as I don’t anticipate coming back to live in Australia for a while yet. Pray also for clear direction on when to rejoin the team, possibly in Peru at the end of January or later.

 

In Mozambique during the Harvest Missions School, the Lord asked me to lay down every dream I had ever had for my life and also every dream that He had ever given me. Because of I laid that down, I am now here inGuatemalaliving the life that He chose for me (way better than I could have ever dreamed!). It has been hard sometimes consistently being on the move. Living out of my hiking pack and duffel is also not always the most fun thing – things tend to get lost and be found sometimes weeks later! However I am in the best place that I can be – in the arms of my Jesus. In His presence is fullness of JOY! I choose to embrace the journey – the good times as well as the more challenging ones. I find that I end up laughing and rejoicing at the most intense times! He said to Rejoice ALWAYS, and when I have been living intimately with God it does tend to be that way! I embrace the cup of suffering and the cup of joy and am looking forward even more to everything that is coming!

Thank you Jesus, for loving me.

I pray you encounter Him in even deeper ways today.

Find photos on http://adventureswjc.blogspot.com

Back to Mozambique! - Serena H

In just less than 2 weeks time, I will be heading back to Mozambique! This time will not be as a student at the mission school, although the next school will be in session. This time I have the privilege of helping out the children's centre director with setting up a new database, to store all of the children's records. There are at least 170 children currently living on the base. They are all either full orphans (both parents gone) or half orphans, or it is just not feasible that they live at home.

Last year during my time at the Iris Harvest Missions School each dorm had the opportunity to really get to know a specific dorm of children, and my house was paired with a dorm of 8-11 year old boys. There were 10 precious boys in the dorm, all with their individual, precious personalities! About 3 weeks before the end of school we invited the boys over for a movie night (or rather one of the more outgoing boys begged to be invited). As they all trooped into the house we noticed a new boy who hadn't been there before. We questioned the boys and they insisted he was new, he had just arrived the day before. So we had them all in, put on A Muppet Christmas Carol (one of the few movies we were able to scrounge from what was available!) and most of them promptly fell asleep within 1/2 hour! (we were happy about that later because a scary part came in the movie). We ended up carrying some of the boys back to bed... a very precious Mozambique memory! We found out later that the guards had found this new boy sleeping in the latrines, so Iris investigated his background and took him in.

I am so excited to have the privilege of going back to Mozambique, to serve there for a few weeks, possibly go on outreach to the bush bush and to love on the boys again! I am going in faith expecting the Lord to provide, expecting to see miracles as He loves on the least of these in the dirt, pouring out the best He has for the forgotten of the world. He is a good Daddy :)

Kids in church on a Sunday

JOY!

Beautiful village children

Some of "our" boys

Family, in Jesus!

Please pray for more of Jesus - like seriously crazy Holy Spirit filled precious times with Jesus!
That I would walk in the presence of Jesus all day long (and sleep in his presence all night long, visitations!)
Provision - that the Lord would stir the hearts of those who are to partner with what he is doing,and just crazy testimonies of provision!
That I would not hold back from loving people fully - especially as I know that I am always to leave people soon after meeting them. I do not want this to stop me from loving and giving of myself fully!
That he would move in the hearts and lives of my family here in Malaysia - I have 3 weeks left
Connections with the right people and divine appointments!
Restful sleep!! No interruptions unless it is the Lord!
Jesus' words
Jesus' HEART
Jesus' thoughts
JOY!
Hunger always for more!

If you would like to recieve my newsletters, please email me at serena xh@gmail.com (remove the space between serena and xh) or by clicking here

Latin America - September 2011!
Things are also gearing up for Latin America! We as an Iris Ministries Missions Team (Rolland and Heidi Baker) to the Latin Americas will be leaving in September from California, bringing revival fire to the nations of Mexico, Central America, South America and the Carribean! This is a trip expected to take around a year but may change depending on the Holy Spirit! We are focussing on the unreached people groups and will go wherever He sends us, however He sends us, no matter how hard to get to or how trecherous the way. The initial costs are to buy motorhomes and RVs, as we will be 4WDing it through the nations! The main costs throughout the trip will be just gas/fuel. We are excited as we were originally given the vision for this during the last missions school in Mozambique (Oct 2010) and we have been preparing since then. Learning Spanish, researching the people and the lands we are going to, praying and meeting together, speaking words over the trip as the Lord has been guiding us. The team is coming together from all over the world, from The United States, the Americas, Australia, Africa and others! Lord use us to bring revival fire to the Nations!! We are laying down everything and giving up everything that the world would know His LOVE!

Always remember that we are all each one of us missionaries in our own sphere of life. Wherever you are, whatever you do. Stop for the One. Go lower still. Let Him Love on you! Love on the one... and... Love LOOKS like something. What does it look like for the ones He has laid on YOUR heart? It looks like smiling at that stranger, it looks like wiping away tears. It looks like praying for the sick. It looks like sitting in the dirt or on the sidewalk with the one. Having them over for dinner. Visiting them in their houses or front yards. What does Love look like? Lets be Jesus' hands and feet in the nations! Lets be Jesus' hands and feet in our own backyard! The harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few - so pray that the Lord would send Labourers! Who will go? Will you?

Love, blessings, Joy, and MORE of Him!! I pray Papa's love over you!

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.Therefore GO and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20

As you GO, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give. Matthew 10:7-8

5 weeks to go! - Serena H

It is now only just over 5 weeks to go until I leave for Asia, although a few others in the group will be starting a couple weeks earlier in another Asian country, scouting out the area for the Lord's strategies on starting a new base there. This will be specifically to go with God's heart on ministering to and setting free those many girls and boys who are selling themselves for sex every day. "In this country as well as in other countries, six year old girls are sold by their parents for $10.00 to the brothels where they are forced to have sex with many men every night." This is so sad and so not what God has in mind for each of these young lives. He has called, created and purposed them for so much more. See Christian and Christy's blog at http://jungworldmissions.blogspot.com for more information about this trip which I am not going on, but is taking place just before I leave and Jesse and Tanya will be on this trip. I will most likely be meeting up with them in this country and flying straight on to where we are headed next. Christian and Christy's blog also includes a link to a 10 minute teaser for the film "Call and Response" about human trafficking.

As I continue to transition from living in Africa to living in Australia in the western world, and also prepare to leave again soon for this next trip, please continue to pray! Your prayers are needed and so appreciated!

Pray for:

More of Jesus. We want more and we need more. That we would keep our eyes fixed on the author and perfecter of our faith and also keep our hearts soft and open to continuously receiving His love... We are going because of Him. We are going to be his hands and feet and to see Jesus in the eyes of every man, woman and child that we have the privilege to meet. We can only do this if we first stop every day for Jesus before we stop for the one... Pray that we would dive deep into His heart every day, and lay down and die every day, that He may fill us to overflowing with His love and joy! We love him and he loves us. He loves each of us so incredibly. He loves YOU so inexhaustibly.

Visas - favour as well as everything to go smoothly with getting documents in time etc. Most of our visas we will be getting as we go, from country to country.

Finance - for plane tickets, visas, other means of travel, support along the way and to be able to bless the existing ministries and people who we will be serving with as the Lord leads

Unity - genuine love and unity among the team who are going. We are a small group, who will be meeting up with others in various countries. That our hearts would be bound together in the Lord and we really would be like family- loving, supporting and encouraging each other all along the way

Direction - that we would hear completely clearly from the Lord, every step of the way. Pull down any assignments of confusion or uncertainty that have been set against us. Pray for specific keys and divine strategies from the Lord, and boldness to step out in prompt obedience to whatever He leads us to.

Health/family - please continue to lift us up in prayer for divine health and protection for each of us and our families as we travel. Grace for the journey. Nothing we eat shall harm us and nothing we touch can hurt us. Also in some areas there would be varying amounts of demon worship and witchcraft going on. Greater is He who is in us than he who is the world, no weapon formed against us will prosper. We are called to go into some of the darkest places of this world to bring the light of Jesus Christ. The light shines into the darkness and the darkness does not overcome it. The light also exposes and uncovers what is going on in the darkness. We know that we will see many people set free and whole family lines changed forever as we venture in and love on the least of these and those held in spiritual bondage.

Please also continue to pray for preparations for the South/Central America trip!
Some of us will be heading to the US by early august to get things together, however planning has been going on since October 2010 and will continue and only increase as we get closer to leaving. There is much to organise, such as vehicles for the trip, mapping out our trip and making contact with those already in the countries, and various other logistics. This is a trip expected to last around a year or longer.

Thank you so much again for your prayers! Because of you many of the worlds unreached people groups will soon be able to be called reached! Even in the place where I did mission school - Pemba, Mozambique the missiologists used to call the local tribal groups almost impossible to reach, yet they are now experiencing revival. Today, so many of these people in Asia and the Americas have never even heard the name Jesus, and many are dying every single day without having heard of the only one who can give them eternal life and joy and love every day of their lives here on earth. You may not be able to go yourself but know that your prayers are powerful and are changing lives all over the world :)

If you would like to be put on my mailing list for receiving news/prayer points specifically about these trips or any further trips, please email me at serena xh@gmail.com - take away the space in between serena and xh

If you would like to give anything financially towards these ministry trips, click on this link here: http://adventureswjc.blogspot.com/p/give-to-adventure.html

Central America - Revival, Awakenings, and the Movings of God

What is He doing in this region?
We want to know what God is up to in this region of the world. We would like to have our 'finger on the pulse' so to speak and report the works of God back to the Body of Christ to build courage and faith.

Report to us what you know by emailing our news editor at news@thissideofthecross.com