Holy Given: Leyte International School of MissionsDulag, Leyte, PhilippinesWeek 4: 4 - 10 April, 2009It has been yet another amazing week at Holy Given! Monday:On Monday, we prayed for those who were sick and pressed in for more of His presence. Lesley-Anne taught on Mission in Luke –Acts before we broke into ministry where the Holy Spirit took away the shame of the nation. The students were called to stand in their inheritance and destiny as a nation and released God’s blessings in every area of the nation. Later, we stood up and with one voice declared blessings to the nations in the east, the west, the north and the south!
Tuesday:
One of the students, Pastor Adam, who is from Manila, Luzon has felt called to move to Leyte. He gave a short testimony about how God changed his heart and when he prayed for the region of Visayas the Holy Spirit fell so powerfully. Adam started singing in the spirit and songs of deliverance began to arise from the students. There was deliverance from the demonic and deep healing. As the sound arose, some of us heard loud blasts of the shofar and saw visions of a multitude of dead people rising from their graves and coming back to life. It was such an amazing time, and God's presence was so heavy. Truly, we heard a sound that came from the deep, an ancient sound coming forth in the present.
hg heaven's sound2(sound clip of the Song of Deliverance)
Later we learned about ‘Anthropology for Mission’ and divided into groups to discover about the cultures of England, Hong Kong, Mozambique, New Zealand and Singapore.
Wednesday:
After a brief ‘Introduction to 2/3 World Theology’, Pastor Ferds taught on the history of colonization of the Philippines together with its recent church history. He spoke on the need for tribal reconciliation and unity among Christian denominations. This led the students into deep repentance on behalf of their regions and prayer for unity and reconciliation. We had another Holy Spirit blow out!
Thursday:
We started praying for people who were sick, when we felt God was calling us to press in for more of Him, it was a time of deep calling out to deep. We waited on God for for a while before two students were caught up into an ‘open heaven’ experience. There was a call for all those who were hungry for more of God to receive prayer from those students. Many of us gathered around them. God poured out His Spirit mightily and ministered deep healing to many. Someone had a vision of God taking away the deep pain of Asia (from centuries of wars and killings) and was planting snow drops (flowers) in soil that was steeped in blood. He is renewing the land and the people of Asia from the root of their history. Afterwards, we started Asian theology, looking at ‘Water Buffalo’ theology (i.e. contextualizing the gospel using its culture).
In the evening, we watched the first half of the movie ‘Romero’. This movie was significant, not only because Romero stood for love, peace and justice and was ultimately martyred but because he was a positive Catholic image. In the context of the Philippines, the film challenges their perception of a Catholic leader.
Friday:
We watched the second half of Romero before hearing about ‘Latin American theology’. Pastor Ferds shared his experiences of relations between Catholic and non-Catholic Christians in the Philippines. Afterwards, Lesley-Anne led a time of further repentance, particularly from the impact of Western colonialism, exploitation (including by Western men of Filipino women) and oppression of the Filipinos around the world. It was a humbling, tender and precious time, which ended with us breaking bread and having communion together. As a prophetic act of all the reconciliation that had taken place over the last 2 days (between the different regions in the Philippines, and between the Philippines and various nations), we formed a human cross with the communion table in the centre, symbolizing unity, and cried out with one voice "FREEDOM" for the Philippines!
In the evening, the students put on an all singing, all dancing variety show and invited villagers around Dulag to come and share in the fun. The students are so creative and gifted in singing, music, drama and dancing. The gifts and talents displayed were incredible, it was hard to believe they only had 4 days to prepare! The evening opened with male students serenading the female Holy Given staff with their national love song and presenting flowers to them. The funniest item was a dance by 3 guys with huge heads, performed by students with sacks over their heads with huge faces drawn on them. A woman from a local village joined in the dance impromptu, which was great! The highlight of the evening was the finale, a Unity Dance. All the students performed a series of ethnic tribal dances representative of Mindanao, Luzon, Visayas regions of the Philippines before they came together from the four corners and were unified by Freedom (personified by one of the students).Prayer points:1. God is doing a deep work in the students. Please pray that He will open and stretch the hearts of the students even more, to receive even more of Him! Pray for more freedom! 2. Please pray for a complete healing of the deep pain and shame which we have found to be so prevalent in the students.3. Pray for the restoration of the Filipino sense of identity, and restoration of who God created them to be. 4. As we still have 2 weeks left to the school, please pray for strength for students and staff as we all want to finish the school well!5. 4. We are planning to feed two thousand villagers in the poorest parts of Leyte on April 19. Please pray that God will provide and multiply the resources! Just wait for the updates on this! :)
