A Trip to Kansas City / The First Week

On October 29th my wife Linda and myself, were privileged to board a train and take a 2 week trip to the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. The following is a daily accounting of that trip. Although created primarily for the staff at the Salem House of Prayer, I have been asked repeatedly if I would send it out so that others might enjoy it as well. So here it is. I will send it out a day at a time, so it will be easier to digest. I hope it is a blessing to you.

Jim Moore – Salem House of Prayer

Its 8:27 am on the Kansas City Chief Train to Chicago. It’s a blustery day and I’m still a bit droopy eyed. My lovely Linda is sleeping in the seat next to me, and behind us is a man speaking what sounds like Arabic on his cell phone. I thought I would record some reflections on our return to Salem, from KC.

A few months ago, we began to take seriously an invitation we received in phone interview with Mike Bickle, the founder and Director of the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. During the interview Mike had graciously stated: “come and recruit as many as you’d like!” That is, to recruit Intercessory Missionaries to come to Salem Oregon and help us here at SHOP. That’s our acronym for the Salem House of Prayer, and admittedly brazen attempt at duplicating some of the wonderful attributes of a day and night prayer model that IHOP has pioneered for the rest of us. We’ve been doing our HOP for about 7 years now.

Two beautiful Nuns dressed in white and blue, just passed by us in the isle, reminding me of the concern that some have about the apparent monastic nature of IHOP. But more of that later (maybe…if I really feel like discussing a controversy). IHOP is a wonderful place where prayer has gone on around the clock, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for 10 full years now. An amazing accomplishment. It is a place where the Presence of the Lord is so thick sometimes, you can’t seem to even move well. About 7 years ago we wanted that too, and decided to say yes to the invitation of the Lord, to partner with Him in building a House of Prayer in Salem, the “City of Peace”.

Mike Bickle had given us this invitation to come, via a phone interview with He and Misty Edwards and Daniel Kim. He found out that there was a HOP in Salem Oregon that had been going 24/7 for a year, and was so excited about it. He gave us the invitation to come genuinely, as he has done too so many others before us. I am not sure how many have ever taken him up on it, but some no doubt have. It’s been a kind of genuine but generic invitation, because his heart is not to hold onto people…intercessors to be precise…but to release them into the kingdom to grow other houses of prayer.

I had heard this invitation on tapes and CD’s before and never took the idea too seriously, and was pretty sure that there was no real structure set up to come and recruit. Most of what I had heard happening along those lines, were from people who had the privilege to go and spend an extended seasons at IHOP, building face to face relationships and sharing vision for a city or region. We had been given no such privilege, even though we would have loved to come and be there for 6 months to a year.

So there we were in the board meeting at SHOP a year later, discussing if it might really be the Lord for us to go. As I said, we had been thinking about it for months, and beginning to wonder if the Lord might be prompting us. Finally, one of our leaders, Deborah Huber, made a prophetic statement:

“I believe that there are people at IHOP who are in training right now, so that they can come and serve at SHOP.”

There was both power and faith on her words. It felt like what she was saying was really from the Lord. Even so, I still did not really have the faith for it. The typical missing things, no time, no money, and no direct word of the Lord. Until now that is.

The rest of what was missing was about to come too. Bob Custis (another board member who just happens to be an attorney, and yet we love him), spoke up and confirmed that he hade been thinking along these lines and that he thought this may just be the Lord. That seemed to seal the deal. We all agreed to pray about it and within a few days, we had a ticket and a few days more and we were headed off to Portland, bags packet and giggling like children about to board the train into the great unknown. Thank God for the faith of others! Thank God for His mercy.

There’s a lone house in the middle of a vast isolated prairie field out the window right now. Who would venture to pioneer in such a large and lonely place?

O Pioneers!

Day One.

It’s October 29th and we just finished a night with Kirk Bennett at SHOP. Kirk was one of the early pioneers at IHOP before moving to North Carolina to start the Zadok House of Prayer, or ZHOP. We were enriched by his devotion and teaching. It seemed a fitting way to send us off on our journey. Steve Suing, a noble gentle man of God, drove us to the train station, along with his beautiful son Samuel, who graced us with laughter and charm for an hour. The little prophet was sad and disappointed when he found out that he was not going to get on the train too.

I truly wished he was.

When we entered the station, we met an old acquaintance of ours. Jeanie was our secretary at Storehouse Ministries, a church that we had pastored for a short while in the little town of Stayton Oregon. We all got reacquainted, and it was great to see her doing so well and still loving Jesus, as we totally expected her to be. Later while on the train, Jeanie stopped me as I passed by her in the isle and asked me about a scripture verse she was reading. It was from Zechariah 4, and was the prophetic telling of the two olive branches that poured golden oil into the lamp stands.

I explained to her what, or rather who, I felt the two olive branches represented, and soon another passenger was joining us in the conversation. I’m not sure I satisfied her questions, but the incident proved later to be a confirmation for Linda and I, as we attended a JoCo conference while at KC.

More of that later.

There was such a joyfulness about being on the train again. The sounds and sights that I started to remember from former trips, brought back a flood of good memories. Linda and I sat glued to the window as normally common sights became fascinating entertainment for us. That kind of wore off after the first 10 hours or so. As the scenery moved past us, we thought about the days soon to come.

What would the Lord do?

What would we do?

We had sent ahead of us a letter to Mike and his assistant that we were coming, and asked if they had any suggestions as to how we might recruit people with some level of effectiveness. As of yet, we had received no response. So we decided to simply believe that the Lord had a plan, and if we would be careful to listen, He would guide us. Soon it was dark, and we were in Spokane Washington for a brief stop and our first train change. We gathered our belongings and went into the station to await our next set of instructions. The boarding call was soon given and we found our new train. It is about 1am.

This is where the favor began.

There was a bit of a mix up as to our seating arrangements, and we wound up in the wrong car. This necessitated a short move and there was no train person there to meet and greet us. We had been able to secure a small…make that very small…“roomette” for a portion of the trip, so we could lay down for and rest. The entire trip was 45 hours or so and a rest would be greatly needed. When you purchase one of these tiny rooms, they like to treat you really well, and give you special amenities and so on. Since no one was there to greet us, we had to find our own room and settle ourselves in, which was no big deal to us at all. We were just grateful to have a room at all!

After putting Linda in her cot, arranging all our stuff, and climbing up into the bunk myself, we settled in for a nice rest. All night long we were ever so gently rocked by the swaying motion of the train as it moved down the tracks. This took a bit of getting used to at first, and was punctuated by a few startling rough spots, jolting you awake in the unfamiliar darkness, but all in all it was so much better than sleeping upright in the chairs.

It had been a great first day.

Day Two.

The next morning was wonderful. We awoke in the train to daylight, and peered out the cold fog covered window with sleepy eyes, just in time to see the mountains and the whiteness of freshly fallen snow. It seemed that we were now in the Montana mountains, somewhere near a place called Whitefish. It was beautiful. It was picturesque. It was like waking up on Christmas morning. All I could think of was how much I wished my kids and grandkids could be there to enjoy it with us. We decided that we would definitely have to plan a trip where we could all go somewhere on the train together.

That seems like so long ago now, even though it’s just been a few days. I guess it’s because so much has happened since then when we were just starting the trip. So much has happened. Right now, Linda is curled up in the seat sleeping next to me. I don’t know how she does that in this chair. The benefits of shortness I guess. I’ll get in trouble for that.

Favor. Still sleepy eyed, the attendant in charge of our section greeted us. His name was Patrick. He was small of stature and had a wonderful kind of mischievous smile and wit. He was apologetic about having missed us the night before, and seemed determined to make it up to us. We talked for a bit, and got the low down on how this part of the train works. Complementary water, coffee, newspapers, magazines and oh yes…precious ice. He showed us his little room where he kept all his stuff, and told us it was open all the time and we could take anything out of it we needed. Yea!

Then came the coup de gras. He walked us down the isle to where the real nice rooms were. These were the big…all the way across the width of the train…rooms, with bathrooms in them and beds big enough to sleep like a human being on. He told us that there was no one in this one particular room today, and so we could “hang out” there as long as we liked. Then he threw in the possibility that if no one showed up that night, we could just sleep there too. Wow.

As it turned out, no one did show up, and so for the rest of that leg of the journey, we had the big room all to ourselves. Plus, we still had the use of the other smaller room as well! Two rooms instead of one. Favor! I used the first smaller room to go and pray in. Not to bad for what was originally some pretty serious unbelief on our part, about even going on the trip! God is so gracious.

Patrick also announced over the PA that it was just about time for last call at the dining car for breakfast. So we hurried down to get a bite to eat and watch the sights go by. I love being able to get up and move around when you travel. Dining is unique in the train. They have a car dedicated just to that, and it has white tablecloth and maitradies and fancy glasses. It’s like a movie. Menus come and reveal that the food is not cheap, but it is so worth the break, and you get the experience as well.

You are seated with others you probably do not know at the table. Guests like you who are eager (in most cases), to get acquainted and swap stories. Note: the sooner you break the ice with an extended hand and an introduction, the better. This arrangement seems a bit awkward to all seated at the table, and so if you just start talking to them, then the enjoyment can commence. Linda was a bit amazed I was so social in this particular setting, as I guess I am not always that way.

The gentleman that we were seated with, was a man who’s name I cannot remember. He was…surprise…a believer. He was also some kind of water machine salesman, and so we talked of Jesus and water. It seems the Japanese have this machine that makes water a million times better than it is in its original state. I was mildly suspicious, but politely listened and tried to keep up with all the scientific jargon. He was a very likeable man who had never married, and had an award winning smile and quick sense of humor. All the dining car waiters knew him by name already, and conversed with him as if they were all old friends. We took his card and promised to visit his water machine web site.

It was at bill time that we found out perhaps the best train news of all. The meals were free! Now that was awesome. Stupendous even. And frankly, it beat the heck out of granola bars and oatmeal out of a small paper bag. It seems that when you purchase these sleeping rooms, you get all your meals for free. Now that is truly the favor of the Lord. That night I had a 22 dollar steak. Yep. Remember I said the meals were not cheap. The steak was actually good too. Really good. Aged and seasoned and all that. Anyway…

So the rest of the day was spent napping, eating, napping, reading, exploring and finally sleeping in that big wonderful bed on the second night on the tracks. We retired feeling blessed and safe in His arms.

Oh how I love Jesus.

End of day Two.

Day Three.

It was now Saturday October 31st. Halloween and my Moms birthday. We awoke with the anticipation that we would soon be in Chicago. I had been there once before on a trip, but Linda never had. We had another great breakfast with a very peculiar man who‘s name I also cannot remember. But I do remember his moustache. It was larger than life and bushy and acted like a strainer for his food. He didn’t seem to want to talk much, so the expressions of my overtly friendly conversation…kind of backfired. It was still pleasant though.

It was about 3:45 pm, and we were packing our bags to exit into the windy city. We thanked Patrick for his kindness and gave him a tip that was bigger than I had ever given, but still smaller than he deserved. He smiled and graciously offered us a “good day”. We rolled our bags into the gigantic antique Chicago Union Station. What a grandiose place. This was more like an airport terminal with all its shops and eateries and people, people, people. We found our way to the street and were hit with a gust of wind as we exited through the revolving glass doors. Linda and I looked at each other and in unison stated that we were indeed, in “the windy city“.

We hailed a cab and directed him to take us to the Blake Hotel. Later at IHOP we met a young man named Blake, and felt a connection there. I told him I would be praying for him when we returned and stayed at the hotel that bore his name. A promise I intend to keep, as we are again nearing Chicago right now. On our return trip it is the first stop rather than the last one. And as before, we have a 24-hr layover in which to rest and see the sights. Our cabby was Kofi (which rhymes with coffee) and was a native of Ghana. After going to Africa, I feel strangely drawn to them. He speaks well and has an infectious smile.

Its now nearly 11:00, and time for lunch on the train.

So back to day three. We arrived at the Blake Hotel and checked in. Everything was ready for us. We are met by a thin white man in a wheelchair who has on a plastic halo, and large black man who was our concierge, and had on a pair of red horns. What a pair!

It was now Halloween.

We joke about having the man with the halo be our escort, rather than the men with the horns. and all had a good laugh. We are then escorted us to our room as the man with the horns giving us tips on the sights and restaurants as he went along. He is loud and boisterous and I like him. As he left the room I asked His name and told him we would be praying for him while we were there. He acted embarrassed then about the Halloween horns, and began to make excuse about how his mother raised him to believe in the Lord. I kidded him some, and then reaffirmed our promise to pray for him.

The room was wonderful.

A pleasant surprise, since we booked it online and in spite of the pictures they give, you are never quite sure what you are going to get. It overlooked the city from about 8 floors up if I remember correctly. We were right in heart of the city, downtown near the Sears building, the tallest building in the US (which is now actually called something else), Wrigley Stadium, the Fields Museum, and other great attractions. It was surprisingly tame outside, considering it was Halloween eve. I guess I thought it would be…well…like a big party. Everyone seemed pretty subdued.

We took a short rest and then decided to go out and see the town. First stop….the shower. Wow. It was made of all marble and glass and had one of those giant round shower heads that made you feel like you were standing under a waterfall. I liked it and Linda my beloved did not. Soon we went right across the street to Starbucks and talked with the baristas who were all dressed up. One guy had colored contacts on, that were kind of freaking me out. I told him so; “dude…to be honest…your eyes are kind of freaking me out right now.” He laughed.

Then we walked around looking at everything. We figured out that the way you could spot all the tourists, is that they were not looking straight ahead or at the ground, but with there necks all cranked upward, looking at all the tall buildings like we were. Factoid: These very tall buildings were first called “sky-scrapers” right here at Chicago. Hmmm…now tell me that’s not valuable information. We made it to the Sears building, and went inside. We had been reading on the train about a new attraction there called “The Ledge”.

The Ledge is an all glass enclosure, that sticks straight out about 10 feet from the face of the skyscraper. The sides, ceiling and floor are all clear glass, so it gives the feeling of standing out there on thin air. We thought about going, but it cost too much and it was scary enough, just looking at the pictures of people being scared. Pretty cool though.

Then we were ready to eat. We spent nearly an hour looking in the big colored magazine at all the restaurants for just the right place. Then we finally just settled for one right across the street from the Sears tower. It was an Italian place with a long hard to pronounce name. But it was busy and so we thought it was probably pretty good. It was. They had real live Chicago style pizza there, and that’s what we wanted. It was soooo good! About a foot thick (well nearly), and scrumptious.

It took 35 minutes to cook.

In typical cheese lovers fashion, we unscrewed the top of the parmesan cheese jar so we could get our moneys worth, and dumped it all over the pizza. Linda’s side had (yuk), green olives and mine had black normal olives. After devouring half the pizza, we noticed that the rim of the now open jar of cheese, had a big chunk of glass broken out of it. You know that funny feeling that you get in the pit of your stomach…yea…got that. But we decided that the break in the jar had probably already been there, and so we ate on. The very first bite after that, crunch. That is such an awful, unnerving feeling.

So I went to the bathroom to rinse my mouth out and see if there was any of the bad color there. There was not. In the mean while…Linda had cornered the waiter and told him what had happened. I came back and he was predictably flustered and apologetic. He profusely apologized and even offered to bag up our leftover pizza for us, but did not offer to comp the meal. Where has the customer service gone? Let the ranting begin. We took home the portion of the pizza that was left un-cheesed. Notwithstanding the possibility of death…it was just too good to waste.

A bit of TV and window gazing, and we were off to sleep.

Day Four.

Woke up and had a bite of pizza. Its November 1st. Hailed a cab to go to the Fields Museum. What a wonderful place that is. I love antiquities, and this place was full of them. We only had a 2-3 hour window to look around the museum. Then we would need to get back on the train for our last 7 hours from Chicago to KC. We really needed 8-9 hours to look around! All we could think of was how much the grandkids would like all of this. The dinosaurs, King Tuts tomb, the wonders of Africa and ancient Egypt. It was amazing.

It was all too soon over, and the next thing we knew we were back on the train. No sleeping car this time, just a regular…but comfortable, coach seat. In what seemed like just a short time, we were pulling into Kansas City to meet our new old friends, Tom and Manon Werner. The train was on time and so were they, smiling faces and warm embraces making us feel like we had finally come home.

It was about 10 pm, and the first thing we saw in the dark was a tall tower with a flame coming out of the top. Tom didn’t know what the tower was, but it was grand and reminded me of the eternal flame of God. Appropriate for KC I thought, birthplace of the International House of Prayer. Soon we were pulling into their driveway and unpacking. Not that there was too much to unpack. Linda and I decided to travel really light, only using carry-on, and not to risk our luggage being lost. We were glad we did. A bit of fellowship and word of prayer, and we were off to bed for a good…and motionless…nights sleep.

Day Five.

It’s Monday morning and our first day in Kansas City Missouri. Yea! Only one place to go…the Prayer Room at the International House of Prayer. So away we went. Tom and Manon live only a few blocks from the Prayer Room, so we walked there pretty much every day. The road goes downhill as it leaves their home, and uphill again as it nears the House of Prayer, so it can be accurately said that we walked to IHOP every day, uphill…both ways.

Such a hardship.

The Global Prayer Room, or GBR as i-hoppers call it, was glorious. IHOP has more acronyms than anyone can possibly remember. Tom said, tongue in cheek, that they have someone on staff who is paid to do nothing but think of news acronyms. He was just kidding…I think.

We entered the prayer room and were overwhelmed by the amount of people there. We had an usher seat us as there were so many and we needed help finding a place. Wouldn’t you know it, He took us right up front to the first few rows. Immediately I was reduced to profuse weeping as I encountered Jesus again for the first time. The Prayer Room is broadcast live 24 hours a day all over the world. Apparently, all the folks back at SHOP saw us on the live feed sitting right there up front. They tell me the grand-babies squealed when they saw us and said; “Nana and Papa…Nana and Papa!”

Just seeing the sight of hundreds people in the middle of the day praying, or 350 in the middle of the night, or whatever, would be awe inspiring enough. This is a place where Christians really actually pray. And a lot of them to boot. It’s a lot like heaven I suppose. Where everyone wants to be where Jesus is. No one is being dragged…bored to tears…to some place of prayer, as a result of a guilt ridden conscience because that’s what Christians are supposed to do. But vibrant, active, passionate hearts crying out to Jesus day and night. It is soooo wonderful.

Not that the PR (that’s short for Prayer Room), is without its struggles. I found out right away that there were plenty of people at IHOP who did struggle to stay committed daily in the place of prayer. So it’s no cake walk. This was usually for just a season, until their flesh was first killed, and then consumed, by the fire of God. Old habits die hard and the flesh dies even harder. You see, when you come on staff in the prayer Room, all the reasons that we tell ourselves why we don’t pray, and why I don’t have a consistent daily prayer life, are all laid in the dust. Because now you now have a schedule that permits you to hours a day for prayer. And suddenly you realize, all of the former excuses (sorry tenderfoot I meant reasons), are gone and you are met with one nearly universal and inescapable conclusion.

I really don’t want to pray.

It was not because I had no time. We make time to do the things we really want to do. It wasn’t because the atmosphere I was in was un-anointed. Because now its…well…whoa! It’s totally anointed! It was not because I had no prayer partner, or because I’m a quiet prayer or I’m a loud prayer, or I need music or…blah, blah, blah. Really, honestly, it’s just because when I come to pray, I feel nothing. I am insensitive to the voice of the Lord. I just plain don’t get that much out of it. In other words, it’s hard and I don’t want to do it. You realize that your hearts just not there and now that the excuses are gone you have to ask yourself why.

Then the answer comes!

“When I consistently encounter God…I consistently come to God.”

That’s enough.

So after spending a few days being confronted with this truth, and not what you’ve always told yourself is the truth, you begin to get changed. God is here and He loves you and you know it and you start to feel it and you get your sensitivity back and you wonder why the heck it ever take you so long to do this! This is home. This is what I was made for. This is what I was made to do. This is eternity in His presence and God help me I will never go back to the way things were before.

That’s the Prayer Room.

So we found our way back over and over again, and we let the washing begin. It was wonderful. Even in the first few hours, God downloaded into me some things I needed personally, and some things we needed to do better at SHOP. I am so glad that the Lord is faithful to show us, not just the good stuff, but also the stuff that “has the ouch on it”, as Mike Bickle says. Like a seasoned Mentor, The Lord Jesus guides us through the process of confronting truth, with all the skill of a Master Teacher. Its glorious.

Although most of today was spent in the PR, I also got our first response from Anne House, who is Mike Bickle’s assistant. We were told that it would be good for us to speak to Dwayne Roberts about recruiting. Dwayne has been at IHOP for many years now and knows a lot of people who might help us. Perhaps we can find some eager young students, who want to go back with us to Salem and help take over the city. Our desire is to be able to share our passion for Jesus and His Bride, in Salem and the surrounding region. We want to help others see that this city Salem, is as much a mission field as Africa or China, or some place across the sea. And that is totally worthy of their full devotion and life commitment. Lord let it be so!

I went to Higher Grounds right away too. It is IHOP’s coffee shop that is right next to the prayer room for optimum convenience. I had soup and sandwiches in the Higher Grounds café twice, and espressos twice (ok, ok, maybe three times), today. Sorry Linda. I love the atmosphere of that place! You can get coffee and listen to the banter between students and pastors and moms, and who knows who, talking about all things Jesus and dreams and the prophetic and so on. Someone is always talking about Him. I love that. Linda and I both commented that it seems like we should know so many of these people. We see their faces on the “live-feed” so often, they kind of feel like old acquaintances to us.

A young lady named Janell Whiting from Salem, recognized us in the Prayer Room, and asked if Linda and I could come see her and husband Jeff while we were here. So we said sure and that we would call them and set something up. Their little few month old baby was very sick and in need of much prayer.

The day ended and we went to bed satisfied and full…and yet hungry for what tomarrow would hold.

Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus.

Day Six.

Up and into the PR early. Its always exciting to see who’s going to be leading worship and and prayer next. Today is the second day of the Global Bridegroom Fast (GBF). This is a once a month 3 day fast, that the entire body of Christ is invited to participate in. The idea is, that different groups can take whatever 3 day period a month they wish, and after a certain number of groups join in, the entire year is covered in fasting and prayer by some part of the body of Christ. Fasting 365 days a year. It’s a great plan.

Everyone at IHOP is required to participate in the monthly GBF, which for them is the first 3 days of every month. A few years ago, I was asking the Lord about having a certain level of anointing a certain group had, and the Lord said simply to me: “ If you want to have what they have, you’ll have to do what they do”.

Ok then.

There was an unexpected scenario that was created while we were there. Because all the all staff are required to participate in the GBF, we did not know that there would be a whole lot of people in the prayer room for the first three days we were there. I mean it was packed. Most of the time, we had to have an usher find Linda and I, two seats next to each other so we could be together. Funny that often that was right up front in the famed “first five rows” of seating. I say famed because a different set of rules apply for the first five rows. This is because of God TV broadcasts live from the prayer room. When the whole world is watching, like it or not, you have to do some things differently. And of course, some do not like it at all.

OK, that’s enough of that.

The room being full, made for great prayer meetings and times of soaking. At the 10 am set, Lou Engle and Mike Bickle were there, both leading in prayer at different times. I think at that first meeting it went like: Lou Engle, Dwayne Roberts, Allan Hood, Mike Bickle, and Cory Russell all coming up one after another to pray. Quite a prayer meeting!

Tuesday is also staff meeting day and we wanted to be there and see how they did it. Well apparently, during GBF, they have no meeting accept with the spirit of the Lord! The meeting basically consisted of a 2 hr, very intense, prayer meeting. I think they normally pray and then give announcements and stuff, but since it was GBF, they just worshiped the whole time. So hard. Misty led worship if I remember correctly. A good time was had by all. Got a chance to see and meet a few old friends. We spoke to Rick Rupp, a daddy to the night watch, and a man who really encouraged Linda and I to run hard in the early days. Ed Hackett, another daddy at IHOP, who said we could get together and talk about things later. He is a sweet man who sounds like Jesus when he speaks.

Then there was Derek Loux. God is so funny. So I am sitting in the prayer room, and start thinking about Derek and wondering how he is doing and that I should probably e-mail him. Suddenly Linda pipes up and says to me, “I wonder where Derek Loux is…I haven’t seen him around” or something like that. “Wow, that was the Lord” I thought to myself, and so I get right up and go to HG to email Him. As I am walking into the café, there he is walking out. We hugged and he told me he now has 10 kids and one in the hospital having heart surgery, so he cannot stay and talk. It was great to see him again. Apparently he is a part of IHOP’s very aggressive plan to adopt 10,000 babies in the next few years. Wow.

(Note: this was the last time I was to see Derek, as he passed away suddenly just a few days ago in a car accident. He will be greatly missed.)

Back home to more fellowship with the Werner family who are just awesome.

Tuesday is done.

Day Seven.

Wednesday came with an early call to go to the Prayer Room to receive some personal prophetic ministry. Ministry in the prophetic rooms, is normally closed during GBF as is most every thing else. But for some strange reason…hum…I was told that they would be doing a little bit of prophetic ministry at…yes…6:30 in the am. That is pretty early for someone to read your mail, but I really wanted to hear form the Lord. So I made my way down and sat in a numbered chair, waiting to have my turn in the prophetic room.

Why does this still feel like waiting to go into the doctors office?

Soon I was facing some other tired faces, who were ready to minister to me and a young couple who looked to be in their 20’s. They picked me first, and I tried to hurriedly figure out how to record on my phone their words, something I had never done before. I don’t know why I just then thought of it but…oh well. Then to find out that it would record for only about 30 seconds at a time. So I missed recording most of it. Needless to say it was good. Really good. Most of it was right on. The leader was an obviously experienced woman who hit the nail right on the head, and provided scripture to follow up with. That was the part I got recorded. Yea!

She was kind of “fiery” and powerful. The others were also right on, but perhaps just less intense. I won’t share most of what the Lord said to me, except the scripture which was Numbers 13-14, where Caleb after viewing the land, gave good report and words of faith to go in and take it. Her words were that “You are a Caleb, and of a different spirit”, meaning that, God had put it in my heart, to go in and take the land that He had promised. It was a good and encouraging word.

Linda has been spending a lot of hours in the PR. She just can’t seem to get enough of it. That’s the way it’s supposed to be! I think she just might be able to run SHOP without me! Go figure. What a woman. I am so blessed. Met with Dwayne Roberts today. Dwayne is a wonderful man with a tender warrior spirit. That’s how I see him anyway. I shared with him some of SHOP’s history and he seemed truly moved and fascinated at the stories of Gods faithfulness, to establish day and night prayer in Salem.

He also heads up all the onething conferences that IHOP does. They do them all over the world, the biggest being the yearly onething in KC. They expect it to draw 20,000 this year. We talked about the possibility of doing one in Salem this year. We have been praying for this to happen for years. He said he thought it could be done. Perhaps next spring or summer. He asked me to send a formal request via email to his associate and get the ball rolling. I sent it out 5 minutes after he was out the door. So be it Lord Jesus!

Later on that evening, Linda and I met again with Ed Hackett at HG. What a lovely man. He prophesied over Linda and said he saw her as a Mom, and square dancing. Not sure exactly what that part means, but I think she does. Ed and I discussed some practical ways to get SHOP connected with students at FSM and FMA (Forerunner School of Ministry and Forerunner Music Academy), for future opportunities. His idea was that when the kids graduate, they need a place to minister, and SHOP was one of those places they could go. He gave us the name of someone who could help us. Ed called him and asked him to give us a call.

Back home to Tom and Manon’s house. Notice I keep calling it home. That’s what it feels like. I like the kids so much. They seem to have bright futures ahead of them. Today I also took a ride with Tom to see a feeding ministry that Tom started and then passed onto another man. So this food ministry is operated out of his garage. It’s set up like a little store, kind of like we have seen in Mexico and other foreign countries. Everything is laid out on shelves and in refrigerators, but it is all free. The people just come in once a week and grab a grocery bag and go shopping for what they need. No muss no fuss, and no miles of red tape. It’s pretty cool. About 250 people are served out of it. You get on an email list and when something comes in you get the email and come on down. We will be doing something similar to this in the near future.

Wednesday had been a very full day. Not as much time in the prayer room as I would have liked, but still a fruitful day. Checked my text messages and Bob Custis has just arrived from Salem for the JoCo (Joseph Company) conference that will be going on the next few days.

Cant wait to see him.