My first view of Iceland was the Great Glacier.

When I arrived in Copenhagen the day before flying to the Faroe Islands, there was bright sun right over the airport and a huge bank of clouds all around (as noted in Open Heavens over Copenhagen).  The clouds were so thick and dark that they looked like mountains.  Then I went downstairs and caught a train into the city, not knowing if it would be cloudy and/or raining.  But when I came out of the train station, it was bright sun right over Copenhagen.  That’s when the Lord gave me the word for this prayer trip: open heavens—meaning that our prayers would be heard and responded to.

And that open heaven continued to be miraculously demonstrated in the weather.  The sunny skies that we had was so remarkable that for the entire nine days the locals in both the Faroe Islands and in Iceland continuously commented about how “lucky” we were.  Of course, it wasn’t luck.

View overlooking Thorshavn

In Iceland I never saw the sun go down or rise, though we were still 168 miles south of the Arctic Circle.  When I went to bed at 10:30, the sun was still in the sky.  When I woke up at 5AM, the sun was already up—and the longest day of the year is still over a month away.  I was so happy to have had blackout curtains!

But all this sunshine was a sign of Heaven’s favor on us and our prayers.  On the last day in the Faroe Islands we spent some hours in prayer for Israel, and not only for the Jewish people, but also for the Palestinians.  What you read in the newspapers about Muslim people being unwelcome in Scandinavia (especially after the Danish cartoon fatwa) was absolutely not reflected by the Scandinavian people I met.  Their passion to pray for Muslims was very strong.  And as they prayed for Muslims, I felt that familiar nudge of the Holy Spirit to share about an organization here in Milan that shares the Gospel with Muslims.

This organization has a great way to speak to Muslims coming to the Expo.  They have had hundreds of rubber bracelets made for the Expo that pull apart to show a flash drive inside with the entire Bible in Arabic.  So this way people who are out of their usually oppressive culture can explore the Bible and even take it back home without worrying that they might be arrested or worse.  For the older businessman type, there is a pen that pulls apart to reveal a flash drive inside, too.

I also shared about the informational meeting where I first saw the James Bond Bible flash drives.  The meeting was good, but it was during the prayer at the end of the meeting that my mind was blown.  During that prayer the Holy Spirit reminded me of a vision that I had 10 or 12 years ago.

In the vision I saw a lighthouse growing up out of Milan and it gave light to Italy, grew more and gave light to Europe, grew more and gave light to the whole world.  I knew that it was a vision about Revival, but when Revival didn’t come, I forgot about the vision.

So when the Holy Spirit reminded me of the vision, I understood that the vision was for now, for the Expo.  So I shared this in that last evening in the Faroe Islands, and invited people to come to our ripe harvest field during the six months of the Expo.

The response was enthusiastic, and they said that they wanted to pray over me for the Expo.  As they prayed, God gave me a new prayer focus.  Just that morning (no coincidence, but a God-incidence!), I had felt led to re-read Isaiah chapter 54, which God had given me as a rhema word in 1992: enlarge your tents because you’re going to have a lot of children.  It hadn’t made sense to me in 1992, when I had a teenager and a toddler in the house, but now I know that it was a word about spiritual children.  So as they were praying for me, I suddenly felt an intense desire for children—spiritual children.  I began weeping and praying like Rachel: “Give me children or I will die!”  But just like when God invited me to ask Him for the desire of my heart (to live in Europe), I know that I am praying for His will for spiritual children, so I know that He will do it.

In Iceland the oppositional spirits quickly became obvious: confusion and division.  But thanks to the support of my prayer team, we were able to maintain love and unity even during moments of miscommunication.

Geyser!

The altar of Thor had been a place in ancient times where there were blood sacrifices of horses and even people.  The proponents of the altar want to reestablish blood sacrifices there—and the government, in misbegotten religious “tolerance,” has agreed to let them.  When we went to the altar of Thor, I saw a backhoe sitting idle nearby.  The altar hasn’t been built (or rebuilt) yet, and with continuing prayer, it probably won’t be built.  The leader of our prayer group, told the Icelanders that he had heard former satanists say that it takes 20 to 30 repeated prayers to prepare a place, but that one Christian prayer can undo all those satanic prayers.  So he suggested that they return to that place every so often to pray against the building of that altar.

That evening as we prayed for the Body of Christ in Iceland, the Lord revealed to me where the spirits of confusion and division had come from.  They had come from the Church!  When Iceland decided to become a Christian country in the year 1000, the Church allowed people to continue their pagan practices in private.  As the Lord showed me this, I could feel the Holy Spirit’s grief over this unholy mix.  I fell to my knees, weeping and begging God to forgive His Church for tolerating and accepting the pagan practices.  When I looked up, I saw that everyone else had also dropped to their knees, weeping in repentance.  This had been an important prayer, and I knew that we had accomplished what we had come to do.

So thank you to my prayer partners.  God heard your prayers and moved in a powerful way for our group and for me, personally.  God is good!

Frozen waterfall!