3 Weeks Home!

It's been 3 weeks since we arrived home from our our DTS and outreach on the Big Island of Hawaii.  Our time in Hawaii was so rich and stretching in so many ways.  I would have to say living on the YWAM base during the lecture phase was the happiest our family has ever been.  Our cup was filled to overflowing every single day with amazing speakers/teachers of Truth, and being surrounded by young people and older people alike with the same passion to pursue Jesus whole-heartedly. 
Worship will never be the same to us, as when we worshipped Jesus in the prayer room, there was jumping and dancing and worshipping in total reckless abandon to the Lord without the worry of what we looked like when we did it.  Often times announcements were made for us to stop jumping so much in fear of the floor collapsing....haha!  It was fun, just as worshipping our Savior and creator of the free world should be and was meant to be.  Our children had freedom to be children, to run and play after school and come in at sunset covered from head to toe in dirt with black feet, much like it was when we were kids.  They were in an environment of young adults who would speak life to them, encourage them, and show them what it meant to live a life for Jesus. They were treated as equals as far as hearing God's voice and praying for healing over people and they experienced God just as much as we did while they were in Foundation School.  The only words I can think of when I think of our lecture phase is heavenly and bliss.  It was a great time of refreshing in the Lord, being challenged, and quality time spent as a family.  The words that come to mind for outreach portion is stretching, uncomfortable at times, but so good at the same time.  To be honest there were many times during outreach that I was ready to pack a bag and go home, but looking back now I would give anything to be back in it.  Many comforts and "entitlements" were stripped away as our family of 5 lived out of a small motel room for 2 1/2 months.  Our schedule was challenging with our children and our weeks were long as we had 1 day off a week for rest. We spent the first month in Kona where 7 families...24 children and 16 adults....were on our team.  Kona was very much focused on street evangelism.  We had teams that would go out daily, sometimes at night as well, and share the love of Jesus to people on the streets of Kona. All the while, our children were just as much a part of this as we were.  They were with us every step we took.  We took the kids on "treasure hunts" and watched as God led them to people He was pursuing that day.  We watched our 12 year olds lead a heroin addict to Jesus, pray for the filling of the holy spirit within him, and pray deliverance over his addiction.  This young man was a crying mess as he encountered the Father's love and forgiveness out of the obedience of our children and their willingness to listen to God's voice.  It was GLORIOUS!  We spent 2 weeks taking part in a deliverance/freedom ministry called Pure Heart,  ministering to students on base, which we LOVED.  We also took part in a Bible distribution where we handed out over 250 Bibles and shared the gospel with the people in Kona. Many gave their hearts to Jesus during this time and MANY seeds were planted as well.   When heading to Hilo for our second half of our outreach it was totally different.  The spiritual atmosphere in Hilo was totally different.  Kona was home of YWAM where many zealous Christian students on a regular basis go out and pray for people and evangelize in the downtown area.  We experienced first-hand why Jesus used farming parables a lot when He taught.  It just made sense.  You could say that the ground in Kona had been plowed and it seemed the harvest was more ripe.  The ground in Hilo had not been plowed as much so it was a little more difficult to evangelize in Hilo.  We spent a lot of time praying and worshipping outside in Hilo, going on prayer walks around the city and praying for God to change the spiritual atmosphere in Hilo. We still did street evangelism everyday but our focus in Hilo was not only to "save the lost" but it was to "revive the saved."  We worked alongside and served next to 3 churches within Hilo where our team led worship and did some "rapid fire preaching" where we would take turns doing 5 minute sermons in church services.  We led a "24 hour burn" where we prayed and worshipped for 24 hours in unity with several churches in Hilo for God to uncap the ancient wells of revival in Hilo.  This was held in the original church that use to be the largest church in the world where in the 1800s a huge revival took place where over 3/4 of the island gave their hearts to Jesus and turned away from worshipping wooden idols. It was truly something!  One of my favorite outreach experiences was this Burn.  We also hosted a "harp and bowl" worship seminar and taught some of the churches in Hilo how to do "harp and bowl" style worship.  We served in hospital ministry and went into the hospital in Hilo and prayed healing over the sick and just spent time with the lonely.    We were privileged to witness the power of God as we prayed alongside other believers for  a young woman who actually died and God brought her back to life....AMAZING!  Yes, you heard right....He raised her from the dead!  Our children prayed and saw the powerful effects of their prayers. 
We were constantly on the go, and praying for people and focused on only sharing the love of Jesus with people and it was completely wonderful and at the same time exhausting.  Our last week we spent debriefing.  We were rejoined with other teams that were sent out from our school and we listened in awe as powerful testimonies of salvations and crazy healing testimonies were being shared.  In the end, our Fire and Fragrance School led 1,321 people to salvation, prayed for and witnessed 3,184 healings, and shared the gospel with over 14,000 people.    AMAZING!!!!!! We feel so very blessed to have been a part of this.  Our family will never be the same.  We were once sleeping and going through the motions as a normal Christian family in America, but feeling that restless stir that there had to be more.   God used YWAM to wake us up spiritually, remind us of who we are and what our purpose is.  One of our speakers during lecture phase was Brian Brentt.  One question he asked us was "What is your job description in the Kingdom of heaven?" At the time he asked this question I had no idea what my job description was.  I loved Jesus, but I had no idea who He said I was, neither did Aaron.  Now, we not only are awake now, we know our job descriptions.  We no longer sit passive.  We know our purpose and who God says we are! 
These past 3 weeks of being home has been a tough transition.  Aaron went straight into farming, which we are so grateful for!!!  But at the same time, coming back to the same life lived when you just walked off the mountaintop has been challenging. The burning question people keep asking is what's next for us?  The truth is that we have no idea.  We know what we want, but we don't know what to do with it yet.  God hasn't lit up the answer in the sky like He did when He said go to YWAM.  I sure wish He would, but for some reason He hasn't yet.    Thank you to everyone who gave and prayed for our family.  We couldn't have done it without your constant love and support.  We hope more families are encouraged by ours and step into something God is telling them to do. It's always worth it!    Please keep us in your prayers as we pray about and explore options on what is next for our family.    It may seem over, but we know it's only the beginning.  Here we are saying, "Here am I, Lord. Send me. " Speak Lord, Speak!

What's new on outreach on the Big Island?

I know I have been terrible about updating our family blog since being here on the Big Island.  Life has been so busy and we only have our Ipad so it's not as easy to sit down and write things outs. Dts was absolutely amazing.  The awesome in-depth teachings were so rich and life giving to us.  Someone once told me that  doing a YWAM dts like the one we did would be equivalent to being involved and fully discipled in a church for 7 years, with the amount of training on the gospel, and freedom and inner healings we received.  It truly was so worth coming, and I would encourage any young person or family to do a dts.  It's the best decision for our family I think we have made. 

For the past month we have been on the outreach portion of our dts.  Our outreach is here to the Big Island.  The first couple weeks, Aaron was the point leader in a Bible distribution in Kona.  He led our team, alongside other local churches, the Salvation Army, and Ywam leaders to go door to door in distributing a Christian Bible to every home in Kona that wanted one.  In just those couple weeks our team was able to hand out and pray for over 125 people and homes.  I must say, it was really uncomfortable at first going door to door asking people if they wanted a Bible. In my mind, I felt it wasn't going to be effective, and I didn't really like it when someone knocked on my door, but the more we did it, the more we enjoyed it.  Some people were cold towards us, but others invited us in, desperate for conversation and company.  Our first day led us to the door of a woman "T".  "T"  had lost her 19 month baby boy a few weeks earlier to drowning and was so thankful we ended up at her door.  We actually went back a few times and prayed over her, took her dinner and flowers, and just listened to her.  She had 5 broken ribs and couldn't raise her arm at all and after we prayed over her she could raise her arm, and said she didn't feel the constant pain she had been feeling.  Praise Jesus!  My heart goes out to this precious woman who kept her smile in the midst of all of her pain.  Please keep her and her 4 other children in your prayers.  One thing I am learning is that people just want to be heard and to be made to feel as though their life matters.  People's hearts are open, they just are waiting for others to reach out to them and show them the love of Jesus.  

Another thing we did was that our evangelism team went on "treasure hunts".  A treasure hunt is when you pray and ask the holy spirit for "words" or clues to go where He wants us to go.  We have seen many people come to know the Lord through treasure hunts.  Some of our youth prayed one morning and the Lord gave them words such as "book" "Safeway parking lot" and "plumeria tree" and  "arm".  So they headed over to the safe way parking lot, and lo and behold there was a young man ("A") sitting under a plumeria tree reading a book.   When the kids approached him, they were able to share with the young man how they came to find him. "A" just started crying, admitted that he was addicted to heroin and wanted to change.  He shared that his mom was a follower of Jesus, and that he wanted to be too, so our 12 year olds led this heroin addicted young 19 year old to Jesus, prayed for him to be filled with the holy spirit and then prayed deliverance over his heroin addiction and healing over the needles marks that marked up his arm.    
Also for two weeks we had a team who helped minister to two other dts's on campus in a freedom ministry called "Pure Heart".  Aaron and I both served on the Pure Heart team.  We sat in on Tom and Donna Cole's teachings and at the end of the teachings each day there was a time of ministry.  This type of ministry is possibly what I was made for!  I loved every second of it.  Pure heart was designed for those who already have given their hearts to Jesus, but are still being held in bondage by Satan from hurts from our past or guilt from sin in our life.  For instance, some examples may have been  shame of past abortions, or sex addictions or porn addictions, or hatred towards their parents for not being affectionate towards them. Others could've been carrying the shame of being sexually abused by a family member when they were younger, and some were believing the lies of being worthless, or ugly and fat, because of painful words their mom or dad, or old boyfriend had spoken over them at one point in their life.  Walking through this ministry just showed me more than ever how much power our words carry.  These precious kids were just wailing in pain on the floor over words that had been spoken to them that they started to believe about themselves.  Ministry time consisted of praying over them, allowing the holy spirit to pinpoint specific memories or words of pain in their life, allowing them to grieve or be angry at these situations, and leading them through confession and forgiveness and the end result....FREEDOM!  IT WAS BEAUTIFUL!!!! Some kids appearances had physically changed after  they had been set free from these painful secrets, memories or lies that had been believing about themselves.  The Lord had given me a picture in my  mind of all these precious young followers of Jesus. They had given their hearts to the Lord, but all the junk they carried in their hearts kept them chained to a ball and chain around their ankles.  With the chains they were still able to walk with the Lord, but once they received the ministry, I saw the freedom of Jesus come.  He broke the chains off and they were now more free to run with Him instead of walk.  In going through Pure Heart myself I physically felt this freedom, but to be on the other side and to be used by God  to help lead people to their freedom was such an honor.  Words can't describe how amazing and honored we felt to be a part of  such a beautiful thing.  
We get one day a week off on outreach, so we stay pretty busy, but every night we have dinner, and worship on the patio at Uncle Billy's which is located right in front of the strip of Kona. Just about every night we have people walk up curious about what's going on.  We have people join us for dinner, and worship.  We have seen people healed, the saved revived, and hearts being surrendered to Jesus all around our dinner time.  Each night brings something and someone new.   This next week we head over to South Point for a week of refreshing in the Lord.  Going strong 6 days a week with your family, and living out of a small motel room can cause you to feel a bit burned out.  So this week our team will be focusing on being alone with the Lord, resting in Him and getting refreshed and reunified before heading over to Hilo for the next month of ministry time.  I am most excited about Hilo!  In all our praying the Lord has spoke the most about our time in Hilo.  I can't wait to see what He has up his sleeve for us .  Would you please be in  prayer for our team for continued unity and for a time of refreshing in the Lord this next week as we head over to South Point.  Also, for us all to be bold in the Lord, sensitive to the voice of the holy spirit, and to have unoffendable hearts.  Thank you to each and everyone of you that has supported our family and prayed for us.  We love you and are so thankful for each one of you.

Update from Kona!

Hello to all our friends and family,
We miss you all so much and wish we could give you all big hugs and see your smiles, but in the meantime, we are LOVING our time here with YWAM!!! LOVING IT!  One of the best parts is watching our children come alive in Jesus, even Josiah as little as he is.  He is praying for people for healing and walking around saying "hallelujuah," all the time.  Aubrey is really hearing from the Lord and getting words for people and she doesn't even realize she is doing it.  We picked up a couple hitchikers the other day and were able to talk to them about Jesus and pray for them, and they told us they didn't know Him.  When they got out of the car Aubrey was so upset they didn't know Jesus she was nearly in tears.  Her spirit was grieved.  Alyssa is journaling things in her journal about Jesus and writing letters to Him that stun us when we read it.  Things like "Jesus, set a fire in my soul."  She also is seeing things in the spirit and getting in deep conversations with us about Jesus .  Her teachers had a meeting with us to tell us "how wise in the Lord she is beyond her years."  They said wisdom and understanding is "so strong" in her for a child her age.  They are all no longer standing in the corner embarrassed to take part in worship but are totally dancing and singing in freedom now.   As parents, of course our hearts are gushing over for our children.  As for me and Aaron, we didn't fully know why the Lord was bringing us here until we got here.  As the days go by it is becoming more and more clear to us.  For the past 10 years Aaron and I have been involved in the church but have done little to no ministering of the "simple" gospel.  Jesus's commission to us was to go into the world and preach the gospel.  We had not been doing that.  In a nutshell, we came here to wake up spiritually.  To be reminded of why we are here for the time we are here, and to be trained on preaching the gospel to anyone....(no one is too hard!)  Even before we got here, we sensed something big was on the horizon spiritually, and now being here we feel it more than ever before.  God is raising up an army to preach the gospel because we fully believe there is a 3rd great awakening coming, where the harvest will be HUGE!  Loren Cunnigham heard the Lord say "80 million saved in America within the next 7 years and out of that 200,000 missionaries sent out.  "  It's an exciting time to be a Christ follower, and we need to all be ready!  This 200,000 will help usher in the 2nd coming of Jesus.  We believe if we don't see His return our children will.    That's some heavy stuff, and we don't want to be asleep during the most exciting time to be alive as a Christian.  No way! We are grateful for every second of the Lord sending us here for this training.  As some of you may have heard, we are staying in Kona for our outreach time.  We are believing as we serve this community that the Lord is going to send revival here.  Our team has been hearing words "restoring ancient wells of revival"  "reconcilliation", "fill a stadium" etc.  We aren't totally clear yet, but we belive that the Lord may be leading us to start something here like the "One night to Unite" in Wylie.  So you can be praying for connections and clarity in that for our team.  We do also know that we are responsible for hand delivering close to 8,000 bibles to every resident in Kona.  We will also be working with the local highschool, which is supposedly the worst high school in the US, mentoring and tutoring kids, and also working with the Marshallese community here.   The Marshallese are people that were ran off their island by the US government for nuclear bomb testing and relocated here to Hawaii.  Many llive in 3rd world conditions with no running water and are often in conflict with the local Hawaiians, hence the trouble in the high school.  There are many orphans that we we also be working with within that community.  In studying revival history here, we have learned that most have deep roots of Christianity.  This use to be home of the largest Christian church in the world where nearly 3/4 of the island gave their hearts to Jesus.  This is also a sending hub to the nations so it would make sense for God to restore those ancient wells of revival!!!!!   Are you seeing the vision?  I hope so!
We are still in need of monthly or one-time donations. We are asking you to ask God this question if He would have you parnter with us for the remainder of our time here.  And please really take the time and be in prayer for our team.   It consists of 7 families (including the Shocklees and Cottles) 15 adults and 24 children.  
All tax deductible donations for our family can be mailed to: New Hope Christian Church Po Box 118 Wylie, Tx. 75098.  Please do not write our names in the memo part of your check but instead attach a note to it that says "Reeves family YWAM donation"

Mahalo!
Aaron, Stacy, Alyssa, Aubrey, And Josiah Reeves

We're in Kona. It's week 2 and so much has already happened!

We made it to Kona, and are two weeks into our discipleship training school and all I can say is that this is so much more than I could've ever dreamed up.  We, Aaron and I and our children needed this so much more than we ever knew.  Our days are SO busy.  We wake up early, drop our girls off at school, drop Josiah off with his nanny and head to class at 8:00 am.  We have class from 8-12, prayer room from 1-3 and then Wednesdays we have community outreach/service, and Monday and Thursday nights are filled with ministry time in the prayer room and community night as well.  We are so tired and ready for bed by 9:00 most nights because it's really nonstop.  Thankfully they have grace over families, or else I might pass out from exhaustion.  But just to clarify, it's a good exhaustion.  It is SO good here.  Being in the presence of the holy spirit on a regular basis and being surrounded by young people who are so in love and hungry to learn more about Jesus is SO good!  I didn't realize how asleep I was in the spirit until God started to awaken me here.  And this place is so anointed with  His presence that it didn't take long to realize it.   Last week was eye opening to how we were missing the basics of knowing how to share the gospel.  We make it so hard and let things like being passive or afraid of what others might think of us, or fear of being rejected  keep us from sharing it.  It's so simple and we make it so difficult in our minds.  So it was stretching, but amazing as our leaders put us on the spot and had us stand up and pretend the person in front of us didn't know Jesus and we shared the gospel with them.  It really showed us how lacking we were in basic knowledge of the simple gospel.
I know it's hard to say that week 2 was my favorite week, because it's only week 2 now, but I think it will remain my favorite, because this week was a week of being set free of past hurts and words people spoke over us.  This week was Pure Heart week.  It was the most powerful teaching on inner healing I have been a part of  in my Christian walk.  We watched as chains fell off of people's hearts.  Wounds that they didn't even know they were carrying were being healed.  Words do not do this teaching justice.  Every church should have Tom and Donna Cole come do a Pure Heart seminar and the body of Christ would be transformed.  It is SO POWERFUL! Aaron and I had lots of deep rooted hurts uprooted this week. We have gone through many inner healing ministry times in our marriage, but this one has been the most powerful by far.    And in turn, we have been hearing God speak so much more clearly now.  Amazing how that works.  The more junk you get healed from, or the more you become free of Satan's lies that you have believed for so long about yourself, the more you hear God's voice.  You don't have all those lies floating around anymore, so you can hear TRUTH!  Man! It's such good stuff!
One big revelation I got today happened while we were in the prayer room.  We were asking God to give us a bigger revelation of His heart for the lost. He spoke so clearly and I thought to myself "Oh my gosh, why didn't I get this before!!!??" I prayed, ' God, I need your heart for the lost.  Give me a bigger revelation of your heart for those who don't know you.' He answered me and said,"Do you remember how you felt when I broke your heart for orphans? Do you remember crying and crying and your heart breaking for children with no mother or father? Do you remember feeling like your heart was going to explode when you were so broken and so desperate to bring your son home?  Your heart ached until he was home with you."  He said, "that is how I feel about all my children who haven't been adopted into my kingdom yet. " They are all orphans in spirit, and I long to bring them home to me, to be their Father. "  He told me that the spirit of adoption needed to be poured out on all followers of Jesus, so they would understand His heart for those who are spiritually orphaned.  Later He also told me, " Do you remember when you were contacting your congressman, and Senators to help bring Josiah home, and you were so frustrated because you knew that they knew what was going on, but they didn't do anything to help bring him home?"  'Yes, Lord!  I was so frustrated and angry at their passivity.'   He said, "That is how I feel when my followers don't do anything about my children who are spiritually orphaned."  WOW!  In a nutshell the Lord showed me why He allowed us to suffer during our adoption.  It was an utterly agonizing time in our life.  Gut wrenching to the core everyday, until our son was home.  At the time I didn't understand why He was allowing us to go through that,  but now I am so thankful that God used that experience to bring such profound revelation of His heart for the lost.    This is only week 2.  I can't wait to see what week 3 will bring!

We are doing this thing!

 

All 3 families from Texas shipped out all our belongings to Kona last night! 

It should be there shortly after we arrive :)  (prayers)

              WE ARE REALLY DOING THIS THING, Y'ALL!
On a really cool God side note, another family will be caravanning with us from Texas to Cali, to Kona!  That's a total of 24 of us leaving here and road tripping our way to Kona! We will go from Dallas, to Albuquerque, to the Grand Canyon, to Cali, and then fly out from there.  The Wilkins family found us through this blog, and  joined the Fire and Fragrance DTS.....CRAZY!  What's even crazier??? They are from CANADA but happen to be spending Christmas with their family here in the DFW area.  They booked the same flight as us, and will be joining us on our road trip.  It's so wild how God connected our families through modern technology.  We met on the blog and then all 4 families have been communicating through facebook.  This is going to be an adventure for sure with 16 out of the 24 of us being children :)  Our caravan leaves December 27th.  Please keep praying for us!

Candy time 2013!

I am late at posting these, but wanted to show my cute littles off!

An Important Day to Acknowledge An Important Issue!

Today is such an important day to acknowledge.  Not only is it a celebration of the lives of children who use to be orphaned and their lives are now redeemed by God and set in families,  but it's also a day to educate everyone on the huge world-wide orphan crisis that is ever- so- real. May we not see videos like the one below and shed a few tears, and then forget about all the children out there who need someone to step up and be a difference in their lives.  May our hearts be moved to action.  I remember as vivid as it were yesterday, almost 4 years ago, when I was worshipping at my friend Alicia's house with a group of ladies, and singing the song "Hosanna" sung by Brook Frasier( Hillsong). I had sung it a hundred times but this time was different.  I cried out the words to Jesus "Fill my heart and make me clean, open up my eyes to the things unseen, show me how to love like you, have loved me. Break my heart for what breaks yours, everything I am for your kingdom's cause.  As I walk from earth into eternity." This time I was singing it with my whole heart.  I meant it, and  I wanted His heart and to be more like Him, and care about the things  He cares about. His presence fell on me, and I started sobbing.  One of those ugly cries where I couldn't stop. And my heart broke.  From that day on, every time I heard that song, I would sob and cry out "Break my heart for what breaks yours"  with all that I had.  And you know what? He did.  My eyes were really opened for the first time.  I knew about orphans, but from a distance.  I cared enough to feel sad, during a "save the children commercial."  But I remember turning the channel quickly because I didn't want to feel sad, and then  I would forget about it.  Out of sight, out of mind.  Can any of you relate to that?   But then when I started crying out to Jesus to give me more of His heart, it became very real to me.  He broke my heart for the orphan and the fatherless just as His is breaking.  He answered my cries to Him during that song.  My heart broke so much that it was moved to action.  I was a crying mess from then on until the day we brought JoMo home from Ethiopia, and what a blessing that little boy is to our whole family!  That song to this day, still gets me.  I know God FOREVER changed my heart and opened my eyes that day through that song, and I am so grateful He did.  If your church doesn't acknowledge National Orphan Sunday, step up and make them aware. Start the tradition of acknowledging it every year by dedicating a service to bring awareness. It's such an important issue on God's heart. Be the change for at least one or more orphans in this world.  If God can use our family, trust me, He can surely use yours, or you ;)