I came early to help prepare the tent for the meeting, and I got an extra blessing for coming early. My job was helping to straighten the folding chairs into nice neat rows. It turned out to be hot sweaty work, but while I worked this heart of gratitude was springing up in me. I had a strong sense of the Lord's pleasure on myself and the others as we helped get His house ready for the meeting. At one point, I noticed a lady who was vacuuming near where I was straightening chairs. Gold dust formed on her arms as she worked. It was as if the Lord were giving an extra anointing/impartation to those who served. I ended up getting really blessed in just serving Him that way.
There were assorted volunteer meetings (the usher training at 4:45 and the prayer team training at 5:30). There were so many things to keep me busy that the time just flew by. And when I wasn't busy with meetings, there were people to help. I had a "Volunteer" badge and I also had a "Ministry Team" badge. For some reason, people kept grabbing me and asking me for assorted things. One lady asked me where the special seating was for pastors (and there isn't any). Many had logistical questions and a few had complaints. The philosophy of the Fresh Fire Ministry is that they treat everyone with love and respect, and do all they can to let everyone have a good experience at the meeting. I felt the same motivation as I answered people's questions. I was amazed at the number of people who came to me for some type of assistance or another. I was equally amazed that I actually knew the answers to most of their assorted questions. I had been trying (unsuccessfully) for ten minutes to walk up a short aisle of 18 rows. I kept getting stopped by people wanting help.
Just as I finished assisting the last person, a man sitting near where I was standing motioned me over. He said, "Are you on the ministry team?" I said yes. Then he asked me to pray for his friend--an Indian looking lady who was from Indonesia. I asked her what she wanted prayer for, and she said that she needed a deliverance. So I took her to the back section (which was not very populated yet) and ministered to her. The lady really had a heart for the Lord and had already dealt with most of the stuff that demons hang on to (unforgiveness, repented sin, etc). So it was really easy to get the demon out. After she was free, I asked the Holy Spirit to fill her and she got slain in the spirit right the middle of the main walkway aisle I wanted to stay with her for a bit, but I was ready late for the ministry team impartation prayer.
The intern in charge of the ministry team prays for impartation for the team members at 6:30 every day. I was late and he was already ministering, so I got at the end of the line and waited for my "turn." I had received the impartation prayer on Thursday and Friday. Others who he prayed for had some pretty strong encounters with God, but I had not sensed much of anything happening to me during that prayer. I really hoped that tonight would be different--maybe the fact that I helped straighten the chairs would "earn" me a stronger impartation.
But when he prayed for me, I felt absolutely nothing. Only two of us didn't go down and I was one of them. I remember praying silently, "Lord, I sure hope this impartation is taking!" I felt a bit concerned that maybe I wasn't getting anything--that I came all this way for impartation and somehow missed it. (This is jumping ahead a bit in the evening's story, but when they did ministry time where they called people to the stage to give testimonies, I prayed for some of the ones who were coming up for prayer instead of with a testimony. I prayed for 5 or 6 people. One of them was not healed at all, but the others were all totally healed! I realized that the impartation must be taking even if I did not manifest or feel anything.)
When worship started, it was more crowded than usual, which distracted me and made it difficult for me to enter into the worship. Also, that camera on the mechanical arm kept ending up near me (one time I opened my eyes and it was only a few inches from my face). I wanted to worship, but the distractions left me feeling frustrated instead. I apologized to God about that, and asked the Holy Spirit to help me worship better. He said, "Ok, let Me give you a logistical suggestion that will help you. Move to the back of the tent, where is is less crowded and where there are less distractions."
I turned and looked at the back of the tent. They had opened the seats in the back part, but not very many people were there yet. That meant there was a lot of room. I moved to the "front" of the back section, and it was so much easier to enter into worship. At one point I felt something touching my left cheek. I shook my head, thinking that it was a fly or something. Only it wasn't a fly; it was an angel. The angel has some sort of salve on his finger and he was placing it on my eye. I jumped the way a person jumps when someone startles them.
The angel reminded me of how God had told me He was going to send an angel to anoint my eyes. He also told me not to be afraid, and he asked me to just keep worshiping God as he worked. I tried to obey, but I was keenly aware of what the angel was doing. He put the balm in my right eye. At first it felt like sort of like when you put a damp washcloth over your eyes, and I could not see anything. Then my eyes really began to ache. I felt alarmed and asked God if this was really an angel from Him, or was it a demon pretending to be an angel in order to harm me.
God spoke to me in that still-small voice and told me to trust Him. I could feel an increased sense of His presence around me, and the alarm drained out of me. I continued to worship with the songs they were singing, even though I could not see the words on the screen because of the salve on my eyes. Oddly, I was able to enter very deeply into worship in this state.
A little while later, the angel came back and touched something hot to my eyes. I felt the heat, but it did not hurt. In fact, the caused the ache from the balm to go away. Since I had not been able to see, I had closed my eyes tightly. I opened them and I saw the angel standing next to me, holding a flaming sword. I was startled and sort of jumped back a bit, but the angel put his other arm behind me to keep me from moving very far.
He said, "I am not here to hurt you, but to anoint your eyes so that you will be better able to see what your Heavenly Father is doing. He has sent me to you to anoint your eyes three times... once with healing balm, once with fire, and third time will be with Heavenly oil."
Then the angel left. I had sort of expected him to do the third anointing that he talked about, but that hadn't happened. "Lord," I prayed silently, "I don't know what to do or how to respond to You right now."
"Just worship Me, Teresa. Don't worry about anything else. Trust Me to take care of you." It took me a couple of minutes to go deeply into worship, because I was pondering how the angel was anointing my eyes. I was reminded of the verse where the angel had touched the burning coal from the alter to Isaiah's lips, and I realized that this was not all that that different. Then I started to feel a tangible sense of the Lord's love on me, and I was able to worship deeply again.
The angel came back a third time, and he anointed my eyes with the oil. Then he told me to open my eyes and look at the platform. I did as he said, and I was amazed. I was way in the back of the room where the faces of the people on the platform were not very distinguishable. But when I opened my eyes and looked, it was as if I were looking through a telescope. I could see the details of the worship teams face as clearly as if I were sitting on the front row. "Wow," I thought to myself, "this is amazing."
But I did not have long to ponder it because the worship leader had brought us to a very high place of worship were were we pleading with the Lord to enter the room and meet us--and His divine presence showed up. I was on my face on the ground in the aisle before Him. His presence in the room was so strong and so tangible, and it seemed like everyone could feel Him "entering" the room. (Well, we know He is everywhere, but a sense of His divine presence came into the room and it "felt" like Jesus was walking in.) There was quiet reverence for a bit and then we moved back into a worship song.
Right then the Lord spoke to me again in that still small voice. He said, "now is the time to call Nikki." (She is very sick young lady in her twenties who goes to my church. God had shown me on Thursday that He wanted me to call her from the meeting when He told me to. So I had emailed Nikki to got her phone number. I had brought the phone (fully charged) with me to Friday's meeting but He did not tell me to call her then. I brought it again tonight, but I'd totally forgotten about it because I was "lost" in the encounter I'd been having with God. Then God said, "Get up and go get your cell phone and call her." So I did as He asked. By the time I got to my seat, they were doing a loud and joyful celebration song and God's presence was still very strong in the room. I could not hear Nikki on the other end, but I assumed she'd answered and I said, "Nikki, this is Teresa and God's presence just came into the meeting in a very tangible way. I am going to just let the cell phone run until the battery runs out."
Then I held the phone up at shoulder height so she could hear the service. I had no idea what God was doing with her. I was still worshiping Him, but not as deeply because I had to stay mindful of holding the phone. I had a real expectation that God would do something for her, and I felt happy and excited about it.
When worship was over, they surprised us and took the offering at the beginning of the meeting instead of at 11:00 when GodTV signs off. All of us ushers jumped up and began scurrying to our assigned sections. Todd lead the offering himself (usually an associate does it). He told us that tonight every penny would go towards a mission trip he is planning, and that we would be sowing into salvations. I don't know how to describe it, but there was an anointing on the offering...and many people in my assigned section were commenting on how they could feel God's presence rest upon them as they made out their offering envelopes. It kind of reminded me of the offering that Moses took to get materials for building the tabernacle, and how joyfully the people gave to God for that.
Once the offering was over, we went back to our seats. I had asked the man sitting behind me to hold the cell phone while I took the offering. I took it back, amazed that the battery still had juice in it. The phone is old/dying and usually a it is only good for 10 to 15 minutes when fully charged. But the phone lasted about 1.5 hours--which I took as a miracle from God.
Saturday was a special service, because Todd was being interviewed by Heraldo on national TV about the Lakeland Revival. They explained that at 9:55 Todd would take the microphone for about ten minutes because it would be a live feed to the Heraldo show airing the meeting. Then Todd would go to his trailer for a one-on-one interview and the meeting would continue without him. Pat King was the guest speaker for that evening. She preached until 9:55 and it was a really good sermon. It was about faith and about God's desire to both heal people physically and set them free from demonic oppression. Todd came to the microphone at the appointed time and we began a miracle service with words of knowledge for healing, and testimonies.
I was assigned to the left side of the stage, so I went to my assignment as soon as Todd called the ministry team up. I did not really get to see or hear what was going on. Instead, I began doing my "job" of interviewing those who came up. Those with testimonies of completed healings were moved to the front of the line so they could go on stage and share their testimony.
Then I (and the 9 other ministry team members) went back to those who were in line because they still needed healing. We pulled them out of line to behind the stage and prayed for them. Everyone who I prayed for (except for one older lady) was 100% healed. Some of the prayers were a bit involved (one was an inner healing and deliverance and it took about 15 minutes). So I only prayed for about 6 people. But it was exciting to see them healed!
Somewhere during all of that Todd had left the stage to go to the interview, and Pat King took over. From my perspective on the left side of the stage praying for people, I could not discern any change in the level of anointing form when Todd was up there and when Pat King was up there.
After the healing ministry, they organized a fire tunnel. I was part of the tunnel, and it was a lot of fun ministering in it. There was so much power and anointing--it wasn't like work manning the tunnel, it was like playing. After everyone had been through the tunnel, they sent the ministry team through it.. the staff stayed in the tunnel to pray for us. It was a short tunnel by the time I got to go through it, but oh, was it powerful! I got so zapped that I wasn't sure which direction I was walking, but someone grabbed my shoulders and pointed me in the right direction.
It was a great night for me!
[ Testimony Index Page ] [ Previous Article ] [ Next Article ]