HoPE Tuesdays

Hello everyone,
Thanks for checking my blog. I hope that you are all doing well!
Just wanted to let you all know that I really do intend to make a quick video blog from my time in Kansas City, so keep checking the blog for that.
In other news, something really exciting is happening tomorrow! The HoPE Prayer Room is opening on Tuesday nights from 7-9PM! Not only is this initiative happening to help give people options who have regular jobs, HoPE Tuesdays are going to be a time of learning as well as praying, as some people involved with House of Prayer are going to be taking time to share what God's laid on their hearts pertaining to prayer and the apostolic prayers.
Tuesday nights are something that I am taking a bit of leadership in, as I will be there every week to lead worship, run PowerPoint, sing, pray, and eventually even teach (I will keep you posted as far as when this will be happening).

Feel free to drop by the Marketplace Chapel in West Edmonton Mall on Tuesday nights to really get an idea about what God is doing at the House of Prayer. For a bit more info on it specifically, check out Jim Hall's (Director of HoPE) blog by clicking here.

Thanks a lot!

Daunavan

Sitting in MCI

Well, here I sit, sitting in the Kansas City Airport, waiting for the flight to Minneapolis and then back home! I'm actually going to be working on a video blog tomorrow with more details and visuals from the trip... so this is more of a reflective deal tonight.

At this point In leaving I am torn. My time here has been amazing, our schedule has basically been eat, pray, and meet with people who have been involved at iHOP for years. It has been quite different from 'real life,' but it has been so enjoyable. I keep telling people that the only thing that could have made this trip any better was if my beautiful wife could have come, and I do mean that!

Other than missing Kirsten (I know, cry me a river and all that), I'm excited to go home because the trip here has been so good. I have felt equipped the whole time that we have been here, and equipping really starts to get exciting when the work is being done, and there's a lot of work to do. I have never been in an environment before that has lended itself to so much reflection, planning, and great conversation. All of that is going to start to take shape in the next couple months.

I will be posting again in the next couple of days to go more in depth about the good that God is doing, so this is mostly just to get you excited!

Thanks for your prayers while I was gone, I could feel an uncanny ability to connect with God over this last week and I know that a lot of that has to do with the fact that I have a whole team of people praying for me at home. Thanks so much!

See you in 6 hours, Edmonton!

International House of Prayer in Kansas City

So I was planning on doing a video blog, but I seemed to foget one extremely important thing to make that happen, my cord to connect my video camera to the computer! So that's not going to happen. The other problem is that the internet here is super slow, so even if I could have made a quick video update, it would have taken ages for it to upload. So the video update is going to have to wait, but if you have some time to read, please read this blog as it's pretty awesome what's happening here in Kansas City!

What I'm Doing: 

There is a team of 9 of us up from Edmonton in Kansas City, Missouri from House of Prayer Edmonton to visit the International House of Prayer. The team consists of myself, Nathan (volunteer), Jim Hall (director of HoPE), Georgina (volunteer), Maria & Troy (Maria is an intercessory missionary with me!) Peter and Colleen (House of Prayer enthusiasts, and faithful intercessors) and Carlotta (HoPE enthusiast).  The purpose of this trip was simply to visit and observe a culture where night and day prayer is happening and has happened for 12 years! We did not come with an agenda or really anything lined up, we simply came to learn and encounter God. 
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the International House of Prayer, it is a missions base in Kansas City that has birthed out of a vision that their founder (Mike Bickle) had to see night and day prayer estabilshed on the Earth. Think of the Levites ministering in the tabernacle to God. For years, 24/7 they were paid to play their instruements and worship God. We refer to this idea as ministering to God, and we do this by singing songs of worship to God (both praise and surrender) and by taking time to intercede for world events (they've basically been praying everyday for hours for Egypt). So, the prayer room is simply one aspect of IHoP. IHoP also has Sunday services, conferences, a university, internships, adoption agencies... it's a huge deal! With over 1000 staff and interns, God truly has blessed the International House of Prayer and He has truly answered many of their prayers. I am no expert on the ins and outs of IHoP, so if you want more information, check out their website (www.ihop.org). To see a live feed of the prayer room (which is brodcast world wide 24/7) just click on prayer room and You can get a bit of an idea of what goes on in the prayer room (it truly is amazing).

So we came here to get an idea of what goes on here and to visit the prayer room. Our basic daily schedule has consisted of being in the prayer room and eating. In the midst of that, some really awesome stuff has been happening. I had the opportunity to visit a prophecy room and it was here where they encouraged me that, though I am facing life-change, God has all of the details under control and He has been the one working in my decisions from the beginning. For those of you who don't know, I quit my job at Transcend a few weeks ago so that I could commit to House of Prayer more and finish school. This prophetic word (from a complete stranger who had no idea of my situation) really affirmed where I am at!

Along with getting to the prophecy room, our group has been overwhelmingly blessed from some of the key leaders here at IHoP.  Wes Martin and Justin Rizzo blocked out a period of time where we were simply able to talk to them and ask them questions. It was a very fast hour and a half as Wes and Justin really shared their hearts with us, affirming what God's doing at House of Prayer and really challenging us as they talked about how they live their lives! After this, Justin invited myself and Maria to his worship practice as well as their briefing session for their time in the prayer room, and this was awesome! Justin is an incredibly gifted musician and someone I respect and look up to as a worship leader as well as an intercessor. to be able to watch him interact with his teams and friends was extremely encouraging and I learned so much simply by being there. It was a huge honor to observe Justin in his element (and even here a new song that even his band was hearing for the first time!) Wes has also told us that he would love to meet with us all again before we leave, so I am anticipating another great period of time for us to really talk to Wes about where things are at! I'm excited for this. 

Probably one of the most intense times we've ever had for our group happened yesterday. Peter and Colleen are partners with IHoP, so they come to visit quite often (so often, that they have purchased a house and rented it out mainly so that when they are here they can stay in a guest suite). In their time here, they have met many people involved with IHoP, two of which are very gifted prophetically (they both serve on prophecy and evangelism teams here). These two met with our group yesterday and we had an incredibly powerful time of group prophecy. They went around the circle and prophecied over each one of us! The accuracy of what they said was phenomenal and it was a blessing that we were all able to experience this together. It really helped us grow as a group and we learned a lot about each other and what God is doing for the group. It was quite humbling to realize that I am a part of such an anointed group of people who really are going to be used by god in profound and uniqe ways. 

The other aspect of this trip that has been amazing has been the  conversations that have arisen with people from my group. House of Prayer Edmonton is still very small and in a place where we are on the verge of a lot of growth. This growth comes with a need for strategy as well as vision and a lot of the conversations that we have been having have been extremely exciting as we look forward to going home and really seeing HoPE take off! 

So that's a bit of a summary of what I've been doing practically while I've been here at the International House of Prayer. It's been awesome and I'm extremely excited about what I'm learning and what God's doing! Today or later tomorrow I am going to take some time to write out a blog about what I'm learning, as God has been teaching me a lot about who He is and who I am. 

I hope that you are doing amazing and that God is speaking to each of You. thanks for your support and friendships. It means the world to know that I have such incredible people at home who have my back!

You are greatly appreciated! 

Daunavan