Thursday, August 25, 2011

Twitter!

Had it for awhile, but thought I would share...



More importantly, for more up-to-date reports from the team in Latin America make sure you

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Revival to Latin America!

So it is getting closer to the time of launching into the Latin America adventure!! I am truly so excited about the chance to go and be not only Jesus' hands and feet, but Jesus' HEART to the unreached and broken of Latin America!

A while back during school in Mozambique, 2010, a handful of us Iris missionaries began to dream about South America. Prophetic words began to confirm that this dream would become reality. We transitioned from a handful of missionaries to an army of drunk-in-the-Spirit children (in the Lord) with hearts ablaze to run through all of Central and South America on a massive treasure hunt to locate and reach the remaining unreached and less-reached people groups, as well as the poor andbroken, partnering with other churches and organisations along the way, carrying the love and glory of Jesus and operating in the signs and wonders!

We will be bringing revival fire to the nations of Mexico, Central America, South America and the Carribean! This is a trip expected to take around a year but may change depending on the Holy Spirit! We are focussing on the unreached people groups and will go wherever He sends us, however He sends us, no matter how hard to get to or how treacherous the way.

There will be local people there on the ground to disciple these new believers, as well as groups of mission school students who will be coming back to continue the work. (Jesse and Tanya along with Christian and Christy will be starting a new Iris missions school after the South America trip where they will be specifically focussing on the unreached people groups).

For me: As soon as Jesse and Tanya began talking about it, I felt a stirring to go. After praying about it for a while and receiving confirmations both from the Lord and from various people around me, I received my final confirmation - approval from my cell group leader back in Australia. She got a specific verse for me which spoke about the supernatural unity of our team that would go forth into the Americas. Right after recieving that, Tanya came to find my door (in Mozambique) saying we had a South America meeting. It was also during this meeting that Tanya asked if I wanted to go with them to Nepal, which turned into the whole Asia trip earlier this year!

God is good and has led me well - this year has been an amazing journey so far with Him - not really always knowing what's happening next and I am discovering more and more how His direction always leads me into a place where "the boundary lines have fallen in pleasant places for me" - even when I'm not always comfortable with it straight away. Perseverance and "sticking with it" as well as choosing to open my heart and let HIM be the gardener (think weeds)... has shown me that His ways are ALWAYS good and ALWAYS right!

I left Australia with only enough finance to be able to last me the first two and a bit countries of the 5 countries we were planning to go to. Now, 8 countries and 3 continents later I can say that the Lord has really been teaching me and stretching me in this journey of faith. I want to encourage YOU too to always step out where He leads - if it is truly the Lord who is leading you, you KNOW He will provide!

I am excited as soon my laptop, shoes (I can use for hiking), and spanish learning software will be coming from Mozambique so I can start learning spanish in earnest! Long story for this. I left it all in Australia originally, tried so hard to find someone to bring it to me in Malaysia (I didn't originally know I was going to not be back to Australia before the Americas) finally found a team who was coming from Melbourne to Mozambique... but only after I would be gone! Thankfully one of the Harvest Mission school students is from IHOP, so will be bringing my things for me in a couple days!

So, Just a few of the main details for Latin America:

Date: September 11,2011 to August 2012
I will be finishing up with the internship here in Kansas City on September 23rd, and Lord willing will fly into Mexico by the end of September to join the rest of the team.
Organisation: Iris Ministries (www.Irismin.org), Heidi Baker is calling it our "Moving Iris Ministries Base!" 

Blog site for the trip: www.irislatinamerica.blogspot.com
Countries visiting and tentative dates: I am committed from Mexico to at least Panama, and am possibly staying on for Colombia, Ecuador and Peru (up til January/February) and however much longer the Holy Spirit leads! I am also planning to rejoin the team in April 2012 for Brazil (more of the Amazon, as one of the original confirmations I had to do the trip was a vision of the Amazon jungle) all the way through Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Venezuala and the Carribean.

Mexico September 11-Oct 2,
Belize Oct 2-Oct 9,
Guatamala Oct 9-16,
El Salvador Oct 16-23,
Honduras Oct 23-30,
Nicuragua Oct 30-Nov 6,
Costa Rica Nov 6-13,
Panama Nov 13-20,
Colombia Nov 27-December 18th,
Ecuador Dec 18-Dec 25,
Peru Dec 25-Jan 15,
Bolivia Jan 15-29
Chile Jan 29-Feb26
Argentina Feb 26-March 18
Uraguay March 18-March 25
Paraguay March 25-April 1
Brazil April 1-May 27
French Guiana, Suriname, Guiana May 27-june 17
Venezuela June 17-July 1
Carribean islands-bahamas July 1-August 19th

Mode of travel: By land via Motor homes (RVs) and 4by4s starting from California to Mexico and so on. We have contacts in every country we will be visiting and more divine connections to come as we go in faith.

What will we do: We will be focusing mostly in remote places in the mountains and amazon jungles as well as some urban cities and will believe God to show up in amazing ways! We will share the love of JESUS to unreached tribes in villages and also the urban poor, and believe him for healings, transformation and His love to pour out to others. The team already has a portable projector and sound system that can be carried in a backpack to remote areas to show the Jesus film. We used this in Nepal and it was very successful.

If you feel stirred to give towards this trip, please do let me know so that I can check that it has come through. If you would like to commit to giving monthly or on a regular basis, please do also let me know. For those who are not able to leave their lives to Go, they are able to give into the ministry! Email me if you have any questions :)

King David said “…. The share of the man who stayed with the supplies is to be the same as that of him who went down to the battle. All will share alike.” (1 Samuel 30:24) There is a great article by David Wilkerson about this - let me know if you want it emailed to you!

Love and MORE OF JESUS for you! I pray that today you are constantly aware of and reminded of His presence - He so enjoys you... get that revelation, and never stop growing in it - How He adores and enjoys us!

Serena xo

an URGENCY for the Nations! Bringing the Bride in!

There is now even more of an URGENCY in my heart regarding the nations.
Last Friday night during our Encounter God Service, the Holy Spirit just broke loose with JOY and we had a huge JOY party! It was so good and felt so free!

Then on the Friday night church service, we had just finished 2 hours of worship, praying for the sick and hearing many testimonies of healings especially bad backs and Scoliosis. It was awesome too because one of my friends had bad knees so that she couldn't run and would find it painful even sometimes to walk. We prayed for her and it got 30% better. So we prayed again and again and it got all the way up to 80% better. We are believing for complete healing!

So it came time for the preaching. The leader who heads up the NightWatch here was preaching on Isaiah 62 and 63. As he was preaching I could sense and see in my mind's eye the presence of God filling the whole auditorium. Jesus the Judge of the Nations was sitting on His throne and He was so big that all I could see was His feet and up to His knees. The preacher got up to a particular point in His message, then stopped... There was silence for a few seconds, then he started to sob and sob... He couldn't keep speaking so asked Misty and the worship team to come up and he left the stage. I was kind of not stirred up a whole whole lot, just excited that Holy Spirit was doing something. Then all of a sudden my housemate who is sitting in front of me started to wail. I was happy because she normally isn't like that so I knew God was doing something.

The next thing I knew I was hurled forward with such force that my mouth hit my knees. I was screaming and Heaven just invaded that place with the fear of the Lord. All I feel was just this FEAR of the Lord, not a bad fear, but a healthy FEAR of HIM and His HUGENESS. All I could see were tribes, unreached tribes who didn't know Him and were continuing in their animism... My heart felt as if it had been pierced. I was screaming and grieving on the floor as I felt His HEART for His BRIDE!

There will be a time when Jesus comes back, when He goes - ENOUGH! When He will come and do whatever it takes to get His BRIDE back and save her from the injustices of this world!

We sometimes don't really want Him to come back yet, because we want to be able to finish studying, or get a career, or get married or have a family. Yet the child who is trapped in sex trafficking doesn't care about that - that child just wants Him to come back now!

"And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come." Matt 24:14
This word nations in the greek actually means to all people groups. This is why I am going into the nations, this is why my heart and focus is so much to the unreached, as Jesus will not come back until they all have heard.


There is an URGENCY in my heart regarding the NATIONS. The harvest is ripe. The Lord is coming. They have not heard. We as friends of Jesus the Bridegroom King must go out and prepare the Bride for His coming! It is not only just about getting people saved. It is about preparing the bride to know how to keep her lamp burning. It is not just about salvation as the first step. It's about INTIMACY with Jesus as the Bridegroom as well as imparting that urgency in the new disciples to reach the lost around them.

If you have questions, email me.

Notes from the teaching that weekend can be found at http://www.ihop.org . It is called "Armegeddon: The Beauty of Jesus as the Man of War" Go down the the bottom of the page and click on teaching notes. You can also listen to the mp3, but the mp3 is from the Sunday, not saturday service... as it actually includes the whole thing.

Reaching South East Asia

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

More, Lord

Wherever I am, whichever nation, whatever I'm doing - let me ALWAYS be hungry after You and consumed with a desire for MORE of YOU. For INTIMACY with YOU. Nothing less will satisfy. I must ALWAYS be hungry. Yes, You satisfy me deeply, but let me never be satisfied in my own flesh or own strength or with whatever You've done or given me, for only YOU and my INTIMACY with You will ever fully satisfy.

a HOLY HUNGER...
a HOLY DISSATISFACTION.
a HOLY FEAR of the LORD...

More, Lord... Mais, Senor Jesus... Mais Fogo. Mais Alegria. Mais Amor..

Nefarious: Merchant of Souls

Last week I had the opportunity to view a benefit screening of the new documentary, "Nefarious: Merchant of Souls". This is an 18+ only documentary and was made by the guys here who head up Exodus Cry - the prayer movement to end slavery. See it if you have the chance! It really impacted me and has helped me to understand more of God's heart for these people - both the victims that we understand as victims, and the victims who are the perpetrators. Footage is from Thailand, Amsterdam, North America, to name a few.


Synopsis
“Modern slavery.” It sounds like a paradox. Hasn’t humanity progressed? Didn’t we leave slavery dead on the battlefields of the American Civil War? Didn’t social reformers like Lincoln and Wilberforce legislate against such cruelty over a hundred years ago? So we had thought. But, with over 27 million enslaved people in the world, human trafficking is once again the battlefront of the century.

Regardless of nationality, victims are systematically stripped of their identity, battered into gruesome submission, and made to perform humiliating sexual acts on up to 40 strangers every night. Most are held in dingy apartments and brothels, forced to take heavy doses of illegal drugs, and monitored very closely. Victims are often thrown into such ghastly oppression at 13 years old. Some are abducted outright, while others are lured out of poverty, romantically seduced, or sold by their families.

Nefarious, Merchant of Souls, is a hard-hitting documentary that exposes the disturbing trends in modern sex slavery. From the very first scene, Nefarious ushers you into the nightmare of sex slavery that hundreds of thousands experience daily. You’ll see where slaves are sold (often in developed, affluent countries), where they work, and where they are confined. You’ll hear first-hand interviews with real victims and traffickers, along with expert analysis from international humanitarian leaders.

From initial recruitment to victim liberation—and everything in between—the previously veiled underworld of sex slavery is uncovered in the groundbreaking, tell-all Nefarious, Merchant of Souls."

See the official website: http://nefariousdocumentary.com for more info and the official trailer.

Friday, August 5, 2011

LATIN AMERICA 2011-2012 - Possible Routes Through Central and South America - by Christian Jung

 

Central and South America
September 11, 2011 - September ??, 2012?
Possible Routes Through Central and South America

Over the past six months I've had the honor of making as many contacts as possible (along with some other Iris missionaries) for a year long journey that our team of Iris missionaries will be embarking upon beginning September 11th of this year. It is quite a challenge to try and make tentative routes for two to three teams of between 30 and 60 missionaries. We actually have contacts in every country in Central and South America and are still working on the Caribbean as that will be the last leg of our team's journey. It is really exciting making these contacts and dreaming about our teams carrying the love, glory and power of God through all of Latin America and the Caribbean. We will be focusing on bringing the gospel to the remaining unreached people groups, as well as ministering to the poor and broken of bigger cities. We will also be partnering with other chuches, ministries and organizations along the way when possible, helping them establish more permanent works among the unreached people groups. Please see below where I have marked possible routes for two teams to split up in order to cover the most ground. Team #1's route is marked with black lines while Team #2's route is marked with grey lines. The black squares are cities or areas where we have made contact with churches, ministries or organizations and will most likely be staying with them from three days to one week, depending on how the Lord leads each team. The orange and yellow arrows contain the names of the ministries in that city. There is a possibility that we will actually add a third route for a third team, depending on the number of missionaries we will have. Also notice that both teams will meet up at different points along the way, and these routes actually look a little bit like a DNA strand, as this is what was prophesied over this journey at the Iris Harvest School of Missions in Pemba, Mozambique.

Possible Central America Routes
Both teams will be tentatively entering Mexico through the border at Nogales. Team #1 will mostly stay in western and central Mexico, then will head into Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. Team #2 will start in western Mexico but then drive inland and stay mostly in central and eastern Mexico, into Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. Both teams will meet up in Colon, Panama where they will ship all of the vehicles on a ferry around the Darien Gap and into Cartagena, Colombia.


Possible South America Routes
Tentatively, both teams will start off together in Colombia,and weave throughout Ecuador and Peru, meeting up at various points. At times the team will leave their vehicles and by boat and plane, enter the interior of the Amazon to get to unreached tribes. Then Team #1 will head to Bolivia, Paraguay, meet up with Team #2 in Argentina, head back north into Bolivia again and then into Brazil where they will meet up again with Team #2 in Santarem. Team #2 will travel through Chile and Argentina, even to the southern tip of South America near Antarctica, then back through Uruguay and Brazil. Once both teams are in Santarem, they will either with or without their vehicles, take a ferry to Manaus, then travel north. Team #1 will head into Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana, then fly into Caracas, Venezuela to meet up with Team #2. From Caracas both teams will fly to the Caribbean islands to end the year long journey.

Again this is only a tentative plan. Proverbs 16:9 says, "A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." We hold our plans so loosely as we know that Holy Spirit can, and most likely will lead us on adventures we can't even imagine. I have also been excited to get one of our vehicles road and travel-worthy. Jesse and Tanya bought this RV that is a 1982 Chevrolet. Last Saturday my good friend, Jerry Morris (who is an awesome, Spirit-filled mechanic) and I replaced the Master Cylinder. This Saturday we will change another seal, tune it up and make a list of other things that would be beneficial to take this RV throughout all of Central and South America.

Christian Jung