What Love Does

I am at a conference, What Love Does, and David Ruis is leading worship. The first session of worship was lead by David Ruis with Sherry, Jeff and Amanda. There was 5 songs and it was awesome, especially one new song written by Suhail Stephen from Hong Kong. It was sung by Sherry Ansloos.

To the right is a picture of David Ruis, Kenny and myself.

Currently, I am listening to Nathan Rieger; pastor of the Winnipeg Vineyard. He is telling us about a vision that had years ago; the vision of the Musk Ox.

Musk Ox, when in danger, put the weak and vulnerable in the middle and then create a circle around them, facing outward. Then when the wolves come, or other danger, the strong defend the herd.

So often, in our society, the weak and vulnerable are put to the outside. The strong are worried about staying strong. It could be people on welfare, people who can’t work and those who are disabled; they are left on the outside to fend for themselves from the wolves and other dangers. The strong don’t help in fear that they themselves might become poor.

God loves the poor. Where is God? He is where the homeless live, he is where the single mom lives, the drug addict, the alcoholic, the guy robbing a bank right now. He is where the most vulnerable are.

Where are we at? Are we where God is, or are we just trying to survive and worried about becoming vulnerable? If we focus on not becoming poor, we will become poor. If we become the strong on and form the outer circle, we will become strong.

Luke 12:22-34
22Then Jesus said to his disciples: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. 24Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! 25Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life[b]? 26Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?
27"Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. 28If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! 29And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. 30For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.
32"Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. 33Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Videos Now Work

I posted the videos on YouTube and then linked them here. Now they work

Testimony from Michel

I received this email Jan 31st from Michel.

We are very happy to send you this mail.
We continue saying: many thanks for your visit, your teachings and your exhortations.
According to this specifically point (exhortation), we have a testimony to tell you.
Before you came in our local church on saturday 12 January 2008, we were facing many problems that we don't really know the sources.
Among those problems, we can quote:
- The incomprehesion between brethrens,
- A difficult character of one brother, who always discourage even old believers.
During your predication, we understood that God loves us so much . Because he reveled to you our situation, and the exhortation our God gave you for us came as a specific consolation, encouragement and true.
You know some of us according to what they heard concerning others churches, want us to grow in the same way or speed like them.
When you spoke about building a house, especially how to lay a solid foundation,
When you spoke about the importance of the foundation,
When you spoke about problems as a strengthening way of our faith.
The good news is that, all those who were in that situation , recognize their fault and the whole church agreed that JESUE SEND YOU TO HEAL US, TO ENCOURAGE US AND TO GIVE US POWER AND INSURANCE TO WORK FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF THE KINGDOM OF OUR GOD.
The church has become understandable, peaceful and joyful again. we would maintain that restoration in the name of JESUS.
Let the favor of the All Mighty be with you .

Michel & Beatrice Ngankam from Cameroon.

In Top of the TV Gospel Africa

Here is an email Clever wrote me Feb 1st

You are every day in tevision in Cameroun.
Your message is helping all the nation christians.
many people are calling asking about question to know you.
the Gospel TV is just showing all your message.
The secretly came and taped all the conference. Now you are in top of the TV gospel africa.
i will just corporate with them so the can give the tape so i will bring to you.
Ani is unable to work, but i have giving all to some one to do it.
Glory George , God has used you better to help our country.
i am very happy for God plan. Genevieve father is hospitalised since yesterday and we are praying.
Clever

Healing took place later

So many leaders came yesterday to our friday teaching training.
We just worship and remimber you.
Do you know that when you teach about SOZO, we got alot of healing with take place after.
many home were heal, and some sick people got heal; in Kribi group one man told me about his hernia which disapear, Joy came to all, and personnal reconciliation to bring people together in all our community was one of our goal.
Thank for your determination and courage to come in africa.
God will never forget this day he plan since the fondation of creation.
Greetings to all your children. i am in prayer to prepare my visit there in Mars (March GE) as we discussed here.

The history will never forget that you GEORGE AND JANET are the first white person who visited vineyard cameroun the first time. All s/africa mouvement is happy for what you did here.
This is God plan George. It is not a man plan. We are looking forward to ask for more wisdom and revelation. We all love you George.
We all are very please to welcome you again.
Thank and all those who contributed to this Dream.
Greeting all Rivers city vineyard family.
We love them.
Clever

Home Again Post

by George

We arrived home after 28 hours of travel. We were blessed because our plane arrived before the weather got bad. Janet and I have known what it is like to circle the airport for 2 hours waiting for weather to clear enough for the plane to land.

We finally got on the road and the weather was getting worse. The traffic stopped on the 401. We were just at a median so we turned around and took another highway. There ended up being a 75 car pile up at Woodstock about 20 miles away from where we had to stop. We were blessed not to be one of those 75 cars.

We made it home to a warm welcome to our children who cooked us a nice Asian meal to give us a break from African.

Final thoughts
Here are some final thoughts about our journey. The Cameroon people are wonderful people. We saw no crime there. Quinton from South Africa was totally blown away by this as he said he as never seen it quite like this in Africa. No one is ripping your watch off your hand, no violence, no drugs, etc. We didn’t even see people smoking. I only remember seeing 2 people smoking and one was at the airport. The people are very friendly loving and hospitable.

There are no white people in Douala. We saw maybe 5 whites at the most.

The Vineyard Church here has a good start and is working on a good foundation.

I asked Clever which of my teachings impacted him the most and he said “Sozo”. That is a teaching where I show that healing, salvation and restoration are all integrated and you can’t separate them. Jesus didn’t come to just heal us (make us physically better), or to just save us (for most that means just get into heaven), etc. he came to “Sozo” us (Greek work which means healing, salvation and restoration, etc.) and totally restore us and let us begin to live and experience the Kingdom of God.

I felt like a major breakthrough came when I talked about poverty. They had a mindset that Clever was receiving money from Vineyard Europe or Vineyard west and that their little bit of money would make no difference. I spoke about the mentality of poverty, how we are rich in God and if they want us to assist them then they have a poverty mentality. I went over a story call “the rich people in our church” and showed them that poverty was a mindset. I really felt a break through in the spirit. We all feel poor because we spend more than we make, we look at what we don’t have, and compare ourselves to those who have more than us.

We didn’t have much ministry time. It seemed like more foundational teaching on the Kingdom of God and other groundwork and less teaching on other important subjects like worship and healing. Also, they start late and the meetings go for 3-4 hours, and it is hot and humid and ministry time does not seem very conducive.

Cameroon is 80% French and 20% English. They have 10 provinces and 2 provinces are English and the other 8 are French. You would think that it would be easy to communicate with the people who speak English. Well it can be quite difficult for 2 reasons; one accent and two, choice of words. For example instead of saying “go quickly” they say “go fast” but is sounds like “go fawstt” so you go “pardon” (they may say for pardon “please”)
Another example is “the fly of Quinton reach” which means “the airplane Quinton is on has arrived”.

Speaking French was interesting. A lot of my high school French came back to me (last class was Grade 9) but if their French is like their English then I was learning Cameroun French. I do want to learn more French so I can eventually preach in French. To learn it, I will need to maybe do some CDs or schooling and then get immersed in it. One of the main problems is I also want to learn Spanish, Dutch, and Russian so we will see. Life is so exciting and so much to look forward as we partner with the Kingdom of God.

The Last Night

by Jan
Well, here it is on Wednesday morning, exactly two weeks ago since we left for Africa. I crawled into bed last night at 10:30, exactly 44 hours after having gotten up. Of course I caught some wink-eye on the plane, but sleeping sitting up just doesn’t seem to have the same restful effect. It took us 4 and ½ hours to get home from the airport as we had to take all the back roads home. Traffic had come to a complete stop while we on the 401. We decided quite quickly that things didn’t look good. There was no traffic at all going eastbound which meant one of two things – either the highway was closed due to weather conditions or due to an accident. Because we happened to stop just before an overpass, there was a section in which we could do an easy u-turn. In hindsight, it was a good decision because as we listened to the radio, the situation was not good and we could have been stuck in traffic for hours. When you get that close to home, you just want to get home, especially when travelling has gone on for so long.

I am just going to share a few final thoughts about the trip. First of all, George and I thank all of you who prayed for us and for our safety, and for those who supported us financially to make this trip possible. A trip such as this one is very expensive and not something one would do on a regular basis. Your support has been much appreciated. The first few days I had to pinch myself to believe that I was actually in Africa. I did really not know what to expect since George had been the one who had the email contacts and I didn’t really ask him too much. I didn’t want to form anything in my mind and I just wanted to take it as it came, although I had no idea that the place where we were going was as “third world” as it was. The heat could also be overwhelming at times and it is hard for me to imagine that the hot season we were in, is still going to get hotter. Then the wet season begins after that, in which it apparently rains constantly and it doesn’t get a whole lot cooler either. The last afternoon I was there, I was helping in the kitchen, cutting up some cabbages for our party that night and the sweat was literally dripping off of my face. I don’t think that I have ever experienced that before as I am not one that sweats easily. Coming home to winter was a welcoming thought at that moment.

I wondered as we first arrived, how we were going to be able to make an impact on these people and if indeed, all the money that had been spent to make this trip possible, was actually worth it. I mean, what do we have to offer that they can’t accomplish themselves? But now that the trip is over, I do believe that we made a positive impact. I thought that George’s talks went really well and his speaking seemed to get stronger as we went on. Quinton’s (the VBI guy from South Africa)talks were also very good and spending time getting to know him was fun for both of us. Sometimes you really wonder why you get to meet people who live far away, wondering if you will ever see them again. Quinton was very interesting and fun to hang out with. After reading Clever’s email which he sent us this morning, I truly knew that God had used us to impact the people there and to encourage them. As we have stated before, the people are very special and kind and hospitable. I felt as if we made a lot of new friends. Of course, there is an immediate bond knowing that they are Christians and then even more of a bond, when they have our Vineyard values. They don’t come across so religious. Once again, are we ever going to see them again?

The Douala group threw a wonderful party for us which they called their “African Night” on our last night there. We got decked out in true African garb (Quinton asked if we had our pajamas on) which they had specifically made for us. We got lavished with all kinds of gifts from different individuals, most of which was African clothing. (So if any of you need any African dress, you know where to go).The courtyard was all set up with tables and decorations. We were sat at the head table and it actually felt like we were at a wedding.

There was nice music playing in the background and some final words were said. I wish I could have taken more of it in, but many wanted pictures taken with us so it seemed as if the night was done almost before we started. We were going to spend some time doing worship before we left, but Clever decided to call the airport to see if our flight was on time.

They bumped up the time! So all of a sudden we were in a mad rush to get last minute packing done (the gifts and such). Some people wondered why we got out of our African garb so I tried to explain to them that we would freeze once we got to Paris. After some very quick good-byes, we left. Things were closing at the airport when we got there, and we just managed to squeak in, which meant that we could not say good-bye to Quinton, Ann, and Genevieve. I was really bummed about that. I thought that once we got checked in we could go back and say good-bye but it is set up differently there. Genevieve became very special to me. She is only 5 years older than my oldest and a very dear lady. She has a sweet spirit and I felt an extra close bond to her. Eunice came from Nigeria for the conference and she grew very special to me in a few short days as well. I really like the black people and find them very beautiful. I made sure that I kept telling them that as I was told that they often don’t like being black. I also find it amazing what these people accomplish in the midst of difficult circumstances. Once again I was reminded of how much we have here in North America, compared to the rest of the world. This particular country has next to no crime, which was truly amazing to me, so I never had a time when I did not feel safe (except when I was in a car).

We came to a wonderful welcome home. All our kids, (except Denise who was on business), son-in-laws, and Hayden were there to meet us and once again, I felt like a truly blessed woman. Will I ever go back to Cameroon? Absolutely, if the opportunity arises.