I find it much harder to write about a ceremony for myself than to write about the Lord and what He is doing. However, God was definitely present at the ordination ceremony, so I will do my best to write it up...

BACKGROUND

This was a very important event in my life because it was born out of relationship, and relationship has been the key in almost everything God leads me to do. I have been ordained since Sept of 1998, but that ordination was more a matter of receiving credentials to "make me legal" rather than the relationship with accountability and mentoring and support that I desired.

In mid-2000, God began to put it on my heart to have my credentials and ordination out of my home church. I sat on it for a while and then I shared my heart with my pastor. He began to pray and seek God and talk to the Elders of our church. After seeking God on this, they all felt that it was God's will for me to be ordained through my local church. They had a ceremony where they formally set me aside for ministry on Dec 31, 2001, with the intent to ordain me a year later. The date for my formal ordination was Sunday, Feb 9, 2003.

There was another woman in our church who was on staff as the head of our preschool and as the pastor of our children's church. Her name is Marilyn Escoto. She does ministries outside of the church as well, she has a ministry of writing Christian plays and moves very strongly in evangelism. She also needed to be ordained to better do what God has called her to do.

The elders decided to make it a double ordination ceremony, since we mostly have the same friends and relationships. So the double ordination ceremony was set for Feb 9, 2003.

THE CEREMONY

This service had a lot of individualized special touches for me to make it even more special. First, my mother and husband had come, as had my life long friend, Faye. In addition Fred and Nancy had flown in from Flagstaff Arizona to be there. We had lunch that afternoon and spent some time enjoying each other. When I walked in I was greeted with a beautiful corsage made out of white rosebuds and beautiful gold ribbon. And some friends gave me a bouquet of flowers. Later that evening my accountability group (a small group of 4 of us who sort of walk along side of each other and help each other excel in our walk with the Lord) had a special present for me. There were also a lot of special individual touches for Marilyn as well -- so even though it was a shared ceremony, it was also deeply personal for each of us and an incredible blessing.

The ceremony began at 6 PM in the main sanctuary. The sanctuary seats about 200 and it was mostly full, so I am guessing there were about 150 to 180 people there. (But estimating the size of larger groups is not my strong point, so I may be off on that estimate.) We started with some worship. One of the songs they did was one of my all time favorites - Break Dividing Walls. The worship leader knew that was one of my favorites and I believe that song was selected especially for me. I am guessing that one of the songs we did was one of Marilyn's all-time favorites as well, but I haven't had a chance to touch bases with her and ask her. Of course, the Lord's presence was tangible in the worship (as usual). My friend Faye turned to me a couple of times and asked, "Are you sure this is a Baptist church?" (She said she really enjoyed the worship and really enjoyed the ordination service.)

Then Rodney asked both of us to share a little bit about God's call on our life and how He called us into ministry. Marilyn went first and did a very nice job. She shared that the big theme in her life was breaking off enemy bondages and setting people free in Christ. She also shared some of her history and personal experiences.

Then it was my turn. I had prepared some notes with a chronological history of the major events in my life that moved me into ministry. However, I set the notes down and did not use them. I can't remember all of what I shared but I covered some (not all) of the major events in my life that moved me this direction. I had invited the Lord to speak through me when I shared, and He seemed to do that. I will try to recreate what I shared from memory and my notes, but it may not be exactly the same:

I was saved in 1971 at a Southern Baptist Crusade in San Jose California. I accepted Jesus as my Savior but no one told me that He was supposed to be Lord (boss). So I struggled for several years to live the Christian life in my own strength, but I was not very successful at it. Over time I backslid.

In 1991, God began to get a hold of my life again. He told me that this time we were going to do it His way and He must be Lord. I made a commitment to Jesus' Lordship in every area of my life and He began teaching me how to walk it out. In the process He set me free from some bondages and fears. And He made me do a lot of forgiving and releasing of bitterness.

1994 was sort of my year. It started in March at a conference in Oakland where Cindy Jacobs was speaking. At the evening service, she called out several people and ministered to them. She would stand some distance away and point at them and they had been taught that is what they should do and I had no intention of falling should she pray for me. Then she did select me for prayer. She pointed at me and nothing happened. I silently hoped she would not be too disappointed that I had not fallen. She prayed for me for a bit and then she pointed at me again. I had no intention of falling, but to my surprise, I ended up on the ground. The Lord's presence surrounded me while I was there and I had my first experience being in God's tangible presence. I was down for three hours.. it sure did not seem that long from my perspective. When I got up from that experience, I had been changed in two ways: 1) I was more receptive to things of the Spirit and 2) I was hungry for more of God and I cried out to Him over and over again for MORE.

In April, renewal broke out in San Francisco and I went to one of those meetings, where I had another powerful encounter with God. I became "hooked" and was a regular at their nightly meetings for 40 days. They had a short break in the meetings and I went to Toronto to visit the church that this all started from. After that, the San Francisco church held renewal meetings twice a week and I was a regular at them. At first, I was not a member of the prayer team, but was allowed to accompany members and join them in praying with others. I always assumed the anointing came from the prayer team member and none of it was on me. Then one night the lady who I'd been accompanying asked me to pray for her at the end of the evening. I did and to my utter surprise, God touched her powerfully. That was my first experience where God moved through me and I began to realize that He would use me too (not just other people).

I began sharing my renewal experiences on an internet list called new-wine and later served in leadership on that list. I did not know it at the time, but it was my first step towards the internet ministry God was calling me to. In the meantime, I became a member of the prayer team at the renewal meetings and at first I was constantly amazed at how God would move through me. One time He opened a deaf lady's ears when I prayed for her! When this happened, I was even more surprised than the deaf lady was! Over time I got confident that God would show up when I prayed for people.

I got my call to the nations at a meeting in Toronto. My first missions trip after that was with Randy Clark to Moscow in March of 1996. I also went to India in November-December of 1996 with a different renewal ministry. In both cases, God moved powerfully and I saw Him do a lot of signs and wonders as I prayed for people. I ended up doing several other missions trips over the next few years as God opened doors for me to the nations.

In Jan of 1997, there was a crisis on the new-wine list. They had a prophetic sub-list for people learning to move in the prophetic and they decided to cancel it. God had shown me that He wanted a safe place for beginners to learn to prophecy and that it grieved His heart for this to be cancelled. So I started fasting and praying (3 days) in response to that situation. I expected God to make them change their minds and keep the list active. But God had other plans. He told me they were going to cancel the list and I was to start one. I tried to explain to God why that wasn't a very practical idea, but each time I presented Him with an objection, He presented me with a solution to it. I eventually ran out of objections and was forced to obey Him and start the list. I did not realize it at that time, but this was the start of the GodSpeak ministry. God really blessed the ministry and by the middle of the year, it became apparent that I would have to incorporate as a non-profit organization and GodSpeak was formally birthed.

I had moved lightly in the prophetic -- often prophetically praying people's "prayer closet" prayers over them in renewal meetings, giving the occasional corporate word, etc. But that changed dramatically in Nov of 1997 when God gave me the gift of prophecy as a birthday gift. The following month He sent me to Christian International (Bill Hamon's org) where I received prophetic impartation with the laying on of hands at their Friday night school of prophecy. Suddenly my prophetic changed drastically and I found myself moving at a whole new level of clarity, accuracy, detail and power. In Jan of 1998, we offered our first online interactive prophetic class. It was team taught by various members of the prophetic-school leadership core. This was another major turning point in the Godspeak ministry.

In March of 1998, I had my first preaching and ministry engagement, with speaking engagements in Mobile Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. My first speaking engagement was almost my last. I thought I was going to speak to a small group of intercessors and had prepared a nice interactive talk. I did not find out that I had been misinformed until 20 minutes before the service began. It was a large church full over 500 people! Things could not have gone worse if I purposely tried to be bad. I am surprised they did not throw me out of the pulpit -- I was so awkward and I even dropped my speaking notes in the middle of my sermon and could not get the unnumbered pages back in the right order. I was so embarrassed.

I told God that I would like to cancel the next night's speaking engagement at a prophetic school in Alabama. God had other plans. He suggested "How about you and I do it together instead?" I really did not have any choice, so I took Him up on His offer. And God came through for me big time. It was amazing and powerful -- a day and night difference from the previous evening. I learned to invite God into all of my speaking engagements from that day forward!

In Nov of 1998, I had my first invitation to be the main speaker at a conference. I had a lot of fear and trepidation -- what if God did not show up? What if I messed up? What if I tried to prophecy and did not get anything? What if there was not any anointing? All of my fears were groundless -- God showed up in a very big way. From this I learned that when He sends me out, He will go with me and back me up.

I had a significant mission/ministry trip to Cape town, South Africa. This was my first time bringing a missions/ministry team with me. Revival broke out in the colored churches while we were there. God did incredible things -- people were set free from enemy bondages, they were set on fire for God, and there were some very interesting supernatural manifestations at the meetings. The revival continued long after we went home. Six months later, I was asked to come back to the same place and minister into the revival that was still going on there. I brought a different team with me this time, and the emphasis of the teaching and ministry was on the prophetic.

God had been speaking to me to write a book on Hearing God's Voice. I never quite got started on it because I had no idea how to go about finding a publisher. Then God wanted to know why I had not obeyed Him and started the book. I told Him my concern about finding a publisher. He said, "If I give you a publisher, then will you write the book?" I said yes.

In Feb of 2000, I went to Florida to teach on the prophetic at a church that two of my intercessors attended. The little prophetic conference went really well, and as it happened Lee Grady of Charisma Magazine was there. He liked my teaching and he asked me to write an article for Charisma Magazine. That article led to Strang Publications contacting me and asking me to write a book for Charisma House Publications on Hearing God's Voice. The book was published in March of 2001.

For several years now, I had been working full time as a software engineer and having a second full time job to head GodSpeak International and minister itinerately. After a while it got quite exhausting to hold two full time jobs. So I began crying out to God to pay me for ministry so I could quit my secular job. I envisioned enough money coming into the ministry that I could start paying myself a salary and quit my secular job. But God had other plans. I was laid off from my software engineering job on Sept 18, 2002. This happened a couple of days before I was supposed to leave for a missions trip to Brazil with the pastors of my church. While I was in Brazil, God began to make it clear to me that the reason GodSpeak was unable to support me was because I had a spirit of poverty in ministry mentality in ministry, and because I was not doing any fund raising. He made it clear to me that He wanted me solely in full time ministry and not working a secular job. After we got back from Brazil, I consulted with my mentors and the GodSpeak board and they confirmed what God was speaking to me. So I ended up taking the step of faith and launching into being supported by the ministry instead of having a secular job to "Pay the bills." So far, God has been supplying and He has been opening doors for me.

The earmark of the ministry that He has called me to is that He is the One Who does everything, and I am sort of along for the ride. It has been a ministry of letting God move and watching in awe to see what He does. I am learning to see what the Father is doing and then do it with Him. But it is His ministry, not mine, and I am committed to do every aspect of ministry His way at His leading.

After I shared, Rodney (our senior pastor) gave a commission to both of us. Part of that commission was to remain faithful and keep persevering even when things get difficult. We were encouraged to hold fast to the faith and not allow ourselves to become discouraged or weary of doing well. We were also both commissioned to preach the gospel and share the good news of what Jesus did. And we were commissioned to go forward in His power and anointing.

Then Rodney had them put two chairs up front. He had Marilyn and I sit in them and had the elders of the church come up to pray for us and lay hands on us. John and Larry started praying for Marilyn and Rodney started praying for me. The first thing Rodney did was to prophecy something that had been spoken over me by two different prophets in the past that I'd never told anyone about. Then he prayed and blessed me. One of the things that Rodney did was to impart "everything" he has (giftings/anointings-wise) into me. Rodney is recognized as an apostle in our area, and he is incredibly gifted. So that impartation was very significant to me. I did not feel any physical manifestations, but my innermost being strongly sensed that something important was happening in the spirit as he prayed that.

[After the service was over, Fred told me what he saw while Rodney prayed for me. There are two angels that have been hanging out in our services for several months now.. many of us in the congregation have seen or sensed them. Fred saw both of those angels when he visited the Sunday morning service and he described them in a way that matches what we've seen. Fred saw them again while Rodney prayed for me. One of those angels came up to where we were and started putting a bunch of things on me, pieces of armor, weapons and various other things. Fred could not hear what Rodney was praying over me, but what he saw in the spirit matched the impartation Rodney was doing! I thought that was so neat!]

After a little while, they switched. Larry and John came to pray for me and Rodney went to pray for Marilyn. John also had a short prophecy. I was very blessed by it. Then it got sort of hard to keep track of who was praying what. It was all very wonderful and it very much lined up with things God had spoken to me and things that God had put on my heart.

There were several pastors from the area attending the ordination service. After the elders finished, Rodney invited the other pastors attending the service to come up and lay hands on us and bless us. That was a powerful experience! I have no idea how long that lasted because I was practically caught up into the heavenlies. I was very blessed. After that, Rodney invited our accountability group members to come up and pray for us. (Both Marilyn and I belong to a small group of women leaders in the church. We call these groups accountability groups and one of the main purposes of them is to help each other stay strong and healthy in our walk with the Lord.) Marilyn and I are in two different groups, so we were both blessed by our groups at the same time. Again there was power and prophetic words and I was so blessed I could hardly stand it. After that, Rodney invited everyone from the congregation to come up and bless us and lay hands on us. By the time it was all over, I felt so full that I thought I would burst.

They had a reception for us after the ceremony with three types of cake. Several people came up to congratulate me and wish me well. It was a lot of fun. In addition to all of the incredible blessings and prayers and prophetic words, I was also given some very nice presents!

This ordination ceremony was a wonderful experience for me. I had so much fun at it, and I think that God imparted the anointings and giftings of my church into me during this ordination ceremony. I am so blessed by this!