Raising a Canopy of Prayer

Testimony

Articles on this page:
Healing Power of God
Healing
Testimony
Great Marketplacet Testimony
Testimony
Testimony from a congregation
God is working in Yankton
A Neighborhood Story

Healing Power of God

This is a testimony of God's healing power:
Two weeks ago, Missy, my wife started having contractions. Not good because she was only 18 weeks along at that point. We went to the hospital in Winner, SD and they did an ultrasound to see what was going on. Her cervix was a little over 2cm and dilating. They told us she would definitely be on bed-rest the rest of the pregnancy. That night, we had to drive to Sioux Falls to see her specialist. As we were driving, things seemed to get worse. She was still having contractions even with the medicine they gave her to stop them. She was showing spots of blood.

We became fearful and started to pray selfishly. We were reminding God about all the things we had asked him to do for this pregnancy... "Lord, we wanted an uneventful, normal pregnancy this time. We don't want to be in the hospital. She can't be bed-rest. We have a two year old, how is that going to work? We don't want to deal with the NICU again. That was too stressful." Then God answered saying "Let me show you how strong you are." I knew that wasn't an answer I wanted to hear. Any time he has had to show me how strong I am, it was to show me my complete weakness and need for him. An experience in humility and humbling.

I knew he was telling us that we needed to surrender to him. I looked at Missy and said, "are you willing to let God have his way?"
She replied "Yes, I am."
I asked again, "But are you willing?"
She answered, "Yes, I know His way is perfect and that He knows best."
I was willing to. At that moment, God gave me a different answer. "Now, let me show you how strong I am." I felt complete peace, and complete confidence that God was in control, and that no matter what happened, it would be alright.
The next day, the ultrasound showed complete healing. Her cervix grew to 4cm and closed. That doesn't happen naturally. I know it was the power of God.
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Healing

Dear Ones,
We want to share our great news!
Tom's cancer treatment ended in December.
Last week Tom got a "no cancer " report from his check up and lab test.
He gets rechecked at a 3 month interval.
We praise the Lord!!

Thank you for praying with us on this.

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Testimony


I was a participant in the Prophetic Boot Camp. I have to admit that I was a little apprehensive about going to a workshop about prophesying, as I have had very little exposure to this spiritual gift. I prayed that God would open my mind, my eyes, and my heart to the gift of prophecy and that I would walk away changed and with a new understanding of this gift. God answered those prayers, and I was truly amazed by the presence of the Holy Spirit. I was able to witness in a new way God’s desire to speak his Truth to others through ordinary people, like my self. God used one particular woman to really share his love and peace with me. She approached me after one of the sessions and began to tell me that God wanted her to share a message with me. God used this woman as his vessel of peace, hope and love. Through her gift of prophecy, new light was shed on areas that I had been earnestly seeking God’s guidance. I also felt that I was being given the opportunity to experience a special anointing of the Holy Spirit as several dozen people came forward to pray for and receive the gift of speaking in tongues. What a joyous sound…what beautiful praises were offered up to God. This training camp was more than an educational workshop. It was training for God’s army, and we entered into God’s presence and stood on holy ground.

In Christ,
Pastor Melissa Fletcher
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Great Marketplacet Testimony

Go to this web site for a great testimony

http://www.sharingthevictory.com/vsItemDisplay.lsp?method=display&objectid=4AEA9B47-A348-4BAC-8D4DF6BEDDC86ABD

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Testimony

In September of ’03 I was diagnosed with Crohns Disease (an auto-immune disease where your immune system attacks your intestines). As a junior in high school, the news of having an incurable disease completely devastated me. It changed my whole lifestyle. I could no longer eat certain foods, I couldn’t participate in certain activities that I had been in before, and it caused horrible pains that I just had to deal with on a day to day basis. I eventually got used to the fact that I had this disease, and I got used to the lifestyle that I had to live because of it. In June of this past summer, I attended the Holy Spirit Conference with my mom and twelve other ladies from our church. The first night we were there, the speaker said he felt that there were people there that needed to be healed. He called out for healing of the colon, and I went up and he prayed over me. That night I ate the first salad I had eaten in four years without any pain! The Lord healed me that night from my Crohns Disease! I had medical tests done when I returned home, and the doctors seemed baffled that they could not find anything where it had been before! It has been amazing being able to share my testimony with others, and to see how God has been using me and the healing He gave me to reach others.
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Testimony from a congregation

Hi, Command Two - this is a praise report based on the fact that you all prayed at Avera Behavioral...

We have a parishioner in there, and we sent a lay minister to take communion. Well, about seven of the patients came to the meeting room and wanted a service - one (don't know if he was patient, visitor or staff) even had a guitar and led hymns!!!

Anyway, they had a complete worship service with Scripture, prayer, hymns and Communion.

Your prayers opened doors this week!!!!!

Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation (Colossians 1:15).

The Reverend Timothy L. Fountain
Church of the Good Shepherd

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God is working in Yankton


Here are some interesting tidbits from what God is doing in Yankton :
There's a new priest at Sacred Heart Church and you will never guess what he is teaching his congregation but prayer and in Jesus Name . The last I heard there were 60 people who came out on wednesday night to learn about how to pray .
Assembliy of God is growing because of prayer and some people who left the church are now coming back .
Our church doesn't do any thing without consulting God first and we are asking God for a new larger place to worship . All of our pastors make prayer a priority and two of them at least attend two of the three intercessory prayer meetings held on a weekly basis .
Beth Moore Bible studies are popping up in the Methodist Lutheran Reformed churches as well as three offerings at Calvary Baptist .

The crime rate has gone down in Yankton by 7% and no one can explain why.

DiAnne Neilson
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A Neighborhood Story

This past year, the Lord has been working on our hearts, giving us a vision for reaching the lost He has placed all around us. It began with a conference in Sioux Falls last April featuring Ed Silvoso, who taught on marketplace evangelism. We called a plumber to do some work in our house not long after that conference, and his message was still very fresh in my spirit. When the plumber began work my thoughts immediately went to praying prayers of blessing over him.
As he worked I visited with him, learning he had come from Nicaragua, and that he had a wife and a young son with Downs Syndrome. I sought the Lord for direction on how to minister to this young man, and could see how troubled he was. The only thing I got was, "Ask him if you can pray for him." I thought that was just my mind, because I had been asking a lot of strangers that question.
The plumber left to get some parts, so I spent some time in serious prayer, seeking the Lord for a word or something. But I just kept getting the same thing, "Ask him if you can pray for him." When the job was done, and we were sitting at our kitchen table to handle payment, I said to the plumber, "I think God is telling me I'm supposed to ask you if I can pray for you. Is there anything I can pray for you about?"
He stopped what he was doing, started to cry, and said, "When I was out getting parts I told God I knew I didn't deserve to ask Him for anything, but I wanted Him to show me if there was any way I could ask you to pray for me." When I asked him what he needed from the Lord he just said, "I just want to get closer to Jesus. I've been away from Him for a long time." We prayed, and God touched him in a special way.
I asked him for his phone number, and he gave me a business card that had a picture of an inflatable gym on the back of it. I asked him about that, and he said he and his wife rented them out, and gave some of the profits to an orphanage in Nicaragua.
Some weeks later as I was praying in my living room, I looked out over my large back yard and in my spirit I could see several open air tents with tables underneath them, and a large inflatable gym and people everywhere. As I prayed about that, I felt the Lord wanted our family to throw a party for our neighborhood to bless our neighbors. The Lord also impressed upon me that we were to make up some nice invitation cards and take them around to all the neighbors...as we prayer-walked the neighborhood.
We shared this idea with our prayer group that meets in our home, and they all got behind it...giving offerings that covered the entire cost of food and rental of the inflatable gym. One friend even purchased all of the plates, napkins and plastic forks and spoons, etc. and gave them for us to use. Another couple stopped by just before the party and dropped off a couple of bags of popcorn.
We decided to keep the food items very simple...so the focus would be on the fellowship instead of on preparing and serving food. We served hot dogs, and another friend who owns the Little Caesar's stores in Sioux Falls donated a couple dozen pizzas and provided a warming oven to keep them hot and fresh. My wife Sue & I also baked several dozen cookies.
The Lord provided a picture perfect day. We set up the tents and the inflatable gym at about 4 in the afternoon. We also borrowed some games from Christian Center Elementary that the school uses for an annual winter carnival--(the most popular seemed to be the toilet paper toss, which had people lobbing rolls of toilet paper half-way across the yard trying to land them inside a toilet bowl lid!) The people started coming shortly after 5pm. By the time the evening was over, approximately 150 of our neighbors had come to our home. We were so blessed!!! I've attached some pictures of that evening.
We had set out a rule to everyone that was helping us that there wasn't to be any "preaching". We believed the Lord put this in our hearts to begin the process Jesus laid out in Luke 10...to go and speak peace and blessing to our neighbors, and to look for opportunities to minister to them as we did. That's already beginning to happen!
In fact, the first person to stop at our party that evening was a neighbor from a couple of blocks away who stopped to apologize. She apologized for not being able to be there later because two of her daughters were ill...one of them was even in the hospital. It was a perfect "opening", so I asked her if we could pray for her. She welcomed that, so a group of us gathered around her and agreed with her for her daughters' healing. You could see that even though she was a bit bewildered by it, she greatly appreciated the compassion demonstrated in our prayers.
The Lord also gave our son Matt an idea that we believe is helping to keep the door open in our neighborhood. He suggested we check to see if anyone would be interested in reviving a Neighborhood Crime Watch group which had fizzled some years earlier. So, we invited a police officer who works with that program to come to our party. He was very excited for the opportunity, and called me back right away. The first words out of his mouth were, "God bless you for what you're doing!" I told him I was ready to receive that!
We set up a P.A. system and he spoke for about five minutes. He also had some coloring books, pencils and other items to give to the children. We set up a table with a sign-up sheet for those interested in neighborhood watch. Several signed up, so we set up an organizational meeting for a week and a half later.
That meant we had another "event"...so I "had" to make up more invitation cards to invite everyone to the Neighborhood Watch meeting...giving me another opportunity to prayer walk the neighborhood and speak peace and blessing over each household! God is so good! During the second Neighborhood watch meeting, some of our neighbors said we needed to do something to develop and maintain the relationships we had begun to build, so they suggested a Block Party…(another event, more invitations, more prayer walking!)
We held the party at the end of October. Our street was blocked off, several people pulled out their portable fire pits, we all chipped in and brought treats, and had a great time. It was a “party� in every sense of the word…alcohol, etc. But the interesting thing is how the Lord allowed us opportunities to visit one on one with various neighbors. Before the night was over we had a car pool with another family, whose daughter’s schedule closely matched the schedule of our daughter.
To top it off, the woman we are now carpooling with ended up in the hospital with a serious ailment the following week. This allowed my wife the opportunity to take some flowers up to visit her, and she was given the opportunity to pray with her. Sue shared with her the reasons we decided to have the backyard party, the neighborhood watch group, the block party and even the carpool arrangement—to open doors of relationship so we could demonstrate and declare the Gospel of Jesus Christ to our neighbors. Sue had the privilege of praying with her, and telling her that, “the Kingdom of God has come near to you!�
It has been fun and exciting to see the Lord at work in our neighborhood…and we eagerly anticipate His next move!

God’s Peace and Blessings to you!

Tom & Sue Rooney

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