One in a million

A couple of Thursdays ago, we were talking to people around the hospital here in Perth. Luke met a man named Sam (name changed for his privacy), who was in a wheelchair.  He chatted with him a bit while he (Sam) smoked and then accompanied him up to his hospital room.  They sat together and talked for an hour. Sam shared the difficult things that he has been through in life and Luke told him how much God cares.  Sam admitted that he usually wasn't very open to talking about God stuff; he used to be religious but went astray because of alcohol and painful situations he had been through.   He was open to receive prayer, so Luke prayed for him.

The next week I (Claire) randomly ran into Sam as well. We chatted for twenty minutes before we realized who each other was: "Last week a guy was telling me about God. It really helped me alot. He had a beard and his name was Luke."  "That's my husband!"  I was just as shocked as Sam at the "coincidence."  We talked for a while and then agreed to see him the next day before he would be released from hospital (returning to his home about 200 km away).  Luke and I went to visit him, prayed for him and gave him a Bible.  He said both weeks he had been in a really tough spot, wondering if life was worth living anymore, and that us caring for him and sharing about God had really lifted his spirits. 

God is an amazingly persistent pursuer of people.

Movie makers in our midst

Wongi Warrior premiered last night in YWAM Perth 

This extremely well done 45 minute movie was made by our fellow YWAMers here in Perth. It addresses issues of racism, violence, teen suicide, reconciliation, and forgiveness as it follows a boy's drawings and recollections of his life and the life of his grandfather - a war hero, who fought in WWII.  The vision of this movie is to bring honour and dignity to Aboriginal people, in particular the Wongi people, while also being a platform for conversation and healing about the issues that they face today. 

These "movie makers" are not professional and had no real budget to work with. But they relied on God every step of the way and it is by far one of the best made films I've ever seen. 

God is a vision-giver and the one that makes it happen! 

Monk meets Jesus

This week is report back week at YWAM Perth.  Schools shared testimonies from outreach to nations such as Uganda, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Nepal and others.

Here's an amazing testimony from Laos:

"This one day in Laos, it was the three of us and we were about to go out and we decided to pray and we got a picture of a monk standing in front of some flag poles and Natalie got a word about a wounded heart. There was a temple down the road, across the street from a place with flagpoles, and so we were like "let's go there." We talked to a monk who didn't speak English but he went and found a monk who did. So we asked him, "Do you have time? Can we chat with you?" He was like "sure, sure." So we went into the temple. So we chatted with him a bit, asked him what he believed.  Then Natalie just went for it and started talking about Jesus and at first he was really defensive, but then she started telling him about the word she got about a wounded heart and his whole face softened. And in the end we asked if we could pray for him and the Holy Spirit hit him and we got some scriptures for him and stuff.  Then we gave him a Bible and said we'd come and visit him again... When we went back to visit, to see if he had any questions about what he'd been reading we found out he had been showing all the other monks the Bible and telling them all the stories and everything. Then we came back the last time to follow up with him and we asked him "do you want to accept Jesus?" And he did, so we prayed for him and he gave his heart to the Lord right there in the temple in front of this massive Buddha statue.  He told us he wanted to accept Jesus the first time we came to visit.  He said when we prayed for him that first time he saw a picture of Jesus welcoming him home. Then another time when we prayed for him he saw a picture of Jesus accepting him, hugging him."

- From the School of Worship, YWAM Perth