The Oregon Trails... n stuff

Howdy!

Just got back from Oregon about a week or so ago, and it was a blasty-blast! The road trip there took about 14 hours, but I love van rides so there's really no harm in that! Some people got drugged up on Dramamine and slept the whole trip, and others (me) would be that annoying guy in the van that everyone wants to shut-up :P I just don't have the self-discipline to sleep the whole way. Nevertheless, the trip there and back was pretty smooth, and the only problem was that a tire on one of the vans got flat... or exploded... or something.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=2115579651458&set=vb.1304713176&type=2&theater

The Salem base was pretty cool! It was very roomy to say the least. They had about 15 acres of land, whereas, we only have about 7. In other words... it was a big base :) The guys all were cramped into a couple of rooms. I was in the room that looked like your typical bunk-bed kids retreat setup, with about 40 other guys. Now, I'm used to having two roommates, so this is quite the transition. I talk in my sleep, so I was a little hesitant to stay in a large room due to recent outbursts of involuntary verbal statements in my sleep. For example, just last night I apparently woke up one of my roommates. I said, "Daniel!... base jumping. Base jumping!!! No..... Parkour.....Parkour!!!" So nearly every night of my time in Salem I would talk in my sleep and wake someone up. Or if you're another one of my friends, he delights in interrogating me in my sleep. Talk about a living nightmare... because I actually answer some of his questions.
           Anywho, God showed up sooooo much! The highlight for me was when I walked around at night looking at the stars and just waiting on God (I do that quite often). I asked Him the questions, "who are you? Where are you?" and I looked back up to the stars. I started thinking that God was in the stars and the trees and around me, but then I stopped all of a sudden. I was looking straight ahead, and there was a double-shadow. Usually when you see a double shadow, it is around the same size as your original shadow, but this one was different. It was gigantic! Instantly I knew that God was right next to me. Even funnier, I was holding hands with my "double shadow." So I walked around with God for awhile just acknowledging that He was there, and telling Him how much I loved Him. He said "I love you too." And when God starts saying 'I love you,' He doesn't stop until you tell Him you get it, and then His love is still too deep for us to understand.
         

Experiencing Injustice. Something every human being should go through in my opinion. Right up there with visiting a third world country. You're just not the same after you've seen (and I'm not talking about on the NEWS), ya dig? Basically, this is a program that happens in every DTS where stations are setup for seeing the things that need to be set right in this world. Immediately we all prepared our hearts, and then we split up into teams of about seven and headed out. As we were walking over to the first station, God spoke to my heart. He said, "Be strong, but get hurt." over, and over, and over. Very calming words huh? So I was already pretty riled up when we got to the first station: Human Trafficking. This really made me mad. Like none other. Some actors played a scene where they were in a brothel, and a man came in and wanted to buy a 15-year old girl for sex. She was resisting him, so he smacked her and she fell to the floor. At this point, my blood was boiling... my teeth were gritting. I had to keep reminding myself that this was just a scenario, or I definitely would've been involved, and I would've unleashed the hurt locker on this guy. So right from the start, I knew that I wanted to fix this injustice with a passion. There were many others, but the ones that impacted me the most were unclean water (we got to drink a cup of taco seasoned water), persecution, and abortion. Persecution felt so real. We were bagged, pushed around, verbally abused, forced to pull the trigger on some people. One girl told me during that experience, one of the persecutors told her that they were going to rape her. Just when she said that to me, I was outraged. There really are no words to describe what we went through. So many people were crying after we gathered together again. The good news is that God is sooooo much bigger than these injustices, and He is equipping us to help fight against them. Our hearts are being stirred up to go out to the nations and fix what the corruption of the world has set into motion. I don't know about you, but that just makes me so stoked that I get to be a part of God's great plan! Slowly but surely, He is raising up world changers in us!!!


This week's lectures were on the topic of "Hearing the Voice of God." Haha! Just going into this week, I was pretty scared, gotta admit. I do not have much experience with listening very well, even though I know God is constantly talking. Surprisingly though, I have heard Holy Spirit so clearly in some of the exercises we do. One morning we interceded for a woman by the name of Christine. All we knew about her was that she had an adult daughter. That's it. So we were instructed to press into Holy Spirit and ask for things we can pray for/pictures/words/etc. Instantly when we started interceding, I got the feeling that there was an intense hostility between the two of them. Like that there were some things that have gone unforgiven in their relationship, and that has corroded their relationship almost in its entirety. BAM! Mike told me that ever since Christine had gotten divorced, she was sleeping around with men, and that had separated her from her daughter, and they were both pretty angry with each other. CRASEY!!!
           We had a day of fasting on Thursday, and we gathered together in our meeting area. Right from the start we had some quiet time with God, and I sort of slipped into somewhat of a dream-like state. It was sooooo weird. almost like I was daydreaming, but so vivid. I got a picture for two girls, and then God spoke to me what he thought of another girl in our DTS, and a prophecy of what she'd do. It was shweeet! Here's the quirk though... He didn't want me to tell them right away. I got the thought that He wanted me to tell them later so we could continue interceding throughout the day instead of just pouring everything out during session and then shutting down for the rest of the day. Even better, both of the words I got were spot on for each of the girls. BOOM! Holy Spirit knows what's up :)


I started recording my song yesterday in the studio for about an hour. I LOVE STUDIOS!!! Sorry, just had to get that out :P Right off the bat, I pounded out the guitar scratch track, and the vocal scratch. So stoked! Now I just need to practice my face off with the band for the next week before I get back in the studio. There are still many things to add to the song. It's very complex, and I'm very OCD... bad combo. It sounds pretty good so far though! I'm excited to see how it will turn out!

Godspeed!

-Spencer