Herrnhut.

"In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams."

Acts 2:17

I had an extreme numbness before coming here. I knew with everything in me that the decision I'd made back in January to do a YWAM dts in Herrnhut,  was a response to a call made by God.  My spirit was riled up inside all summer for everything I knew was about to come, but nearing the end it just did not feel real. The consciousness of the journey ahead and the awareness of the blessings being poured over me was muted. I could not grasp it, and my life felt like a dream. But I am SO vastly appreciative of all the support and prayers of my church and friends. I guess the only word to summarize my feelings was 'overwhelmed', but in a way that left me like a stone. Nothing was penetrating. I assumed the feeling, or the lack there of, would leave when I arrived in a new country, but it didn't. The plane and train rides with Amy were so simple. We were provided for straight from the hand of God. We got to Berlin and Mira (from Berlin) and Megan greeted us as soon as we got our bags so we didn't have to carry them ourselves (...we had a lot). Mira showed us the Berlin wall and WW2 memorials and a massive thrift shop. She told us of German food and let us have an 'authentic German breakfast' at her house that consisted of ham cheese croissants nutella and jam ;). She was shocked when we finally broke the news that we didn't entirely fancy bread at all nor cheese nor meat... "well what do you eat?!" was her response. hah.

We took up 6 backseats in the fanciest bus with hardwood floors to Dresden and then a train to Lobau. We met Canadian fellow ywam-ers and got picked up by YWAM staff to go to the castle. I was put in an apartment 20 minutes away from the castle and was slightly stressing about the fact that I was completely alone and confused and Amy was in the castle, a distant place I had no idea how to get to. ;)  

We explored the stunning Herrnhut for 3 days before school started and met an outrageous amount of young people with impeccable style and names I will probably take 6 months to remember. The village of Herrnhut reminds me of The Truman Show. The people look like wind-up dolls and the streets are brightly and beautifully painted and decorated with flowers, pastel colours and wood. Art is valued here. The roads are stone. The knobs, mailboxes, doors and windows are intricately detailed. The all-white-and-forest-green Moravian church is situated in the middle with a white monument of Count Zinzendorf's head sitting in the courtyard. It was crazy to be in the place where the Spirit of the Lord first fell on the villagers that prayed for 100 years straight! 

Me and Stephanie from Quebec visited all the little shops of the streets (there are many) and we saw no shortage of postcards, yarn, knitted things, handmade mugs, and chocolate. Way. too. much. chocolate. The air was so crisp and wonderful that day it felt just like Thanksgiving! My favourite! Ahhhhh. 

Although it was boiling hot outside when we first got here, now the air is freezing and everyday while sitting in the tent outside for Donna's teaching I am wishing I would have packed more warm clothes. But the Holy Spirit fills that place so intensely when we pray and worship and listen that I barely think of the cold. I am impacted this week alone more than I thought possible. I anticipated big things but this surpasses all expectations. My numbness has left. There is a peace that I am feeling everywhere I go. When I walk uphill through the fields and through the pitch black forest at night and through the town in the rain to go back to my apartment and my instinct tells me I should be complaining and pitying myself, I can't! The peace is overwhelming. When I do the dish duty for hours before bed and am so incredibly tired and wiped from getting no sleep and I feel as though I should be complaining, I can't. I am so filled. My wall of comfort is slowly coming down. It hurt at first - a lot! But I am so grateful for the freedom it has brought. Donna has been speaking of listening to God this week. She is doing exercises where we will sit and ask God a question, and wait for his reply. I am sceptical at first. Not that God would answer, I know He would, but that I would be worthy of hearing Him. He proves me wrong. I could write for hours of the visions and revelations I've got just over one week, but I won't! I know they will play a part in the relationships I'll make down the line. 

Journal excerpt: 

"Sept 10, 2013. 

... I see nothing in specific but can sense the entire atmosphere cracking all over. As I walked home with Tamlin yesterday we realized almost every person here is battling the same thing - waking up wondering "What did I get myself into?!" YES THANK GOD. This is exactly what I knew would happen as I prayed for this DTS. Heavily unprepared and underqualified people coming with little to no goals in mind for the semester. But you know. You called them all." 

Ephesians 1:17-23 

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. My prayer during my numbness!! 

OH AND ALSO: 

Sept 1, 2013.

"At church when they prayed over us and I felt only numbness, a lady gave me a note saying she saw a valley of dry bones and encouraged me to read Ezekiel 37. I knew it sounded SO familiar so I searched inside the Red Moon Rising book to try and find significance. I couldn't. Today as we drove to Toronto I was completely blown away as I read the last chapter and it spoke of the passage, and how the army was young people! It read: 'Perhaps there really is an army of young people being mobilized, Ezekiel's bones rattling in our time. The vision I received that night on the rocky cliffs of Southwestern Europe is coming true in the strangest, most amazing way. God has done immeasurably more than all we could possibly have asked or imagined. We choose to believe that walls can still fall the way they did in Jericho and in Germany. We choose to believe that a heart cry can become a war cry for justice. We choose to believe that the army of the Lord can arise once again in the valley of dry bones. We declare to those cynics busy writing off our generation, "You see bones" but "I see an army"! '"

  

All today as we cried out for missionaries to be sent to the 10/40 window, the song on replay for an hour was: "There's an army rising up, there's army rising up. There is power in the name of Jesus to break every chain! 

Ezekiel 37

The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. ² He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. ³ He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”

⁴ Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! ⁵ This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath^[a] enter you, and you will come to life. ⁶ I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

⁷ So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. ⁸ I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

⁹ Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the SovereignLord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” ¹⁰ So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

Seriously! What a God we serve! Here are some photos. 

Before Leaving, Lana visited :)

And gave us notes!

In Berlin 

Beautiful lands near our castle 

Exploring in the Grunwald forest