Written by Brian Peat Thursday, 08 October 2009 12:06
On any Global Awakening mission trip the key word is always Flexibility. The schedule is subject to change at any moment, and sometimes it will change minutes after it already changed!
We arrived at the Sãu Paulo Airport just after 8 am on Tuesday morning (7 am eastern) and actually made it through customs pretty quickly. We were greeted by several joyful faces holding Global Awakening signs (I later found out they were the Brazilian worship team Nova Geracao). We piled into two large tour busses and headed to a Brazillian Churrascaria (a family style, all you can eat type restaurant). Just about the time I could taste steak in my mouth they told us traffic was too bad and we wouldn't make it to the Currascaria. Instead we headed to the hotel and ate lunch there.
Turns out we're staying at a comfort inn. Well, to be precise the sign says Comfort Hotel, but it's a comfort inn (the sign looks the same). There are two elevators to move all 80+ of us and there are 6 floors of parking garages before you hit the second floor of rooms. Needless to say getting to our room on the 13th floor is always an adventure, but we get to spend it chatting with other students, so it's a good trade off.
After we had the afternoon off to nap, we met back in a conference room in the hotel for some training and orientation. Once that stuff was out of the way Randy Clark came and spoke to us (his stories of healing and the power of God are just wonderful to sit and listen to). After his short message they lines us up in a 2 rows and the leadership walked between us praying and speaking words over us. At one point I turned my head and noticed the Brazilian worship team were acting as the catchers! It was an amazing time of ministry to get us prepped before the evening service.
We then piled back in the busses for an hour long ride to the church that was holding our first evening session. Nova something led worship and then Randy spoke on the power of the testimony. it was a short message that led right into a healing service. The church had told the leadership there would be over 2000 in attendance, but it ended up being much less than that (around 450 we think). The problem was, all 80+ of us were there standing across the front of the church looking rather intimidating. Still, everyone who wanted it got prayer, and MANY were healed. We were told to clap if we saw 100% healing while we prayed, and you could hear an endless stream of clapping erupting across the front of the hall as people got healed.
Jen prayed for a little girl with a nasal issue and her breathing was fully restored. Then we both prayed for a man who's left side was full of pain and he also had back pain which cause him to not be able to bend over very far. We prayed for a while and he said it got maybe 7% better. He tried to bend and he got his top almost horizontal, but still couldn't bend past that. We prayed again and when he went to try again, he touched his toes. The look on his face when he bent back up was priceless! First it was shock and then joy as he realized he had been completely healed. He almost danced he was so excited. We could see tears forming in his eyes as he just stood there in amazement.
Once it was apparent everyone had gotten prayer that wanted it, we piled back in the busses and they took us to an Italian pizzeria. If there was every a way to "get wrecked" with food this was it. They just kept bringing out different kinds of pizza's and it was a challenge to guess just exactly what the toppings on each one were. The Brazilian worship team sat next to us and even THEY didn't always know what we were looking at. But it was so good no one really cared. After we'd stuffed ourselves, out came the Chocolate pizza and we couldn't help ourselves.
It was about 2 am when we finally got back to the hotel and settled in to sleep. Thankfully, we'd had another schedule change and they gave us an extra hour to sleep in in the morning. :)
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