God's revival agenda seems to be picking up at my own local church lately. We have been having great services. It is not uncommon for God's tangible presence to enter the service during worship and we often have angels at the services. More and more people are seeing and sensing them. We are seeing some physical healings, but not as many as we would like to see. We are seeing people set free from bondages of the enemy. Our youth are starting to get on fire for God. A lot of good stuff has been happening for a long time now. And God seems to be pouring into our area, the San Francisco Bay Area. We have seen a lot of really powerful and anointed ministers come through this area, such as Randy Clark, Heidi Baker, John Paul Jackson and many others.

But this weekend was a turning point of sorts for our own church. The Lord sent two world class leaders to minister at our church this weekend. First, Che Ann came and spoke/ministered at a 24 hour worship and intercession assembly on Friday night. Then on Sunday morning, Omar Olier, one of the primary leaders in the Argentine revival, came and ministered in our Sunday morning service.

The Sunday morning worship was very powerful, a bit more of a celebration than usual. I think people were still overflowing from the 24-hour worship and intercession assembly, because we had a lot more people up front with flags and worship hoops than usual. God's presence was very noticeable in the worship!

Personally, I came exhausted but with great anticipation. I have been extremely busy getting ready to leave for Mozambique in a week and also to do a workshop at a conference before I go. (I had only been able to come for a couple of hours Friday night to the assembly because I had to spend time with my husband before I leave for three weeks, and I am trying to get so much done before I go that I have not had a lot of time for sleep.) But when the worship started, a refreshing came over me. I found myself dancing and worshiping very enthusiastically. Later in the worship I ended up on my face before God and was overwhelmed with His presence. I was sorry to see the worship end, even though I was looking forward to our guest speaker.

I have to explain something about my personal motivations when I go to meetings where people have a strong anointing. I don't usually come looking to be ministered to, I usually come looking to God for an impartation of that anointing into my life. It is true that I needed a healing -- my elbow has been very painful for quite a while now, and recently started having cortisone shots in it. In fact, I had an appointment the following Wednesday for another cortisone shot. It hurt, but I was not there looking for a healing -- I wanted an impartation.

Omar started with some sort of fun hype stuff to engage the people. It was not at all manipulative, but it was fun. He explained that in Argentina the pastor says the first three syllables of Allelujah and the crowd finishes it with "jah!!!" It was sort of like a cheer at a sporting event. We did it several times, and were encouraged to raise both hands on the "jah!!" .. stuff like that. It was fun and Jesus was edified in it, since teh word Allelujah means "praise God."

Then Omar explained that in Argentina they pray for the sick first. If God shows up and there are miracles, then they preach afterwards. If God does not show up, then they don't preach.. they go home because if God is not there, they don't want to be there either.

Then Omar asked anyone who needed a healing to come forward to the front. Several went up there. I was sitting in the front row, so I was very close to the action. I did not go up myself at that point because I was not thinking about my sore elbow at that moment. One of the team traveling with Omar leaned over to me and asked if there was a teenage girl in the congregation who was partially paralyzed on one side. He had a word of knowledge regarding her. We had a girl with that condition, so I went and got her. She was also sitting in the front row, but was not up front in the "healing" area. So I went and got her and brought her up front.

She was a bit shy, so I stayed there with her and we ended up in the middle of the crowd. Omar began asking people what they were up there for and brought a few on to the stage. One lady had one arm shorter than the other. Omar prayed for her and God lengthened her arm. Then Tony came limping up on his cane. We all know Tony well, he had a bone infection that required surgery and left his leg in a very bad state. He could barely walk with the cane. Omar sat him in a chair and measured his legs... one was 3 inches longer than the other. This was no surprise to Tony, his physical therapist had already told him about that. People rushed to the stage and crowded in around Tony as they prayed for him, especially the youth. I could not see his leg grow because of the crowd, but from everyone's reaction, it became clear that his leg had grown out. I had seen the one leg shorter than the other before the folks crowded around him. Tony ended up leaving his cane on the platform and walking off with only a very slight limp.

Then Omar came to pray for one of our seniors who was in a wheelchair. She is 96 years old and very sweet and a committed prayer warrior. He prayed for her and a spirit of confusion came over her, so that she could not understand simple commands that he was giving her, like "look at me" or "lift your knee." He mentioned that the enemy was confusing her mind, but he did not cast anything out. He had been casting out spirits on the others that he prayed for. She did not appear to be healed.

Omar suddenly changed direction and asked everyone with flat feet to come on the platform and had chairs put there and asked them to sit down in them and take off their shoes. While they were getting organized on that, he called out several words of knowledge of conditions God would heal and people came forward. Then he called out my elbow condition, so I left the youth I was with and went to the very front. He had me stand directly in front of the platform, just to his right. Some others were there as well. A lady with a hernia and many other conditions. Then he prayed and asked God to grow back the arches and some (not all) had arches form where the flat part had been. It was exciting to watch. I had a very good view because I was standing right in front of the platform with no one in front of me. Then he told us to put our hand on the part that needed healing and he began to pray for God to come and touch us. I glanced at the youth... she was covering her partially paralyzed hand with her good one. I put my hand on my sore elbow but I was really praying intently for God to heal this youth lady.

Suddenly I felt God's power surging through me. An instant later, Omar put his hand on my head and was saying, very loud, "Receive, Receive" in Spanish. I cried out as the power surged through me and shortly afterwards I ended up falling. I knew we weren't using catchers and I promise you, it was NOT a courtesy fall, because there was no one to catch me. My sore elbow was the first thing to hit the ground and it did not hurt at all. I remember being amazed by that because it should have been excruciatingly painful. (just bumping it lightly hurts a lot, and that was much more than a light bump).

I did not think about it for long, because God was speaking to me. He told me that this was more than a healing, it was an impartation! I was very excited about that and I was thanking Him a lot, because that was what I wanted more than anything else from this service. I wanted to just stay down there for a long time and stay in His presence. But I was laying on some youth's foot (he was sitting on the platform) and I decided I better get up as soon as I could. So I stood back up.

Omar had apparently prayed for a few others, but now he was back on the platform and asking us to put our hands in our mouth and pray for God to fill any cavities, etc. Some people got miracle fillings -- one of them was a lady who is on staff with the church. Omar had a little flashlight and had them open their mouth and several people crowded around to get a look at what God had done. I noticed one of our young ladies was crying, and she was not very far from me. So I motioned her over and asked her what was wrong. She had not received the healing she desired and she was very sad about it. The enemy was trying to come in with condemnation and tell her that she had done something wrong and that was why she was passed by.

We talked about Romans 8:1 and then we rebuked the spirit of condemnation that was trying to attack her. Right as I was praying for her, Omar came up and put his hand on her head and began commanding rejection to come out of her. This is very amazing because he does not speak English -- he used an interpreter to speak to us. No one asked us anything and no one interpreted anything, he just saw in the spirit what was attacking her and he ministered to her. It was very much a God thing.

She went down. Brenda and I went over to her and prayed with her a bit as God continued to minister to her. He was doing some very deep things in her. So Brenda and I told her to stay down as long as she needed to and we'd stay with her. The others all went back to their seats, but she was still out under the power, so Brenda and I stayed with her.

Omar said it was 1:45, very late, and asked us what we wanted to do. I said, "We want more of God!" Omar said OK and he began to preach. I was half watching and praying for the young lady I was with and trying to listen to the teaching. It was really good on various mountains that people faced -- Noah on the mountain of covenant, Abraham on the mountain of sacrifice, Moses on the mountain of covenant, several different mountains that Jesus was on (the sermon on the mount was the revelation of God's nature to others, the mount of transfiguration, He died for us on Calvary the mountain of redemption). Omar mentioned several other mountains as well but I could not take notes because I was still up front with the young lady. So I don't remember them all. Then he told us that we must individually take our mountain before we as a group could take the city for God. Some of us had sicknesses to overcome, some financial oppression, etc. We need to learn to stand in faith and take our own mountains as well as to corporately take our city for God. The gospel is not just words, it is the demonstration of God's power. So we need to get His power and victory in our own lives as well as taking His power to the lost.

There were lots of other good things he said. I am going to get the tape and listen to it again.

He did say one very important thing to us. He said that God was leaving a deposit of this healing anointing in our sanctuary for the next seven days. Something in my spirit clicked and I knew we had to open the sanctuary and take advantage of this deposit over the next several days.

After he preached, he had to leave because he had to speak somewhere else. But we had a ministry time that lasted until after 3 PM. Several left shortly after the speaker did, because it was late and they had plans. The youth who I had dragged up had begun to dance with a flag as the worship music played. God's anointing came on her in an incredible way and many of us were drawn to watch her dance. I have seen her dance before, but this was different. She looked like a skilled/trained dancer gracefully doing a routine she had previously choreographed. But I knew her, I knew she was a not a dancer and did not have choreographed routines. The anointing was on her very strongly and I also noticed that others were blessed by her dance.

As she danced, her paralyzed parts all functioned properly and the anointing on her was so strong that I felt ministered to just watching her dance. After she finished dancing I went over to her. We talked for a few minutes.. and after she stopped dancing she had the minor paralysis again, but her spirit was radiant. She is normally a quiet/shy girl, but she was just radiant in His spirit. I prayed for her, a blessing and the overflow that was on her began to run through my arms and up my hands and I could hardly remain standing. I told her it was fun praying for her because I was getting blessed by her overflow. She told me that while she was dancing God told her that others would be touched by the overflow of His spirit on her.

I did notice a few things from Omar's ministry. He seemed to "test the waters" in healing. He began with significant things but not the hardest things. He kept building to "harder" or "bigger miracle" healings until he hit one who was not healed. I had a sense that he was testing the waters and getting a sense of what the "ceiling" was on the anointing that was present. Then once the lady was not healed, he dropped to a simple healing of praying for people with flat feet and watching arches grow back .. a basic sort of healing that is easily observable and builds faith in the room. After that, he began praying for other ailments. Many were healed, some totally and some partially.

For instance, George had minor surgery on his left shoulder on Wednesday. He was very sore from the surgical incision. He was prayed for and he said that 60% of the pain, tenderness and swelling left. The lady with the hernia was healed of that and of several other things. She left a written testimony that Rodney read to John and I after service.

I also noticed that Omar did a lot of deliverance while he was doing healing. I would say that in at least 2/3 of the cases, he rebuked spirits and commanded them to leave. In the other cases he would tell people to receive their healing.

After service, I went up to Rodney and John, two of our staff pastors. I shared my impression that we should have the sanctuary open as much as possible since Omar told us that God left the anointing for the next 7 days. They both felt the same way. Monday was already our monthly healing room, so that was already set up to capitalize on this deposit of anointing. Tuesday is normally a recovery program for those seeking emotional wholeness. John runs that program. He said that they'd pray for the sick this week to capitalize on the anointing. If there is time afterwards, then they'd do their regular program. And on Wednesday the youth worship team practices. Rodney suggested we have an "open auditorium" where people could come in and soak in the anointing as the team practices, and maybe some of us will be there to pray for the sick on Wed as well. It will be exciting to see what God will do over this next week.

After service finally ended, we had a missions committee meeting. At that meeting, I shared what God had done for my elbow in the meeting and to demonstrate the healing, I bumped it hard on the table. It hurt when I bumped it. I was very surprised by that, I had assumed it was 100% better. But it stayed a little sore after my "demonstration." It is still a little sore today, but majorly better than before the prayer. I guess maybe it wasn't such a smart idea to push the limits on the healing that hard by intentionally smacking it hard on the table. I am going to see if God will fix it the rest of the way during the week while I am praying for people at church and capitalizing on the healing deposit God left there for this next week.