prayer trip | Walking By Faith in Europe

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!

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!

Walking By Faith in Europe

Tag Archives: prayer trip

Open Heavens over Iceland

Our Last Night in Sofia