Blessed in Budapest

Posted on April 27, 2013 by opendooreurope

Yesterday was our second and last day in Budapest. In the morning we met in the Jewish Ghetto and did a prayer walk with Esther from Jews for Jesus. Although the Jews of Budapest were only confined to the ghetto for a month, it was such a difficult time, being winter, that there was no heat and little or nothing to eat. Many people died during that month, and Esther’s grandmother was one of them.

But then she took us to the Carl Lutz memorial. Carl Lutz was a Swiss man who saved thousands of Jewish children during the war, and Esther’s mother was of them. It makes the Holocaust so much more tragic and real when you meet someone so personally impacted by the war.

Carl Lutz memorial

After lunch we walked out to the middle of the Crown Bridge. Just last year they had added a couple of obelisks and crown statues to the bridge. Obelisks are ancient Egyptian symbols, which have to do with the worship of the sun. Nevertheless, obelisks are found in many churches, especially in Europe. Obelisks are also a common architectural theme in Freemasonry. The Masons claim to be a Christian organization and point to their good work in building the Shriners Childrens Hospitals, and riding around in funny little cars in parades wearing fezes, but even a casual glance at the rites reveals the satanic roots of Freemasonry. The Hungarian crown has a crooked cross on top, which I think is revealing, too. So we prayed there in the middle of the bridge, looking across the Danube at the Parliament building that we had visited the day before.

Crown statue on the Crown Bridge

One more destination was the castle and church atop the highest hill in Budapest. From that vantage point high on the ramparts, we prayed for Budapest and proclaimed her future and her people for Jesus. Those of us from other countries then prayed for the Hungarians who had come to pray with us, blessings them.

Castle ramparts high above the city of Budapest

Finally we returned to the Scottish Mission Church to worship God and have a final evening of prayer together. It was a really sweet time together, and when the Hungarians surrounded us to pray for us, the Holy Spirit fell upon all of us and we laughed in the sweet joy of the Lord. So we ended our time together worshiping, praying, blessing, and laughing. It was wonderful! God is good!

And today was a travel day back to Bratislava followed by relaxing, each in their own way (taking a run, shopping, sleeping, writing a blog post—guess who!).

Restroom sign at the Scottish Mission Church

Dream Big!

Posted on March 24, 2013 by opendooreurope

Day Eight

After writing about all my devil dreams, I didn’t want to leave the impression that I only dream about the devil or even mostly dream about the devil—nothing of the sort! I dream God dreams all the time. In fact, so many that sometimes I am in danger of forgetting them.

In my book, Laughing in My Dreams © 2012 Alisa K. Brown, www.lulu.com, I told about some of my dream confirmations about getting this apartment, but I had forgotten to write about one dream that was particularly beautiful.

The dream came in 2 parts. In the first part I was on a bus with Giulietta, the wife of the Music Pastor at my Italian church. Giulietta is a professional dancer, and dances mostly modern dance and ballet. So, Giulietta and I were on a bus, going to see my apartment (which I was fasting and praying to get). The bus was filled with people from church. Elisa said, “The Lord will give you every place where you put your feet.”

When we got to the door of the apartment I woke up. I started praying, thanking God for my apartment, and fell asleep again. The dream continued right from where it had left off.

The bus arrived in front of the apartment—and there is a bus that passes right in front of the apartment, for real, though it stops in the next block. We went inside and immediately Giulietta started praying in Hebrew. Her prayer became a song, and although I don’t understand Hebrew, I recognized that it was a song of conquest and victory. As Elisa sang everybody began to dance, touching all the walls, the windows, the doors, the furniture, etc. (even though it was an unfurnished apartment, it has furniture in my dream). Then one after another, the people left, and finally Giulietta left, too, and I was alone in my apartment.

This dream came when I needed reassurance that I was on the right track. Of the people who knew that I was fasting and praying for this particular apartment, only Bethany was truly supportive. The rest would try gently to persuade me that I should probably look for an apartment in a less expensive part of town. But not long after this dream, I had a breakthrough. And now I am in the apartment.

Now, while I am fasting and praying for understand for End Times strategies and preparation, I know that I am on the right track. Breakthrough is coming.

This morning I got on the bus to go to church, and the bus got about 10 blocks from home, stopped and had everyone get off because the Stramilano marathon was blocking the bus route. The driver then turned the bus around and went back the way we had come. I went to the tram stop, but the tram was also blocked. So I went back to the train station about 5 blocks away. But by the time I got there I was so exhausted and weak (fasting and physical exertion do not go together!) that I decided just to go home and pray instead.

There is a beautiful golden church at the end of my block, and just as I got to the corner, I stopped. There was procession of 4 priests and 2 altar boys carrying gold crosses and incense censers, and maybe 4 parishioners with olive branches in their hands. I watched as they crossed the street toward me. I had forgotten that it was Palm Sunday today. (In Italy, they use olive branches instead of palm fronds.)

In my prayer time, I felt such a strong presence of God that I hadn’t felt in a long time. An hour passed very quickly, then another. We didn’t spend a lot of time speaking to each other, we just embraced and cuddled. It was really wonderful.

I’m not advocating skipping church, and I’ll go to an afternoon service in a little while. But God is willing to meet you whenever and wherever you seek Him. He might even send a procession to meet you! God is good!

Lessons in Floating

Posted on July 22, 2012 by opendooreurope

Last Year – When I was here at the beautiful Adriatic Sea last year, the Holy Spirit told me to go for a swim. I loved the beach when I was a kid—what kid doesn’t? But as an adult, I had come to associate the sea with many discomforts: the itchy feeling of salt water dried on the skin, oily sunscreen crusted with sand, fair skin that burns despite the use of sunscreen SPF 45, the sand that gets into places it shouldn’t, and a body that’s white and lumpy and looks better clothed than in a swimsuit—intense body shame. So it was with all that beach-hating baggage that the Holy Spirit told me to take a swim.

Despite my bags and baggage, I did take a swim. Leaving my glasses on top of my towel, I walked toward the water. I saw something washed up on the beach that looked like a dead jellyfish. I’ve been stung by jellyfish. It’s like being stung by an electric wasp—definitely an experience I don’t want to ever have again. But instead of turning back, I just laughed. If God wants me to swim, then He has a purpose. “Besides,” I told myself, “it was probably just a plastic bag from somebody’s beach lunch.”

I had decided that my act of obedience meant that I should get completely wet. So I got about waist-deep, then dove into the waves. After paddling around for a few minutes, I thought that I was finished. But the Holy Spirit told me: “Lay back.” I did, and discovered something wonderful: I float like a cork! I am so buoyant that I can even float with my head above the water, toes above the water, and bottom down. But laying back with my ears under the water was incredibly peaceful, and little by little I felt my limbs release their muscular tension.

I took that first swim fully clothed because I didn’t have my swimsuit with me. I understood that swimming would be something I should do every day while I was here, so I knew I needed to buy a swimsuit. The only thing I’ve hated more than the beach is buying a swimsuit. The last one I bought online, and it covered so much of me that it was almost a throwback to the old swimsuits they used in the early 1900’s. I knew that if I thought too much about it, I would talk myself out of buying one, so I just plunged into a swim shop and bought one. It’s not bad looking.

A few days after that first swim the wind kicked up, bringing bigger waves. Thanks to a breakwater, the big waves are tamed into choppy little wavelets before they reach the swimming area by the beach. During my floating session that day, God (who had never repeated Himself to me before) told me: “Relax! Relax! Relax!” And the little wavelets shook each limb with a different rhythm and out of synch with one another. It reminded me of a Lamaze exercise in which your coach takes an arm and your teacher takes the opposite leg and they shake them in differing rhythms. You are supposed to practice releasing the tension in those muscles and all the others in between. And that memory tickled me so much that I laughed out loud—and a more profound relaxation followed. God has the greatest sense of humor!

The lesson in physically relaxing taught me to relax when I’m worried about things going wrong. Without going into detail (which you can read about in my book “Look, Listen, Love,” available from http://www.lulu.com/), I learned that I can relax and let God work out the things that I have no control over. And when I do really relax and release those worries, God not only works things out, but blesses me in unexpected ways. And one of those things, you can read about in my blog post: https://europeanfaithmissions.wordpress.com/2012/06/17/god-meets-radical-faith-with-radical-provision/.

This Year – I have returned to the beach, bringing two very dear friends with me. The three of us have gone to the beach each day, floating and swimming, talking and laughing, praying and praising our Heavenly Father.

A lesson that God has been teaching me recently is to let go of the past—particularly past offenses and betrayals, but also past mistakes or bad choices that I need to forgive myself. I have been working on it, releasing those people and things to God, forgiving and letting them go. But every once in a while, the memory of these things comes to mind, robbing me of my focus and trying to rob my peace. Whenever this happens, I try to release the memory as quickly as possible.

While floating yesterday, the Holy Spirit told me that, just as I had learned to relax my worries into God’s hands, I also need to relax my memories into His hands. And lying there on the bosom of the sea, I did exactly that.

This morning during my prayer time, once again I found my attention wandering to a painful event. Immediately, I said, “Let it go! Let it go! Let it go!” and I released the memory and returned my focus to God, my Peace.

When it comes to relaxing my grip on those memories, would it be wrong to say that I’m working on it? I’m grateful that God is a patient Teacher. God is good!

Contrarian Kingdom Part Two

Posted on June 25, 2012 by opendooreurope

Greetings from Cardiff!

Yesterday we went to the Senate building to pray for the Welsh Parliament. The building is right at the docks, which historically have economic importance for Wales, being the place where so much Welsh coal was shipped to the rest of the world. The demand for coal declined and the docks became a derelict area. In 2005 the docks area underwent a transformation. And now it’s a great place for people to meet and have a meal. For our purposes, it was a great place to come and pray for revival in Wales—specifically, for a revival that will dwarf the previous revivals that started here.

In this beautiful setting in the capital of Wales, I found that for some reason I was having some trouble focusing and praying—the reason I’m here. So in desperation, with my mind wandering this morning I finally said, “Lord, please tell me what to pray!” Sometimes desperation leads to wonderful contrarian things:

I want to be brilliant—a genius—at faith, even if people think I’m stupid about other things.
I want wisdom to live out that faith.
I want and need discernment of the schemes of the enemy.

All my life, the thing that was guaranteed to anger me was to be called stupid or treated like I’m stupid. And there have been plenty of people who have thought me stupid. When I lived in California as a child, the other children teased me and called me stupid because of my Texas accent. In New York as an adult, people occasionally mimicked me because my accent made me sound stupid to them. Their logic being that you might be a stupid redneck because you sound like Jeff Foxworthy. In Italy, people sometimes mistake my slow speech (Texas drawl in Italian) for a slow mind, and try to take advantage of me. So for me to pray for a faith so smart that people think I’m stupid is inspired by God because I would never ask to be taken for stupid. But God’s wisdom turns the wisdom of the world on its head. And one thing I am ready to embrace above all others is God’s wisdom.

Recently I wrote a blog post about God’s contrarian logic: https://europeanfaithmissions.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/contrarian-kingdom/. And in true contrarian, non-conformist fashion, I love the idea of asking for something that in my flesh I never wanted. But there it is: I want a faith so big that people in their flesh think I’m stupid. It’s turning the world’s logic on its head.

Come on, people of God! Let’s live a life that’s absolutely contrary to the world’s way!

Walking By Faith in Europe

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