After a short Christmas break...we are back at school and into our second week.
It has been a fairly crazy week with lots of things happening.
Patty, the lady who was healed of stomach ulcers (read the last post), through being healed has had the opportunity to witness to all her family, including her children and grandchildren, about Jesus! Her family are astonished with her radical transformation, physically and spiritually! Over the 6 week holiday period she has gone from just under 45kg to almost 64kg, because she is able to eat!! She is so joyful and has a new spring in her step at the age of 70. Thank you Jesus!
I have been doing most of the driving here and Sarah has been quite content in having her own personal chauffeur...but this week Sarah has conquered the nerves and learnt to drive on the right (wrong) side of the road!
So last Thursday we ventured down the San Francisco (about a 4 hour drive) to pick up Nathan & Jeannette from the airport as they were returning from Christmas break in New York. Last time we were in San Fran we didn't get the chance to go to 'Johnny Rockets' on Pier 39. So this time Sarah was pretty keen...unfortunately the food wasn't like we remembered and it was a slight let down.
School on Friday however was a blast...We had Russell Evans from Planet Shakers here for the Jesus Culture Conference over the weekend, and we were lucky enough for him to come and speak at school. It was amazing to here an Aussie speak again!
Sarah and I have been given the amazing opportunity to partner with Bethel International in going to Honduras (Sarah) and Ecuador (Ben) in March for 2 weeks. We are extremely excited for this chance to go to South America and see how God will use us there. Also this is Sarah's first overseas mission!!
Sarah's Trip to Honduras will be supporting one the most unique churches in Honduras. Abundant Life Church is located on the island of Guanaga, northwest of the mainland. When Missionaries Jim and Julie Nelms founded their church they thought it was to reach out to the drug and alcohol addicted population. But, when they opened the doors three years ago only children attended regularly. So they chose to train the children that God had given them and now it is those children that are part of an outreach to addicted adults. They will be doing a worship school for these children, as well as providing ministry in the streets and local churches. The teams heart is to see gifts, abilities, dreams and passions transform the nation.
Ben's Trip to Ecuador is in the city of Loja. This is only the second trip to this region. The aim this year is to equip the church and release revival culture into a country that can be won in a day. It's harvest time in Ecuador! The team will be spreading the goodness of God by ministering in churches and on the streets. They will also have the opportunity to activate people in the prophetic and arts...and they have the amazing opportunity to minister and pray for people in hospitals! The teams heart is to release God's love, goodness, glory and power.
Our trips together cost around $4200, of which we have been able to already pay just over $2000, Praise God! Our final payments are due on February 18th.
If you would like to partner with us financially, you can go to the links below and donate to our trips (tax deductible):
(these links are also under the support us section in the right hand column, just click on our names)
Sarah: https://www.ibssm.org/?action=donate&target=missions&student_id=210951
Ben: https://www.ibssm.org/?action=donate&target=missions&student_id=210955
We would also love your prayer support! This is a vital part of our trip and important to both us and our teams. We will keep you updated on what you can specifically prayer for.
As we are unable to work here due to student visa laws, we are also in need of financial support for our living expenses. If you feel led to partner with us in this area, our Australian bank details are in the right hand column of this page under the 'support us' section. Please also email us at benn.pridmore@gmail.com if you wish to do this.
A massive THANK YOU to everyone for all your continual prayers and support!
Until next time...
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Watch This Space.....
Hello and welcome to the Pridmore's blog.
Sorry it has taking us this long to update you all on what has been happening in our world...
It has been 4 months now since left our homeland Australia on an adventure to attend Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry in Redding, California. We have loved our time here so far and are really looking forward to the next few months. We are growing in many ways, and learning so much about who God is and who He has originally created us to be.
We have been so blessed to make many great friends, ones that we know we will have for the rest of our lives.
School has been awesome, and of course it is what we journeyed here to do. We have class from Tuesday - Friday, from 12:45-5:30pm. Our days are full of speakers, amazing worship, and elective subjects (which they call AMT's, Advance Ministry Training). The AMT that we are doing at the moment is called 'Cultivating the Presence and Encounters'. It focuses on how to recognize and partner with the presence of God and how that can increase our encounters with Him and the miracles that follow us. We choose one of these electives every 5 weeks. The first AMT we did was called 'Building and Protecting Connection in Relationship'. This was an elective specifically for married couples, in which we have learnt many keys and tools for our relationship.
Bill Johnson and Kris Vallotton are the Senior Leaders here at Bethel Church. We are blessed to have them speak on regular basis at school. Their teachings are revolutionizing the way we see ourselves, ministry and God.
The school of 900 students is split up into 'Revival Groups', which are groups of around 65 people and a pastor is allocated to each. This is to manage the students and to make sure that everyone is taken care of. It's really amazing, most of our closer friends have come from this group, and we are really blessed to have been put with the people we have in our group. Everyone in our group is so different. It's amazing how different the personalities are. Yet we work perfectly together. The culture here is built based upon honouring one another, it is one of their core values. Learning to honour one another for who God has created them to be means that you learn to celebrate differences and fall in love with those you hadn't necessarily enjoyed before. We love it!!
We have home-group every Wednesday night, which is amazing. It feels like home every time we are there, mainly because our leaders are two Australians who are in second year. We pretty much fellowship, worship and let God do the rest.
On Saturday afternoons we venture out for our favourite part of the week... we head to a run down apartment block to feed the homeless. We love it!! Ben has made one mate in particular, his name is Jesse, he is so precious. And Sarah has fallen in love with a lady called Shell. Pray for them if you think of it, because they need it. We are there to bring hope and joy to them, to show them love as much as time allows us too. (We had to select an outreach to do every week, and this is what we chose.) One week Ben got to pray for a lady named Patty, she had a throat infection and stomach ulcers and wasn't able to eat. She asked for prayer, and so Ben prayed. Then she asked if she could pray for some people too, so that they would know Jesus. She then proceeded to list off around 30 names, pretty funny. The next week we saw her, and she reported to us that she hasn't had any pain since then and has been able to eat whatever she desires!! Yay God!!
We are seriously missing summer at the moment. It is freezing here and we are trying to embrace it...one of us (Sarah) is struggling to appreciate it. Especially after seeing photos on facebook, of all our sun kissed friends. Mountains surround us, and we can see snow covered peaks from every angle. Ben and one of our friends Liam went snowboarding just before Christmas with Ken and Judy (Ben's parents) who came to visit for 2 weeks leading up to Christmas. Jacqui Bouchier also graced us with her presence. We had such a wonderful time with them!! We ventured down to San Francisco for a few days in which we saw an NFL game, did some shopping, site seeing, the girls went to the art gallery, and the highlight of the week: we went to Joe's Crab House! This place is Heaven on earth! Ben and Ken were in their element! Grandfather we are sorry you missed out on the seafood feast!
Christmas and New Years was great and very relaxing. But so weird being so far from home.
So so much more has happened...to much to tell in one tale...so we will leave it here and promise to keep you updated further and as the year progresses.
Thank you so much for all your prayers and support! We would not be here if it weren't for the love of our family and friends!
Our skype name is 'bs.pridmore'... date us ...
Love Sarah and Ben....
Sorry it has taking us this long to update you all on what has been happening in our world...
It has been 4 months now since left our homeland Australia on an adventure to attend Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry in Redding, California. We have loved our time here so far and are really looking forward to the next few months. We are growing in many ways, and learning so much about who God is and who He has originally created us to be.
We have been so blessed to make many great friends, ones that we know we will have for the rest of our lives.
School has been awesome, and of course it is what we journeyed here to do. We have class from Tuesday - Friday, from 12:45-5:30pm. Our days are full of speakers, amazing worship, and elective subjects (which they call AMT's, Advance Ministry Training). The AMT that we are doing at the moment is called 'Cultivating the Presence and Encounters'. It focuses on how to recognize and partner with the presence of God and how that can increase our encounters with Him and the miracles that follow us. We choose one of these electives every 5 weeks. The first AMT we did was called 'Building and Protecting Connection in Relationship'. This was an elective specifically for married couples, in which we have learnt many keys and tools for our relationship.
Bill Johnson and Kris Vallotton are the Senior Leaders here at Bethel Church. We are blessed to have them speak on regular basis at school. Their teachings are revolutionizing the way we see ourselves, ministry and God.
The school of 900 students is split up into 'Revival Groups', which are groups of around 65 people and a pastor is allocated to each. This is to manage the students and to make sure that everyone is taken care of. It's really amazing, most of our closer friends have come from this group, and we are really blessed to have been put with the people we have in our group. Everyone in our group is so different. It's amazing how different the personalities are. Yet we work perfectly together. The culture here is built based upon honouring one another, it is one of their core values. Learning to honour one another for who God has created them to be means that you learn to celebrate differences and fall in love with those you hadn't necessarily enjoyed before. We love it!!
We have home-group every Wednesday night, which is amazing. It feels like home every time we are there, mainly because our leaders are two Australians who are in second year. We pretty much fellowship, worship and let God do the rest.
On Saturday afternoons we venture out for our favourite part of the week... we head to a run down apartment block to feed the homeless. We love it!! Ben has made one mate in particular, his name is Jesse, he is so precious. And Sarah has fallen in love with a lady called Shell. Pray for them if you think of it, because they need it. We are there to bring hope and joy to them, to show them love as much as time allows us too. (We had to select an outreach to do every week, and this is what we chose.) One week Ben got to pray for a lady named Patty, she had a throat infection and stomach ulcers and wasn't able to eat. She asked for prayer, and so Ben prayed. Then she asked if she could pray for some people too, so that they would know Jesus. She then proceeded to list off around 30 names, pretty funny. The next week we saw her, and she reported to us that she hasn't had any pain since then and has been able to eat whatever she desires!! Yay God!!
We are seriously missing summer at the moment. It is freezing here and we are trying to embrace it...one of us (Sarah) is struggling to appreciate it. Especially after seeing photos on facebook, of all our sun kissed friends. Mountains surround us, and we can see snow covered peaks from every angle. Ben and one of our friends Liam went snowboarding just before Christmas with Ken and Judy (Ben's parents) who came to visit for 2 weeks leading up to Christmas. Jacqui Bouchier also graced us with her presence. We had such a wonderful time with them!! We ventured down to San Francisco for a few days in which we saw an NFL game, did some shopping, site seeing, the girls went to the art gallery, and the highlight of the week: we went to Joe's Crab House! This place is Heaven on earth! Ben and Ken were in their element! Grandfather we are sorry you missed out on the seafood feast!
Christmas and New Years was great and very relaxing. But so weird being so far from home.
So so much more has happened...to much to tell in one tale...so we will leave it here and promise to keep you updated further and as the year progresses.
Thank you so much for all your prayers and support! We would not be here if it weren't for the love of our family and friends!
Our skype name is 'bs.pridmore'... date us ...
Love Sarah and Ben....
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)