Open Heavens over Copenhagen

Me and my friend, Hans Christian Andersen–He cared more about children than those teachers (see below).

As I landed in Copenhagen this morning the sky was bright sunshine.  Then I noticed something strange: the bright sunshine was only over the airport, which was surrounded by massive dark clouds that looked like big gray mountains.

I went down to the train station under the airport and took a train to the city center.  When the train came out I noticed that it was again bright sunshine directly overhead with massive clouds all around.

It was the same story in the city center: sunshine with surrounding clouds.  I arrived too early to check in, so I put my suitcase in the hotel’s luggage room and went for a coffee.

That was when I ran into those big dark clouds, not in the physical sense, but in the spiritual.  Just one door away from the hotel was a huge erotica shop (what we in America call “adult,” though it has nothing to do with maturity).  What they had displayed in the window was so shocking and embarrassing that I wanted to cover my eyes.  Not that I haven’t seen this stuff before.  But it’s very uncomfortable to see it right there on the street where you are among strangers who are seeing the very same thing.  And being a huge shop, there were six windows filled with dildos and thongs and crotchless panties and so forth.

Suddenly I was surrounded and overtaken by a large herd of about 50 school children (ages 8 to 10).  The children’s eyes were drawn to the shop windows, too.  Even though I don’t understand a word of Danish, I could tell by the hoots of the boys and the giggling of the girls that they were reacting to the window display.  At the corner I tried to get through the group so that I could cross the street to where the hotel reception person had told me that I could enjoy a nice coffee.  But I couldn’t get through them, so I stood there as they filed past me and the horrible shop.  Across the street where they went, I saw another erotica shop.

I crossed the other direction wondering what in the world their teachers were thinking to bring those children down this street.  I found the coffee shop, settled in to enjoy a cappuccino, and looked across the street to see a big sign over an old factory gate.  The sign said Einstein of Sex.  That’s when I began to wonder what kind of town Copenhagen is.  But then I remembered that my hotel is very close to the train station, and the neighborhood around the Central train station in Milan is also like this.

View of the Copenhagen Train Station

As I explored the city after lunch, I noticed that I had only seen the erotica shops in the neighborhood of my hotel near the train station.  So I decided on two courses of action.  1) Prayer walk in the neighborhood around my hotel; and 2) always from now on check Google street view when choosing a hotel.  God is good!

Dancing in the Church

There was a gathering at the Prayer Center Wednesday with lots of children in attendance.  I don’t know if it was planned this way, but it became a children’s celebration.  Herbie played children’s praise songs, all of us danced to the songs and played the musical (mostly percussion) instruments available.  Then the children made pictures of what it feels like to know that Jesus loves me (inspired by the song of the same name!).

The best part for me was when the children came around and prayed for us.  There was dinner brought in by the wonderful people who have committed to cooking for us, and it was a very fun evening.

Then I stayed to do another overnight shift in the Prayer Center.  I don’t know why, but the second time was harder than the first.  Several times I found myself struggling to find God’s presence (even though He’s always there!).  It was again only 3 of us, but this time without Herbie.

Although it was a more difficult night for prayer, it was a wonderful night for interpersonal relationships between the 3 of us.  There was Mi Kyong from Korea, who lives as an underground missionary in the 10/40 window.  I only personally know a few underground missionaries, but I have big, big respect for them and their courage.  Interestingly, Mi Kyong told me that in Korea, the churches treat missions as a call to suffering.  She said this while we were laughing and dancing with the children.  Mi Kyong loves children and when there is a child present, all her attention goes to the child—even if she was in the middle of a conversation.

The 3^rd member of our trio for the night was Zeppi, a quiet little Maltese man with a speech impediment and a big heart.  I found out that Zeppi is short for Guzeppi, a Maltesination of the Italian name Giuseppe (Joseph).  When he was introduced to me, he shyly pulled out a sheet of paper, filled with single-spaced type on both sides.  It was his testimony of how he came to know Jesus, and it ended with his contact information and an invitation to get together over a cup of coffee.  Zeppi didn’t want either his shyness or his speech impediment to stop him from sharing Jesus.

While Mi Kyong and I worshiped and danced and prayed aloud, Zeppi sat and quietly prayed.  But when 2AM came, and we discussed going on a prayer walk, Zeppi became enthusiastic.  He loves Malta almost as much as he loves Jesus.  He took us pretty much on the same route that I had gone the first night.  But it was as much a guided tour as it was a prayer walk.  Zeppi showed us the pixkerija, which is pronounced a lot like the word pescheria, so when Mi Kyong said, “What?”  I told her it was the fish market.  Zeppi smiled, saying, “Yes, fish market!”  We looked into the fish market, but although there were fishermen, they were too busy or too uninterested to engage us in conversation beyond a simple hello.

My comment about the language similarity with Italian led Mi Kyong to comment that the Maltese words for hello and milk sound very much like Arabic.  Zeppi was almost leaping for joy, “Yes! Yes! Like Arabic!”  I was very surprised that Arabic had gotten a strong enough foothold on Malta to influence the language this way.  There is a multimedia show called The Malta Experience that I should probably go see while I’m here.  I have been told that of all the museums and historical/cultural shows, this is the best one.

We walked past a sign that said bocci club.  I stopped and commented that they play bocce (Italian spelling, pronounced BAH-chee) in Italy, and many Italian Americans play bocce.  I wondered aloud if bocce was Italian (as I had thought) or Maltese.  Zeppi said, “Maltese!  Maltese!”  I asked him if he plays bocce, but he said no.  It doesn’t surprise me because bocce is a very social game, involving gambling and probably drinking.  Most men who play it are very gregarious—just the opposite of Zeppi.

We prayed, walking through the center of Parliament Square, claiming it for the dance team.  This was the second time that I had done this, so I believe that if they want to do it, the dancers could dance in the square next time.

Then we walked back to the Prayer Center.  It was 4AM, and the rest of the night dragged on endlessly.  Mi Kyong curled up on a pillow, while Zeppi went to the kitchen to heat up another plate of pasta.  I put on some worship music, grabbed a set of little ceramic drums, and tried to keep time, but the beat kept slipping away.  At one point I dozed off and the drumstick slipped from my hand and clattered to the floor.  I jumped awake, thinking that I had dropped and broken the drums, but my left hand still held them tightly—which is surely a miracle.  I carefully set the drums on the floor and got up to pace instead.  But I was so physically wiped out that I considered grabbing a pillow and following Mi Kyong’s example.  I went to the kitchen and made myself a cup of tea, but cut it with cold water because even with the cooler night temperature, hot tea was not what I wanted.  Lukewarm tea failed to revive me, and it was clear that only several hours of sleep would fix what was wrong with me.

So sitting, standing, pacing, sitting again, all the time listening to worship music and trying to pray—this was how I passed the rest of the night.  When 6AM came, Mi Kyong and I discussed whether to go catch a bus back to the house.  Zeppi assured us that he would stay and keep watch until the morning shift arrived, which would be in about an hour.

I got about 6 hours of much-needed sleep.  When I woke up, the dance team was preparing to go to the Prayer Center for dinner, then on to teach a Prophetic Dance class at a local church.  I went with them on the ferry again.  After dinner, some of the overnighters were left, while others went with us to the church.  The class was great, and again included lots of children.  It was lots of fun, but I was simply too physically tired to do very much, so I left early and returned to the house.

One of the attendees at the dance class commented on how dance is frowned upon by her church.  It made me think of the story of David and Michal, and how she criticized him for dancing with joy because of bringing the ark back to Jerusalem.  Honestly, I would rather be a David than a Michal.  God is good!  I’ll sing it, I’ll dance it, and even drum it in my sleep!  God is good!

Bingo Bango Bongo!

Greetings from Malta!

Yesterday in the Rome airport I was walking by a shop and I saw a set of bongos.  The Lord said to buy the bongos.  So I went in, and without asking the price, I bought the bongos.  It turned out that they cost a lot less than I had thought they would they would.  When I told the rest of the team about the purchase, they got excited.  The dancers on the team especially got excited about the bongos, hoping that we can prayer walk/dance in the streets to the beat of bongos.

It wasn’t until later that I remembered the team leader’s teaching about the power or rhythmic drumming, hand clapping, and movement as a prayer tool.  Ha!  I couldn’t help but smile!

As we waited for boarding time, one girl asked if she could play the bongos.  I said, “Of course!” and handed them over.  She played a little while, but quietly there in the noisy airport.  I encouraged her to really give them a good thumping, but she kept playing quietly.  I think that perhaps, like me, she is not very experienced with bongos, and just wanted to try them out.

When we arrived, I couldn’t believe how pretty Malta is.  With ancient sun-bleached stone buildings, it looked very much like we were landing in the Holy Land, but with water all around.  And I guess that’s what it is, since the Apostle Paul was shipwrecked here, and the island embraced Christianity since that time.

We are 3 teams composed of many nationalities, many of whom, like me, live in a country other than their country of origin.  The 3 teams are an evangelistic team, a prayer team (which includes me!), and a dance team.  The prayer and dance teams will be working in and around the Mediterranean Regional Prayer Center here in Valletta, while the evangelistic team will be out on the streets all over the island.  The MRPC is also known as a House of Prayer, but they gave the name Malta House of Prayer to others.

The prayer and dance teams are being hosted by locals who have rented what I can only describe as a magnificent (and magnificently furnished) 3-storey villa overlooking the bay toward Valletta (the capital).  The basement and roof are also in use, giving the villa 5 working levels in all.  Last night we were welcomed with a BBQ feast and party on the roof.  As the sun set over Malta, the building facades were lit up, becoming even more beautiful, with the light twinkling off the dark water.

I brought the bongos up from my room in the basement and handed them to Celeste because of the way her face lit up when she saw them.  She played around on them a while, then when 2-year-old Jilly came over, she taught Jilly how to play, encouraging her to really pat them hard enough to produce sound.

This morning when Jilly saw the bongos, she boldly came and played them like a little expert, grinning in delight.  If it had been only for that moment, it was totally worth buying the bongos.

At the prayer house, I felt led to go out of my comfort zone and sign up for the very first overnight shift—way, way out of my comfort zone!  I am expecting God to do great things!  Go bang some bongos for the Lord and step out of your comfort zone.  You will discover what I’ve been saying all these years: God is good!  Oh yes!  God is good!

Our Last Night in Sofia

With this prayer trip finished, some of our team flew back to their homes from Skopje, and some of us were flying back from Sofia.  The teammates that had driven up to Sofia from Greece drove back home again.  We hugged and said our goodbyes, most of us will see each other at the next prayer trip in April.

There is a lot of love and unity that develops when people pray together, and especially when they are praying for each other.  This time I was the recipient of a lot of prayers because of a spiritual attack masquerading as a migraine.  It came 2 days ago, the evening before our prayer walk in Skopje (see my previous post “Prayer Walking in Skopje”).  I suddenly had a very sharp pain just above my left eye and in the left side of my neck just where the spine meets the skull.  This was accompanied by nausea.  I went to the room, skipping dinner, and I prayed there through the evening session.  The next morning, I heard that another one of our team had also felt sick, as with labor pains.  Hers was a reaction to what Macedonia was experiencing in the spirit, while mine was a full-blown attack from the enemy.

I know that mine was an enemy attack because I have been attacked this way many times, and it is always just before I go on mission trips.  As I prayed, I was in such pain that I was really beyond words.  But I heard the Lord say to my spirit, “Relax and rest in Me.  Listen to My heartbeat.”  I tried, but much of that time I simply couldn’t hear His heartbeat.  Finally, after about 2-3 hours, I really can’t say exactly how long, I felt better, and I heard the Lord say, “It has loosened its grip on you.”  What He didn’t say was that it was gone.

The next night, after our prayer walking day we were again praying and worshiping.  One pastor there said that Macedonia suffers from a spirit of rejection, and that some of the people present also needed to be freed of a spirit of rejection.  He invited the people to come forward who needed prayers for rejection.  Then he looked at me and said, “Sister, your body language says that you are suffering from rejection.”  I had my arms folded across my chest.  He said, “Open up and receive the freedom that God wants to give you.”  So I opened my arms, and he prayed for me.  I suddenly began to cough very violently—it was like the cough came all the way up from the bottom of my abdomen, and I was bent double coughing.  He continued to pray and I continued to cough, then I fell to the floor (but I think someone caught me, I really can’t say).  Once on the floor, a deaconess from his church came and prayed for me.  As she laid her hand on my stomach I began to feel peace and the coughing stopped.

Then I heard the Lord say, “The demon has loosened its grip on you, now you need to loosen your grip on it.”  I did.  In my spirit I let it go and began to push it away.  I turned on my side and began coughing again, and then it was gone.  I turned onto my back again and the relief I felt was so great that I began to cry.  When I stood again, I returned to my chair feeling exhausted, but good.  Then I began to laugh.  And I just sat there, laughing and laughing.

Yesterday in the car on the way back to Sofia another attack came.  About an hour outside of Sofia we stopped for lunch, but I didn’t eat, feeling again nauseated.  They advised me to take authority, but in my weakened state, I didn’t feel like I could.  The group prayed for me, and took authority over the thing.  The headache and nausea passed, and by the time we were in Sofia, I was feeling much better.

As I was praying about it, the Lord told me that I need to take authority over the demons.  The authority is mine, but I need to take it.  He said, “When you enter a place, they should all flee in fear of you.”  Then the Holy Spirit reminded me of 2 Timothy 1:7: “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline,” (emphasis mine).  And I heard Him say, “You shouldn’t be timid.  You need to be bold.”  And I understood the last words of that verse: “power, love, and self-discipline” as a triangle.  That power and self-discipline come from love.  It’s like love is the battery that gives power and self-discipline their strength.  As I tap into the love, I will find the power to take authority over the demons that they will recognize as His authority, and they will flee from me.

Likewise, by tapping into that perfect love, I will find the self-discipline not to simply ride-out the attack in prayer.  Prayer has worked in the past against these attacks, but now I need to exercise the self-discipline to take authority over the demons immediately.

So last night Angie and I stayed another night in Sofia.  She is flying back to Germany as I write, and I will fly back to Milan this evening.  For our last night in Sofia, Bill and Vasha and Anton took us to the Mall of Sofia, where we ate at the Happy Bar & Grill.  Happy features traditional Bulgarian food and sushi.  Bill suggested a dish called Happy Bits with corn and cream.  I also ordered a Bulgarian salad with the wonderful Bulgarian cheese on it.  Angie had sushi, but hadn’t ever tried mixing a bit of wasabi into the soy sauce.  I’m not sure that she liked the wasabi so much.  For me, it’s just not sushi without wasabi.

After dinner, Angie did some shopping for her family.  I had already gotten bears from Bulgaria and Macedonia, so I didn’t need to do any shopping.  I definitely want to come back to Bulgaria.  The work that the Lord is doing here is amazing, and I love the people here.  God is good!

Prayer Walking in Skopje

Greetings from Skopje, Macedonia!

After spending our first day in prayer, worship, and planning, we spent yesterday out in the city.  First we went to Mount Vodno, to pray at the Millennium Cross over the city.  The Millennium Cross is the world’s biggest cross.  But we didn’t get to see it up close because the cable cars up to it were down for repairs.  Instead we found a scenic overlook area where we could look down upon the city as we prayed for it.

Then we divided into 3 groups for prayer walks:

1. The University, The National Theater, Art Museum
2. The Government Buildings, The Holocaust Memorial, a missionary businessman’s businesses, and the Bridge over the River Vardar in the center of town
3. The Methodist Church, The Orthodox Church, A Mosque, and the office of a Social Worker

I chose to go with the church group.  The Methodist Church is the oldest and largest of the evangelical churches in Skopje.  There we prayed for unity among the protestant churches and unity with the Orthodox Church.

From there we walked to the office of the Social Worker.  Kati had shared with us the day before about the struggles in the family sector.  Macedonia has many grave family issues, but few Social Workers and even less money.  In fact, the government does not hire new Social Workers when one leaves.  Instead, the work simply gets shuffled to someone else in the department—whether that person has any experience or knowledge about Social Work.  And with all this institutionalized chaos, the need continues to grow, and more and more people come in looking for help.

As I listened day before yesterday to her explanations about the system, I could see the pain on her face.  I know that if it were in her power, she would help every person who comes in for help.  She was so grateful to have us come in to pray for her.  It encouraged her very much.

From her office we went across the bridge and up the hill to the mosque on top of the highest hill in the city.  There we sat on benches outside the mosque and prayed.  Then we went back down the hill and across the river again.  By this time we had walked such a lot that I was really exhausted.  We stopped at a coffee shop owned by the pastor’s friend.  While the pastor was talking to his friend I ordered a coffee and sat down.  Then the pastor came over and said, “OK let’s go!”  I slammed down my espresso macchiato and followed him to the Parliament building, where we were meeting with the two other teams.  With some caffeine in my system, I felt revived—thank you Italy for the afternoon coffee habit that revives me!

We prayed at the Parliament Building and then went to dinner.  There had been a sort of tension when we came to Skopje, and after our day of prayer walking, the tension was released.  That made dinner a much more relaxed time.

As I looked through my pictures of the day, two of them struck me.  The first is the statue of Alexander the Great, who the Macedonians call Alexander of Macedonia.  The second is the picture of Millennium Cross as seen from the city.  The first celebrates the accomplishments of man, while the second celebrates the victory over sin, sickness, and death—something that only God could accomplish.  God is good!

A Cat with Fleas

Northern Italy has had a couple of serious earthquakes recently.  I don’t bring it up because this is necessarily new or surprising, but only because I felt them—and that is new and surprising.  I grew up practically on top of the famous San Andreas Fault in California, but I never felt an earthquake the whole time I lived there.  It’s true that there weren’t any big, devastating quakes while I lived there, but the earth shook from time to time.  Others noticed it and commented on it, but I noticed nothing.  I think the reason I didn’t notice the earth shifting and shaking is because, being a kid, I was always in motion, myself:  riding my bike, climbing trees, tumbling, dancing, having adventures in the Hoover Hills (the wooded area behind Herbert Hoover Elementary School in Burlingame).

My family moved back to Texas in 1971, but I often dreamed of returning to the Bay Area.  My first opportunity to return came in 1989.  I made plans to travel from New York, where I was living at the time, but finances and the logistics of finding care for my children (the youngest was just a year old) canceled that trip.  It wasn’t until days later that I realized that the date I was planning to go, October 17, was when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit, and my flight would have been landing just about that time.  I suspect that I would have felt that one.

A year later, I was finally able to return to California.  That was when I felt my first earthquake.  I was in bed watching the news on TV in my hotel room on the 8^th floor.  What it felt like was a wave, as if I were on a raft on a lake—kind of a rolling, rather than shaking, motion.

On May 20 at about 3:45AM I was awake and it felt like the bed was dancing.  It seemed to have lasted a long time, though it was probably only 20-30 seconds.  I looked up at the shelf of books over my head and wondered if I should get out from under it.  In the morning I was shocked to learn of the devastation in San Felice sul Panaro, about 140 miles away.

Since then there have been many aftershocks, and I’ve become aware of even the subtlest motion in the earth.  There’s nothing like finally feeling a real and devastating earthquake to make you hyper-aware of any sensation of movement.

It may seem like in writing about my personal experiences of these earthquakes, I am taking them lightly.  I intend no such thing.  I am aware of the very real toll on people’s lives.  Last summer I took a daytrip to L’Aquila with a missionary friend.  We prayer walked through the city, which may never recover from the damage of the 2009 earthquake.  There was graffiti all around the city center, saying things like:  L’Aquila è morta, (L’Aquila is dead).  I tried to take pictures of the devastation there, but there was simply too much.  Around every corner was a new sign of destruction, until finally it was just overwhelming. 

One of the saddest things we saw in L’Aquila was a barrier fence with hundreds of keys—keys to houses that are now just piles of rubble.  Another thing that gave me pause was seeing a church in the city center that had a bas relief of skeleton over the door.  It made me wonder how many of the city’s people had gone through that “death door” who were now dead because of the earthquake.  It made me want to somehow erase that sculpture or to put a big X across it to cancel death’s grip on the city.  In fact I did exactly that through prayer.

In discussing earthquakes with a friend who recently moved to California, she told me that she often says, “The Earth shakes because she feels like a cat with fleas.”  Where can we find a flea collar big enough for the Earth?