UNITED STATES 2011 - A Prophetic Dream about Reaching the Nations

Vancouver, Washington

Sunday, November 27, 2011

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A Prophetic Dream about Reaching the Nations

It is rare that I remember my dreams when I wake up. Even when I do remember them, they aren't often very vivid. Last night I had what I believe to be a prophetic dream. It was so clear and vivid, and I woke up remembering the entire dream. At first I just dismissed it as my imagination. Yet as I sat down to spend time with God this morning, Holy Spirit spoke to me about it's significance.

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THE DREAM

I found myself in a foreign land. All around me was a desert for miles and miles, except for a river that flowed to my right. God began to speak to me about building a "modern day Noah's ark." But instead of a boat that would save people and animals from God's wrath in the form of a flood, I was to build an enormous metal vehicle with giant wheels that would collect and contain people from all nations on the earth, especially the remaining unreached people groups. This vehicle would then transport these people from every tribe, tongue and nation safely into the heaven. The schematics and blueprints were so clear. I knew exactly what this vehicle was to look like before I even began to build it. But in my dream, I found two other guys who I shared this heavenly mandate with in order to get some help in building the vehicle. When I approached them about it they simply took the blueprints from my hand, brushed me off and told me that they would build it without my help. I wan't upset at all about this, as I was just so thankful that this vehicle was going to be built, as God had commanded.

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Time passed and the two guys that had taken the blueprints from me came and let me know that they had finished building the vehicle. As they unveiled their finished work, I gazed at a vehicle that had very little resemblance of that which was laid out so clearly in the heavenly schematics. I shook my head in disbelief and told the two guys that it was entirely wrong. The vehicle in the blueprints was to be indestructible and over thirty feet tall, made of unpainted brushed-chrome with wheels nearly twenty feet tall. The vehicle they had made looked more like a Disneyland tram that was long and painted nicely to make it attractive. In my dream I believed that these guys weren't trying to purposefully do anything wrong in taking creative license and deviating from the original plans, forming a vehicle that they had genuinely thought would accomplish the task more effectively. But it was still not the vehicle that God had wanted to be built.

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Just then two large blue stones fell from the sky which the two guys caught and tried to carry with a great amount of difficulty. I then saw lips form from the sky itself and the voice of Papa God telling the two guys that they had really blown it and the vehicle not only was displeasing to Him, but incapable of finishing the task of bringing the nations and unreached people groups into His Kingdom. God then told me that I was to build the vehicle to the exact measurements that He had originally given me in the heavenly blueprints. Of course, I agreed and built the vehicle. It was an amazing thing to behold. People from every tribe, tongue and nation began to fill the vehicle as it made it's way to heaven. Then I woke up.

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SOME INTERPRETATION

As I sat in God's presence this morning, pondering this dream, it became clearer and clearer to me what it meant. Of course, most of it is pretty obvious to me, as there have been many prophecies over my life concerning reaching the nations. Much of the imagery in this dream simply confirms that which God has already spoken to me for many years now.

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As we have now traveled to nearly every continent to reach the remaining 6,000+ unreached people groups, we have tried to partner with other missionaries from various missions organizations. As a whole, most of these missionaries operate under a program which their missions organization has given them as a "blueprint" to reach the nations. It generally starts out in learning the language and building relationships with the indigenous people they are attempting to reach and spending years laying a foundation through the Old Testament leading up to Christ. Yet when we visit with these missionaries, they find that after as many as twenty years or more, they have only seen a few people come to Christ, and are frustrated at the meager fruit that the many years of their labors have produced. Of course, there are exceptions to this, and we have partnered with many different missions organizations and churches, but even so many of the churches that have been planted on the foreign mission field in the years past have turned into religious establishments that don't look much at all like the Kingdom of God that Jesus spoke of. I am not in any way trying to criticize missionaries or missions organizations that operate in such ways, nor do I think that any fruitfulness that has been produced in years passed is somehow invalid. More than anything, I have compassion on these missionaries, organizations and churches, and would love to see the tides turn for them. I believe that the vehicle that wasn't built to heavenly specifications by the two guys in my dream is symbolic of this older pattern or model of missions that may have been established with pure motivations, and may have even worked a bit for a season. It is a model that creates boxes which become limitations to the Spirit of God truly moving among the nations. It is a religion that becomes stagnant like all still water that hasn't been stirred. It is an unholistic approach to reaching a world that has needs on so many levels.

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There is an end-times harvest of souls waiting to be reaped in every nation. The vehicle described in the heavenly blueprints in my dream is one that is built with the love of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. We have seen thousands of people come to Christ in many nations over a short period of time because we have asked God, "What does love look like in this culture?" and, "What are heaven's strategies in reaching this specific people group?" Love looks like feeding the hungry. Love looks like digging a well and giving a village clean water. Love looks like rescuing girls from sex-trafficking and placing them in a loving environment where they can be healed and given back their innocence and dignity. Love looks like adopting children that have no parents and starting a children's center. Love looks like healing the sick. Love looks like raising the dead. Love looks like preaching the gospel. Love looks like starting a Bible school to train indigenous people in Kingdom culture. Love looks like dreaming with a people group about sustainable projects that will ensure their village's existence into the future. Love looks like a lot of things. And it is heaven's strategies that we must have if we want to see every unreached people group and nation brought to Christ in our lifetime. I am tired of people dying and going to hell because they haven't had an opportunity to hear and respond to the holistic gospel of Christ that I have been talking about. With a new breed of missionaries of laid-down lovers of God, the vehicle of my dream that is huge and indestructible will be filled with people of every tribe, tongue and nation.

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On a personal note, God has really been speaking to me about all of this, especially on the Iris Latin America trip. It would be so easy for my family and I to spend our lives living among a people group, learning their language and culture, hearing from heaven and bringing them to Jesus. In fact, we have done this in various settings over the years. But what the Lord has really been speaking to me about is the fact that my family, or Jesse and Tanya on our own can only bring a handful of people groups into heaven in our lifetime. But if we invest into other world-changers and train them, we can see much more Kingdom impact than simply running on our own. This was evident to me in Central America over the past two months. I saw tremendous growth in each of the team members as Jesse, Tanya and I did our best to lead them in love, in power and in freedom. I believe that this dream has something to do with our involvement in training missionaries with Iris Ministries, both in Mozambique and in Micronesia. I know that we will be able to run to the ends of the earth with this great end times army and build the vehicle of my prophetic dream according to Papa God's specifications. I am still not sure what the two large blue stones meant in the dream, but I am so in love with our God who speaks to us in various ways.

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Christian Young

EL SALVADOR 2011 - Great Photos of our Iris Latin America Trip

EL SALVADOR 2011 - Ministry in an Area Devestated by Flooding

La Pita, El Salvador
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
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Ministry in an Area Devestated by Flooding

Yesterday our Iris Latin America team once again split up in order to cover more ground here in El Salvador. One group went to a government-run orphanage for boys ages 10 to 17. The group that I was in drove to the south-eastern part of El Salvador to minister in an area called La Pita that has been recently devestated by flooding and mud slides. We went house to house praying for the families and inviting them to a church service. Mostly we just wanted to encourage their hearts and love on them as most of their homes had been flooded so badly that each familiy took their children to the street above the flood line and lived under plastic tarps until the flooding subsided. Many of the people lost their livestock which is really their livelihood. We went to pick up one lady who couldn't walk in her own strength and bring her to the service. It was hot even with the fans running. The pastor started the service with prayer and singing. Maria gave a testimony. Roberta shared a word that God had given her. Then I taught from Isaiah 43 and Psalm 40 about the waters not being able to sweep us away and God taking us from the mud and setting our feet upon a rock. After the message nearly everyone present came forward to have their hearts encouraged and receive a touch from God. We also got to drink coconut water straight from the coconut that had been opened with a machete, which is always a treat. It has been really neat partnering with YWAM here in El Salvador. They have been lovely hosts and given us great opportunities to serve alongside of them.

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Christian Young

EL SALVADOR 2011 - Holy Ghost Parties at Four Church Services

La Libertad, El Salvador
Monday, November 14, 2011
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Holy Ghost Parties at Four Church Services

Our Iris Latin America team split into two groups yesterday and led four church services in total. The group I was with first drove to a suburb of San Salvador to lead a service in a gated community where the pastor uses a part of his house as the main sanctuary. It is a small church made up of mostly children. In fact their ministry is focused around these children, most of whom come from broken homes; many of their fathers are in prison, involved in gangs or alcoholics. The violence and gang situation is so bad in El Salvador that every home and building has tons of barbed-wire fencing on it. There are even posters everywhere that say, "Do not murder" in Spanish from Exodus 20. At this first church servcice we led worship, preached, performed the luchador drama, held a children's service and had a time of prayer where people came forward for healing. We also had the children come forward and prayed for the tough situations in their families. We heard that just this last week alone there were eight gang related murders in that neighborhood alone. The people were blessed and we ended by praying for the pastor and his wife.

 

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Then in the afternoon the group that I was in drove less than an hour from San Salvador to La Libertad on the coast. This was a much bigger church with vibrant worship led mostly by youth. Our group was introduced after the worship time. We started with the luchador drama, which everyone seems to enjoy is it is quite comical. We change it up a little depending on what country we are in and what the major strongholds are...so we've added the spirit of violence and the spirit of seduction to our act here in El Salvador. Breck and Serena then shared what God had placed upon their hearts. We then had people come forward for healing and had many words of knowledge. We ended our time at that church with a Holy Ghost party including a huge fire tunnel exiting the church building where everyone got blasted by Holy Spirit as our team prayed for them. We heard from the other group that they had Holy Ghost parties at the church services that they led as well.

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Christian Young

EL SALVADOR 2011 - Trouble at the Border

San Pedro Al Barado, El Salvador
Sunday, November 13, 2011
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Trouble at the Border

From time to time on this blog I try to include some practical information that would in the future help other fellow missionaries or travelers. I consider this blog post to be one of those times. Yesterday as we entered El Salvador from Guatemala at San Pedro Al Barado we had a little glitch with one of our team member's passports. We had already heard that this would be one of the worst and most dangerous borders that we would cross. We also had prophecies that new angels would be meeting us and joining our team at every border that we crossed so at the end of one year and many borders, the angelic army would be huge. So I wasn't really worried about anything. It all seemed safe enough.

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El Salvador along with Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua is considered to be a CA-4 country. Upon entering Guatemala from Belize, our entire team was given stamps where the border official wrote in 90 days for the allowable time to be in these four Central American countries. The problem is that when we first started getting our passports stamped in Guatemala they tried to collect a fee of 24 Quetzals (about $3 U.S.) each. It wasn't until a few people in that we realized we didn't need to pay anything and those team members asked for their money back. The rest of the team didn't pay anything. This must have made the official upset as he was quickly losing his extra income. We thought that everyone had been given the normal 90 day stay in the CA-4 countries. Unfortunately that same official wrote in 01 days on the stamp of this one individual and didn't scan his passport into their system as entering the country. This is what gave us such difficulty at the El Salvador border.

 

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When the El Salvador officials noticed the stamp on this team member's passport, we had heard that they detained him and took him into an office on the El Salvador side. We went looking for him and when I found him in some obscure office, he was being reprimeanded in Spanish for something. When I realized what was happening, I tried to reason with them. They would budge and tried to keep his passport. I told them that this error was not our fault, but the fault of the border official in Guatemala. They then told me that we either needed to go back to Guatemala City to figure it out or pay them a fee of $140 U.S. to fix it (they use American currency in El Salvador). I grabbed the team members passport from their hands, left the office on the El Salvador side and walked quickly with him to the Guatemala side to see if we couldn't get them to figure it out. The El Salvador official was very upset (because he was losing his extra income I'm sure) and ran after us for a bit.

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Once we got to immigration on the Guatemala side, we made our case. They were at least more pleasant. They couldn't fix the stamp or tamper with their computer system, but could only give us an extension and a receipt number for 140 Quetzals (under $20 U.S.) that would allow this team member to enter El Salvador, but would enable him to stay in the CA-4 region for another five days. Of course our team will be in this area for another few weeks. So now we have to go into San Salvador on Monday and pay for an extension that will allow this team member to continue on with us for the rest of our time in these Central American countries. Why? Corruption. The love of money. This is why we are here. To carry God's character into countries that lack integrity. I'm not finger pointing at any one country in particular here as our family has experienced this sort of corruption on many continents. So my suggestion would be that whenever you cross a border into another country, inspect the stamp you are given in your passport carefully to save yourself the drama later. It would've been easy to correct this at the border in Belize if we would've caught it then.

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Christian Young

GUATEMALA 2011 - Headlice and Construction Projects

Chimaltenango, Guatemala
Friday, November 11, 2011
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Headlice and Construction Projects

Challenge after challenge comes our way here in Latin America. The most recent challenge has been a huge epidemic of headlice that nearly everyone on our team has been dealing with. We are staying at a children's center for special needs boys and girls and our team has been combing through eachother's hair, checking for lice, shampooing, and removing lice and eggs.

 

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As well as loving on all of the children here, we have also been trying to make the best of our time by engaging in construction projects needed around the place. We were able to paint a wall for them as well as build a set of shelves. Tomorrow we leave for El Salvador minus our Dodge Durango that again is in the shop for repairs to it's transmission.

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Christian Young

GUATEMALA 2011 - Random Pics from Guatemala