Answered Prayer

Before we moved to Canada, we prayed. We prayed for a lot of things. We prayed about selling our house in Wisconsin. God answered and provided a private buyer, without ever listing the house on the market. We prayed for God to provide, if possible, a place to live in Salmon Arm, close to Pierre's Point. It was close to the Adams Lake Reservation, so it made sense to pray to be close. God answered a month before we were to move, and provided this house to rent, which is less than one kilometer to Pierre's Point.

We believed that this was a temporary living place right from the start; but we also were thankful to God for providing it. So, anticipating the need to move someday, we began to pray for the next location seven and a half years ago.

Recently, God graticiously gave a sign that we would be moving again. It seems, that our little Barn-House was built 38 years ago as a whim of the owner of the property. He wanted to prove that though he was 70 years old, he wasn't too old to build a house. You don't need city permits for a whim, do you? Well, he didn't think so.
So, he built the house...illegally.

Our landlord had a house fire last winter. He went to the city to get the proper permits. The city engineer came out and looked over the property. When he came to our little Barn-House, he said, "What's that?" The landlord explained that the former property owner built the house, and that it was grandfathered into the deed. The engineer promptly checked the records. The answer was, "No." So, the city lawyers told the landlord that before he can move into his new house, the barn house has to be vacated. I presume that it will be checked out later by the city building examiner to determine if it is up to code. Anyway, when the landlord told me that I had about six months to find other quarters, my heart stirred and I took it as a sign from God to get ready to move.

One thing preventing us from looking for a different house up to now was the fact that we couldn't get a house loan from a bank as long as we had a "Visitor Visa" from the government. A week before I got the notice from the landlord about moving, we got a letter from the government telling us that our two and 3/4 year wait on the government was nearly over. We would be granted the Landed Immigrant status (which is like the Permanent Resident - Green Card, in the States). That meant that we could get a house loan, when that was finalized!
Today, we received the official and final paperwork. We can expect to be in a position to apply for a house loan in anywhere from 1-3 months...I think. Anyway, things are coming together.

If we could, we would consider moving to Reservation land to be closer to our friends; but that probably won't happen. There are a fixed number of houses available on the Rez, and they are all occuppied. There is a waiting list of Native people wanting to move on the Rez, so without Native status, it is unlikely that we will be able to move there. But we can still pray! :)
I figure we have a couple of months for God to open a door of opportunity if He wants us on the Reservation. I wonder how He will direct...?

So, what happened?

We are back from the “house cleansing”, or “house clearing”, or “house blessing.” The words you choose depend on who you ask at the house.

We had the home owners, a young couple with one small girl and two grandparents. Jannie came as my prayer back-up. Half way through, it was made clear that the grandparents were expecting a ceremony, nothing more. If the Catholic Church had a priest they trusted, he would have done a ceremony. If the Shuswap shaman’s were available, they would have done a smudging ceremony. I knew this was likely to be the expectation of the people. Indians like and expect ceremony, it is in their blood.

I got back to the Pre-house Clearing Notes and finished. Then, I went through the house with holy water, a “wisk” (the brushy thing to dip in the water and scatter it in the room) I made from cedar greens, and prayed over and blessed each room. At the end, I prayed for the whole house and especially for the little girl, to break any ancestral curse.

No spirits manifested and everything went very smoothly.

We had coffee and talked very well with the young couple afterwards. We hope to stay in touch with them. This would be a break through for that Reserve. They are the hard Reserve to reach. So, perhaps God is now breaking through the walls of spiritual darkness on that Reserve!

Perhaps you are curious about my choice to use “holy water” and cedar greens in the ceremony? It does seem a bit Roman Catholic. Well, remember that the Secwepemc People respond to ceremony. They expect a ceremony, and so the cultural response is correct to provide a Christian ceremony. I made it very clear that the ceremony has no power, but that Jesus Christ who is present and behind the symbols, He is the power in the ceremony. So, we need to be able to leave our Protestant anti-ceremonial cultural bias behind, when ministering to the First Nations community. We need to be able to create meaningful Christ honouring ceremonies, that minister to the Shuswap heart and mind.

Thanks for your prayers. I was eager to go to this house this morning and full of faith that God would glorify the name of Jesus Christ somehow. I believe He did.

Prayer Request

I just got off the telephone with some Native people who live on the Reserve. They said that they are experiencing ghosts in their house and they asked if I could come over and kick the ghosts out. I arranged for all the people that reside in that home to attend a teaching time before I do the house cleansing.

Next, I went to my file drawer and got my notes together so I could “put on the armour” tonight and be ready for tomorrow.

The next thing I thought of was asking other Believers for prayer support.

We will meet tomorrow, Saturday morning, at 10:00am. I will go through 45minutes to an hour of teaching about what the Bible says about ghosts, spirits, and the like. The teaching time moves intentionally towards understanding that power over evil spirits comes only through Jesus Christ. If they choose to “open doorways” to the spirits and invite spirits into their lives by some Indian ceremonies, or drugs, etc., I leave them to the spirits. No point in sending the spirits away if the people in the house choose to invite them right back. Also, if the spirits are confronted, they don’t like it. If they leave angry, and are able to come back, they can bring seven more spirits with them, and the situation is worse than before.
If, however, they agree to keep spiritual doors closed, I will go through the house cleansing ceremony. Most of the time the spirits just leave quietly. Sometimes, they manifest.

So, could you pray for our meeting with this family?
Pray that they would see the glory of Jesus Christ and want to know Him as Saviour and Lord.
Pray for safety; and that if spirits do manifest, that they will quickly bow their knee in subjection to the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I’ll write again how the meeting went.
Thanks in advance for your prayers. Oh, and “yes”, you are welcome to ask other prayer warriors to join in as well.
~Howard

From no hope and dispair to.....

Today we heard of a tragedy on the Reserve. A couple of days ago, some young people, teens and early 20's, gathered for a party. Drugs were passed around.

Three have died, and one more is in coma. We know the coma victim slightly.

The person who made the drugs in his home lab turned himself in to the cops.

There is a lot of dispair on the Rez. Drugs promise a temporary escape, but sometimes, the drugs take away all chance for hope and change.

"There is a way that seems right unto man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death."

a view out our living room window...after we had snow, snow and some more snow!

Isaiah Chapter Six

Well, we made it to 2009. You have seen a lot of changes in the world during your life. It would take a long time to try to list all the change, wouldn’t it?

It kind of makes me think about Isaiah chapter six. “In the year that King Uzziah died…”

Isaiah was living through many changes when he wrote that. King Uzziah had a good start as king. He trusted in God and made a lot of changes to suppress idol worship. He reigned for 52 years. He submitted to teaching from Zechariah in how to worship God rightly. God gave him engineering genius. He made ballista and catapults that defended Jerusalem. We think that the Roman military invented those weapons, but King Uzziah had them 700 years before the Roman empire! 2 Chronicles 26 tells about his reign.

It must have been a golden era, to live in the first thirty years or so of King Uzziah’s reign. The legal system was cleaned up. Criminals were in jail or left Israel. False prophets and false religions were not welcome. People went to temple and worshipped together, and all was well, as long as King Uzziah sought the Lord.

Isaiah also witnessed the time of departure, the time when the King, full of his victories and power, stopped seeking the Lord. With that change, came many old vices and troubles which have been common to people though time. I wondered if Isaiah had some intense prayer times, interceding for his country? He would have witnessed a cooling of devotion for the Lord from the government and also in the people.

At such a time as that, Isaiah was met by the Lord in a rare and precious way. Chapter 6 begins, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: with two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.’”

God was still on the throne at a time of spiritual decline and social decay when Isaiah saw Him. God is still on the throne in this day, too. There may be many things trying to distract our attention from seeking the Lord today. There are earthquakes, hurricanes, global warming, wars and rumours of wars, a general cooling of hearts from seeking the Lord, and a soft economy. Still, the Word tells us that “He has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, power, and a self discipline.”

God is still on the throne. The Lord Jesus is coming back, and soon. I am not anxious about the change that is coming, for my feet are standing on the Rock.

“So, hurry back Lord Jesus. Shake your church. Shake the governments. Shake the earth! You are still on the throne and right on schedule.”

Perhaps you believed that you would live to see His return during your life.
You may be right!
He is coming soon.