10 days to go…

School only has 10 days left and we are trying to squeeze out every last drop. We continue to learn so much and are really enjoying ourselves – your prayers are being answered…

Last Saturday night we got together with lots of the other Aussie students and prophesied over our friends and family back in Australia on Skype. We had 5 computers set up around the house and the 15-20 of us just drifted around from “station” to station, as we felt led.

It was an amazing time and God really loved on people. We have some basic guidelines when it comes to prophesy. God is in a good mood and therefore He wants to communicate good stuff to love on and encourage people (people mostly already know the stuff in their life that isn’t so good…we don’t need to do this). We don’t speak into dates, mates or babies – we choose this because there is already too much misunderstanding about prophecy in the wider church and lots of it revolves around these. I think prophecy occurs in lots of Aussie churches however we don’t use that language due to our Old Testament hang-ups with the word.

We have had feedback from lots of people who can’t believe how God used the time. I was speaking to one lady whom I have never met and whom I knew nothing about. I spoke about her being creative, especially with fabric, I spoke of new opportunities and her work being “on display” and lots of other stuff. It turns out that she is an interior decorator, who has just started a new direction with some web-based stuff and her first job is going live online (for Telstra) sometime this week (don’t quote the date…lol).

There is literally story after story of this. My sister, mum and brother in-law, all were a part of the night. It was amazing for each of them and has given them lots of clarity and peace about directions that they had been planning and concepts that had been brewing in their hearts.

If you feel “bummed” because you missed out, I have some good news – yes Jesus loves you…lol, we are planning another prophecy night due to the demand. If you would like to participate in this, ensure you have Skype and let me know. I don’t have the date yet, you will have to stay tuned.

I finally got to go out fishing again - I went with 2 mates and we got about 50 fish between us (we only kept 8 - enough for dinner for the crowd of people). i am really enjoying some different fishing.

Unless something comes up, we will be back in Australia on the 12^th June. We look forward to catching up with you all at some stage.

Love us.

A day in the life of a Bethel student...(actually a couple of hours on a Friday morning)

Okay sorry it's been a little long. We have had an action packed 2 weeks.

Firstly we found out that we wont be able to go to Canada for a quick holiday - it would present a possible problem getting back into the USA. When we found out we started trying to see if we could come back early in order to minister with some staff from here, but unfortunately that doesn't seem as though it will work.

We are checking out some more options now...lol and don't anticipate getting home any earlier that mid June.

The pictures in this update are of our "spring" break - we took a few nights to check out the coastline south of San Fran - we went to a place called Monterey. It was pretty cool and worth the visit. Lou found some "cotton candy" (aka - fairyfloss) and couldn't help herself. She also found a little eatery that shared her name and so she couldn't let the opportunity pass. Me...i'm just a poser....

I (Shane), have had lots of fun the last 2 weeks. I have enjoyed God's presence in tangible ways and have gone out to the pubs and bars of the city as well as the normal outreaches that I am a part of.

Last Friday I was out with a mate and we started talking to a young guy - he's catholic and thought that would be an issue till I said "great" - then I asked him if he wanted to feel God's presence. He was stunned at the question and asked "how, that was going to happen?" I explained that I was going to pray and that he would feel God in very specific ways. as I prayed I saw his face go to a confused look as he experienced what I had said, then i called out some more and he started to experience more. the young mans face became filled with excitement - he had met with God. unfortunately he had to get on an intercity bus, so we encouraged him to use the time to talk with God and to ask him for more experiences.

We said goodbye to him and walked along. we were passing a couple and I said hello but they didn't really acknowledge. my mate, who is kinda like a dog at a bone, turned and asked if they had something on their mind that we could pray about. the couple stopped and shared that they were worried about several things. We spent a few minutes praying for them on the footpath of the city and then my mate had a word of knowledge for back pain up between their shoulder blades.

The guy was like yeah I do. so we prayed for him and asked him to test it out. He tested it and it was like 70% better. so we prayed again and he was totally healed. he bent over and touched his toes and his wife said "I have never seen him do that, he can't do that" - I laughed and asked him to prove it by doing it again. so he bent down and put his whole hand down flat on the ground - he was stunned and kept doing it. We asked if he wanted to be filled with the Holy Spirit and he said "yes" - we prayed for him and within seconds he was flat on the concrete. he fell out under the power of the Holy Spirit in the middle of the city - I was stunned, and admittedly looked around and wondered what people would be thinking. The funny thing was that there were some paramedics where 70 odd meters away and they started coming over to see if he was okay. as they were getting really close the guy just sat up and started laughing - "I feel great, I feel soooooo good".

He got up and we asked him to pray for his wife who said she had a sore lower back. He prayed for a moment and i asked her to test it. she said "oh wow, i feel fantastic, no pain anywhere". I asked her what she meant and she talked about how she normally has ankle pain etc. made worse by lots of movement - I asked her to walk and move around heaps in the ways that would induce pain. she did this and was astonished because she had no pain anywhere... God was having some fun!!!

Somehow as we were about to leave them to their day we found out that the lady was deaf in one ear...was is the operative word...we prayed for her and then did a test to see if it was healed - it was...yay....!!!

It was a really powerful time and we spent some more time with them about God's love and acceptance of them. They were so touched and left literally praising God!!!

Thanks so much for praying for us and loving us. we really feel it. We have just over 3 weeks to go of school for this school year. At this stage we will be back in Australia mid June and then we are planning to be back in the USA about the 10th of August. We will be up in Taree for a few weeks in that time.

We will be speaking at a church in Sydney on the 13th of July and Lou will be speaking at a women's event in that week as well. we anticipate being part of a ministry trip in the beginning of august as well. we will keep you informed.

We look forward to seeing you all soon

love Shane and Lou

PS - like always if you have any questions or comments feel free to email them to us or post them here.