God Sends Me to the Yukon

I had been invited to come and do a conference on intercession in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory... I knew God was going to do neat things there, but He far exceeded my expections. I wanted to share a few pieces of what He did there...

The first night was ministry team training.. during the worship before the training, I got sort of carried away and began to pray for people and prophesy over them. I ended up ministering to almost eveyone in the room... God showed up powerfully and it was an wonderful time. We had to delay training a bit as more than half the room was out on the floor in the presense of God. We did finally get around to the training and then I turned the ministry team loose to practice on each other...

Friday, Nov 13, 1998 (the First Night of the Conference)

God came in power! There had been a great deal of attack going on around this meeting... I had logged on to the computer to read my email that morning.. and I found that a "hacker" had been attacking the prophetic-school list. This person had sent out pornography in the name of one of the prophets from out list.. and the hacker was so clever that he made it look like it was really coming from her and distrubuted through the prohetic-school list.. but in reality it was a fake that was being distributed through a spam utility. The hacker had also sent out an email, supposedly from me, saying I'd converted to satanism and was dedicating the prophetic-school list to the devil. I had maybe 50 email replies of offended people telling me they were leaving the school because of this, and a few cursed me and condemned me to hell, etc.. some people's reaction to the email generated by this hacker were less than godly... The timing of this "attack" was so obvious.. I was preaching that night on how the enemy tries to disqualify us.. and point 2 was on how Satan sometimes uses false accusations to do destroy our reputation. I was getting the "priviledge" to live my sermon just before I preached it.

At that point God said "Teresa, this is My list and My ministry, and I will protect it". I did what I could, and Paul Gaskin (who assists me as an admin) was a tremendous help. Then God told me to stop working on the list "emergency" and to seek Him about the service that night. He began to tell me how He was going to break bondages off of people that night and set them free.

And He did this bigtime at the meeting!!!

The worship leader that was supposed to fly in here to minister with me was somehow unable to attend and they used a local worship team that had never ministered together before. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong.. they used songs that no one knew, choose too high of a key, etc. People were not worshipping and the poor worship leader (who had a tremendous heart for God) did not know what to do, so she just kept on going and going.. for a solid hour. She had spent all day praying and preparing and she felt devistated that it was not going well. Then the local pastor got up and exhorted people to worship despite it all.. and the next song went much better.

After that ended, I popped up and opened my mouth.. and what came out startled and suprised (and pleased) me. I found myself exhorting the group to worship God and the next thing I knew, I was leading worship (verbally, not singing) The place errupted into worship, their eyes fixed on Jesus and a spontaneuos clap offering started.. so I found myself exhorting the others to join in. Then the Lord had me give a testamony of how He healed me at RHB two weeks before.. of how I could hardly stand up for worship because my back hurt so much from a car accident.. but I had determined in my heart to worship and shortly after the worship was over, God's joy (and laughter) fell on me and He healed my neck/back. I shared how God meets us in worship, how His presense is ushered in and How good things happen when God shows up in the midst of the praises of His people.

They took an offering and did announcements and then I got up to share my teaching... the one I got to "live" part of earlier that day. I don't think I have ever been this dynamic in my whole life. It was not to my own credit.. It was totally God, not me. The life of God was just bursting forth out of me.. wow! I taught from notes, but I hardly looked at them.. and a life and a vivrancy just burst forth (thank you Jesus!!!). His anointing on me made me dynamic and animated ... but MOST IMPORTANT.. God showed up!!! He met people BIGTIME.

We had three special minisry sessions interspirsed in the message.. and God came so powerfully on each. It got to be very late.. I am told people start to leave about 9:00 PM. But I did not finish the message and specific ministry time until 10:30 and not a single person left! WOW! God was good and He was meeting them. BIGTIME!! God was breaking bondages off of people and setting them free... I had so much fun watching Him move and minstering with Him! We had a general ministry time until about midnight.. WOW God was present to meet people. And He released the prophetic through me bigtime.. and that brought a dimension of life.

At the end, the last special call was for those who Satan was burdoning down with false expectations and yokes and bondages of having to perform a certain way (instead of what God was doing). Half the room was up front for this ministry time... and just before I started to pray over them as a group and release the ministry time, God gave me this really powerful prophecy of His liberty on them.. Wow.. People were having trouble staying on their feet as God's word went forth. The emphasis was on God's freedom and liberty and he was spontaneously breaking things off of people as the prophecy was spoken. WOW! I watched what He was doing through me in amazement.. I love how He meets His people! Then the worship leader (who had such a tough evening earlier) really caught God's spirit. She started a catchy song entitled "Freedom" and the level of God's power and anointing went up atleast a whole notch as she released this song.. and folks joined in and God's liberty went forth. I was delighted at the level of power that God came with.. WOW. Our God is such and awesome God.

Sunday Nov 15, 1998

Sunday night was one of the most powerful meetings I have even been in in my life! It was hard to believe God allowed me to be the one who was leading it! WOW.

Worship had been going great. I had been in back praying for people and watching God touch them during worship. There was so much power and anointing that I felt like a child in a toy factory. Then God spoke to me and said, "Teresa, I am present with an anointing to heal."

"That's neat, Lord!" I said.

"Don't just stand there grining," He said, "go up and tell the people."

So I did. I told them God was present with a healing anointing and then invited anyone who needed physical healing to come up. All but about 3 or 4 people in the room came up. I prayed over the group and the power of God was so thick in the room .. it was like electricity. The Lord led me to one person, and I touched him to pray for him.. and he went flying backwards and landed on the ground shaking. 'Wow!' I thought 'This is neat!' All the same, I decided to ask the person what they needed prayer for before I touched them... so I did... the power of God fell on most of them the instant I touched them.. though I did have to soak one or two in prayer for a minute or two... but most of room ended up on the floor, shaking and laughing and crying and otherwise being touched by God. I was not sure what to do next, obviously it was not a good time to start preaching with almost all of the people on the floor... so I went in back and chatted with a lady who had just flown in from Juno Alaska to attend the meetings... she was an observer, not wanting to participate in the ministry time just then. Her husband came over to me and asked me to pray for him, about making a deep commitment to God's Lordship in his life. I prayed for him for about 3 minutes.. not expecting him to mainfest at all... all of the sudden he dropped to the ground so suddenly that the catcher could not catch him. Then he lay there laughing and laughing. His wife looked at me with one of those "What did you do to my husband??" looks. I said something lame like ... "Or, the Lord is touching him..." and she smiled politely then bent down to watch over her husband.

She and her husband and their two daughters had flown out from Juno Alaska because a friend of theirs from Juno had been attending these meetings and sent back such excellent reports of what God was doing there. I want to digress a bit and share his story here.. because the most drastic thing that God did for him happend on Sunday night..

He was a man who was very hungry for God and flew all the way from Juno Alaska to come to the conference. (This was a non-trivial trip for him). This man was your "classical HTR".. or so he seemed. He had a heart for God and was very hungry for God's touch, but was quiet and reserved and very analytical. He was an older man, thin and quite distinguished. He is an elder in some non-charismatic church.. a spiritual leader and one who is careful to test things out before embracing them. He was one who was always analyzing what was going on and what was happening to him.

He was not the type to typically have "manifestations" or to be aware of a tangible touch from God. But he flew out to these meetings because he had a sense that God would meet him there. The first night I prayed for him, not much seemed to happen. The Lord gave me some prophetic stuff for him, which blessed him emensely. He was certainly open to God's touch, but God did not seem to be touching him in the way that the others were being touched.. e.g., he did not a deep sense of God's presense and/or any sort of physical mainfestation. Yet God did a deep work in his heart... and encouraged him through the prophetic word. Some from the ministry team soaked him in prayer and that ministered to him a great deal.

Well, the next night, he came up for prayer again. Again not much appeared to happen during the ministry time. But when I talked to him the next day, he said he had felt very ministered to. God was meeting him in quiet and non-demonstrative ways, which was fine.

But on Sunday night, God lead me to pray that He would bypass the man's mind and touch his heart and spirit. I thought this was an odd prayer, but I was obedient. Then the most unusual thing happened.. I had never seen this before. The man suddenly dropped to the ground and began to roll.. .yes roll.. towards the wall. People had to jump out of his way to avoid being run over. I could not immagine this quiet and distinguished evangelical church elder doing this.. .it certainly was not his style... and I bet you could not have paid him enough money to do something like this. He slammed into the wall and I began to wonder if he was going to hurt himself.. I was not sure what to do about it.. having never seen this before. God told me he would be ok... The man bounced off of the wall and rolled a few feet back towards me, then sort of landed on his stomach and began doing what looked like the breaststroke. Someone near us muttered, "He is swimming in the river." I watched him for a minute or two, praying siliently that God would meet him in a wonderful way. Then I went on to minsiter to someone else. About 1/2 hour later, I glanced over at him.. he had rolled over onto his back and shaking under the power of God.. shaking violently. I got busy praying for more people.. and I glaced back at him an hour later.. he was still shaking violently under the power of God. (It had to be God, because I don't think this thin and frail man would have had the physical stamina to do this on his own strength.)

When he finally got up I asked him what happened.. he did not have words to express it, but said that God had met him. So I asked God what had happened and God said He was shaking some bondages and expectaions off of him and setting him free.

I saw the evidence of that at the next night's meetings. This distingished elder was up with the worship dancers during the worship part of the service, praising the Lord in freedom and liberty. It was such a blessing to watch him worship.. the glory of God over his face and a big smile on his lips. He did not have many manifestations that night (other than being quietly slain in the spirit and filled with the holy laugher for a short while), but it was clear that he sensed God's presence and that God ministered to him. The Lord had met him in a wonderful way... giving him freedom and liberty and a real sense of how much the Lord loves him.

At one point during the service, God had me call people up who wanted to enter into a deep covenent with Him... to give Him Lordship in every area of their lives.. more than half of the room resonded to that invitation, and again the power of God fell on the group. After I finished the last of my teaching for that night, the worship team was playing while we were doing ministry. The Lord led me to go over and pray for the worship leader, as she was at the keyboard. She went down and stayed down the rest of the night, so we swtiched to playing a worship tape on the tape player. (She later told me that this was the most powerful experience she ever had with God.. He really met and and minstered to her.) She was down for well over an hour and when they tried to pick her up after that, she was so drunk in His spirit that she could not stand. It was such a blessing to watch the Lord meet her so deeply!

Sunday night was great. The sick were healed, oppressions fell off of people, they made deep commitments to His Lordship in every area of their lives. God brought His glory in such a marvelous way. He met His people and His anointing flowed freely. After ministry time ended, people stayed and played in His anointing. Various ones who had trouble getting along with each other were "drunk in the spirit" together, holding hands and laughing under His joy. God was so awesome last night! He was present and He was tangible! And His touch was SO good! GLORY!

Monday, Nov 16 (our last night of meetings):

At dinner, just before the service the pastor's wife informed me that she wanted to share for a few (10) minutes before I preached. We got to the service and found that a crucial part of the worship team could not be there that night.. so the worship dragged a bit. Some were so full of the Lord that they did not notice and worshipped with all of their might. The worship team tried to go straight into "high worship" without doing any praise first, and some of the ones at the meeting got "left behind".

As soon as worship was over, I popped up front and spoke a few words of exhortation over the group. I had sent a few prophet friends of mine an email asking them to push into God for a word for the Yukon. Three of them emailed back words... and those words fit together perfectly. The gist of the words was that God had heard their prayers and now He was coming to meet them and releasing His power among them. I read the prophecies to the group. The power of God fell to confirm His words.. people were shaking and crunching and laughing in their seats. I saw the Holy Spirit sweeping through the room, so I invited people to come forward for ministry if words had resignated to them.. almost the whole room came up. I asked the worship team to play something bouncy and then I started to pray a responsive prayer over the group, responding to the promises in the words, making oursevles available as vessels for Him to work through, inviting His presense to fall, etc. WOW did God show up. The entire room was on the floor for about 1/2 hour. God's power came. A man was healed of a physical infirmity (even though we did not pray for healing). God showed up bigtime.

As people began to peel themselves off of the floor, I invited them to be seated and about 5 of them were unable to get up and remained on the floor. It is very unusual for these highly reserved canadians to do something like that, but God was on them!

The pastor's wife got up and began to share. She preaced a very lenghtly (45 minute) offering sermon. After about 20 minutes, some people began to look at their watches, fidgit, look distractedly around the room, etc. After about 30 minutes, I began to feel a bit frustrated with her myself.... she was taking so much time that I would have to substantially trim back or skip my teaching.

Finally after a full 45 minutes, she had them pass the offering basket. Then she looked at me and said "I'm done" and sat down. There was not really any time left to teach. "Lord, what do I do??" I asked silently.

Earlier that day, I had found that I had brought one of my church bulletins to the Yukon with me. It had a joke about Noah's ark in it... a very funny joke. God told me to use the joke and then bring them back into worship. So I shared the joke and folks were laughing their heads off. Then I asked the worship team to come back up and do two really upbeat "Bouncy" songs. Folks went back into worship.

The last of the two songs had a chorus about dancing, shouting and laughing. So I talked briefly about how God wanted us to laugh, dance and shout before Him.. then I asked each person to choose one of these three and as we did the chorus again, to act it out as the chorus got to that part. They had fun and worshipped God. Some choose to leap, some to laugh but most chose to shout.

God came tangibly and seemed to be having fun as well.

After that God told me to have everyone take hands and ask Him to come. We did and He did. Wow, did He come bigtime. Folks were holding hands and various ones began to fall under the spirit or laugh or be touched in some visible way or another. Then I just began to move around the room and pray for those who the Holy Spirit seemed to be pointing out to me. I invited people to pray for each other as they felt led. God was just all over the place and it turned into a powerful meeting. One lady who had been terrified of renewal (she had been there the previous night, looked highly uncomoftable, and left very early) came up and said that she wanted God to touch her. I placed my hand gently on her chest and asked God to reveal Himself to her. The power of God hit her and she went down, laughing in His spirit and so obviously filled with His joy. Each time she got up, she'd hunt me up and want more prayer. But the end of the evening she was praying for others and watching God move through her in power as she prayed.

One teenage boy spent the entire ministry time out under the power of the Holy spirit. He got up almost two hours later and told me that he had a divine encounter with God and had committeed his life to serve God. He felt called to full time ministry and was going to dedicate himself to serving God. He said he was 16, and he was going to contact me in 10 years to let me know God had used him. Wow!

Somehow all of the men ended up on the front left corner of the room, praying for each other and having fun. I called the women together and had them stand in a circle and join hands... and as we began to worship God, He fell.. and the women started falling down and then it became a Holy Spirit free-for-all where the women all started praying for each other. Some were so drunk that they could not even get up, but laid on their belly and grabbed a leg or foot and prayed. Oh did God fall and meet people. The lady from Juno Alaska had not been touched by God in any tanbible way, even though she had been to several renewal meetings, Rodney Howard-Brown meetings, etc. Two of the women near her were praying gently and lovingly for her.. the next thing you knew, she was slain in the spirit and was down for quite a while... a big smile plastered on her face and the peace of God all over her countenance.

By then the men had quieted down. God had me go over to them and call them together and ask them to join hands. Then I prayed over them that they would rise up mighty in God. I asked God to come with His power and release His authority on them, and released them to take their rightful place in the body of Christ. Some of them began to cry out, some to laugh and a few to roar (no one ever told them about roaring). They began to huddle together and pray for each other and it got pretty wild.

About then, I glanced over at the women. They had cleared away some chairs and had all began to dance in the spirit. Most of them were too reserved to dance.. but at that moment they were full of God's freedom and joy and there were worshipping with all of their being. God told me He was releasing His liberty over this group. So I began to cry out "liberty", and they began to pick up the cry.

The men got up and started dancing too. One father was dancing with his two teenage daughters.. the three of them holding hands and doing what looked like a Jewish folk dance. God radiated on the people and they worshipped with all of their might.

It was a solid hour and a half from when the ministry time started until the first person left the meeting. God showed up bigtime and no one wanted to leave. What a wonderful way to end a series of meetings.