Singapore worship team

Ian Calo, Mindanao Vineyard

Ronnie, Visayas Vineyard; Mayang, Shillong Vineyard

Victor and Nigel

Thanks for “setting us up”, dear Charis

The Vineyard Asia Gathering in Bali earlier this month is the third which we have attended since 2003. How was the meeting? The first had Andy Park and David Ruis leading worship, and sessions taught by Jackie Pullinger, Gary Best, and Derek Morphew (on the Kingdom of God). So that was rich in imparting to us the Vineyard spirit and DNA. Certainly things have changed, more noticeably, we have changed.

It seemed that there were more Asian pastors and leaders attending the gathering. Certainly more are leading worship, and the teaching and ministry are more shared. Asia as you can imagine is not homogenuous and as a result the gathering has been rich as we see more diverse expressions in worship, teaching and ministry. However, we remained united in the essentials so to speak.

The soulful cry of worship to God of the Indonesian worship leaders, expressed what we all felt: Great is our God. And how we sang with them. With all our hearts. The final worship session was led by a team comprising members from Indonesia, Philippines, India and Singpore. Worship was unbelievabley wonderful and a breakthough of heaven. I can easily run out of superlatives to describe the experience.

Victor and Nigel, who came with us this round were struck by the ease of relating between people who were practically strangers. The word is of course, family, that’s who we are, brothers and sisters.

This time, being more familar and bold and less broken, I benefited a lot more from meetings on the way (or in between). Especially with pastors from India and the Philippines. It seemed like there was favor too, as they were quite open and there were lots of invitation to go and teach and share, and maybe to explore some co-microcredit/enterprise projects to help the poor.

At least three persons I prayed for affirmed that what I felt God was saying was “on track” for them. For one, I saw a picture of a huge boulder, and it was shattering. I said to the brother that it seemed to me like God was breaking up the huge obstacle currently in his way. He smiled and then broke into a broad grin.

I pulled Susan to Don, the Anaheim Vineyard Missions pastor who prayed over us in Chiang Mai, and asked for more. He in turned pulled Norbert, and Mark Berry to pray with us, and some of the words spoken to us related to:

Receiving of healing anointing
Blessing the new thing happening in business/market place for me (wow, how on!)

In particularly, Don “saw” anguish on Susan with hooks, and everyone broke its powers over her. Yaay. They also broke the power of depression, and the questions we hear in our heads that are a hindrance to our calling.

And yaay, “breakthrough” for our fellowship is coming.

Unfortuantely, the whole thing was a bit of a whirlwind for us, but we managed to sqeeze real quality time at the beach with each other (see pictures, especially the romantic ones of the Bali sunset and the loving couple). Susan and Jolayne talked a lot on the plane and so that’s good too.

More, Lord, of you!