THE FOLLOWING IS A GROUP OF SEVERAL BLOGS I WROTE WHILE AT THE AZUSA STREET CENTENNIAL. (slightly edited to fit this progression of days) ITS TOO LONG FOR MOST PEOPLE'S READING ENJOYMENT, BUT I REALLY DID IT FOR ME. ANYHOW, ENJOY IF YOU WISH.
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Friday, April 21, 2006I'm Here!
Ok so its weird to think that its actually here. My whole family has been talkin about the Azusa Street Centennial for like 3 years. For a long time i didnt even know what they were talkin about and then, the closer it got the more I have learned about it and anticipated it. So after all these months of my parents and other family members doing tons of preparations and traveling a lot, the time has finally come. Ok so really it doesnt officially begin till Tuesday, but there is some pre stuff tho.So ya. We are here. In LA. I am soo excited to see what the next several days will hold. Its gonna be RETARTED! (That basically means something along the lines of really insanely awesome, for you non-rampers who may have been confused). Anyways ya. Any of you feel free to call me at any time (505-3440) and I will let you know how things are goin. And I will also try to put some stuff on here. ByeBye!
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Saturday, April 22, 2006
Whoa.
Current mood: jubilant
Heres an update... Whoa so today was really really awesome. Early today i went to a meeting with all the people running like the flow of traffic and the flow of people at azusa like the people who run the sports arena the coliseum and traffic directors and cops and stuff and then also like the main people running the centennial. it was pretty interesting to say the least. u dont realize how much planning has to go in to this kinda thing till u go to somethin like that. so ya and then i went with my parents and the main director dude billy wilson(who took my grandpas place) and his like secretary or something and we went to eat at this real good italian place. then on the way back to our hotel, we were sittin in the car and my dad was asking billy if he was going to this prayer thing at union church tonight and he was like no i have meetings but ya i think lou engle will do a great job. and i was like WHAT?! i just looked at my mom and she was like ya we were gonna let u be surprised. so then i was pumped. and so then we were at the room and my grandma got there and stuff and then after a while we left to go to the church. we got there early so we walked over to the original location of the azusa street mission building thingy.
Friday, April 21, 2006
so that was cool and then we went back to the church and wow it was crazy. Holy Ghost was all up in that place! it was awesome! it was a small church and there was only like maybe 50 people there. Before lou got up there, this dude was talkin and he was talking about how a bunch of youth he had been with were getting the revelation that awakening was gonna come through unity and then this guy took the mic (i think it was jessie engle but i am not positive. several kids were there with lou. ya. sweet.) and he started singin the chorus of you are holy and every body joined in and we sang you are worthy and you are holy. it was sweet. so then lou spoke
and it was awesome and he talked alot about God remembering the work of those who moved his heart and how we can change the heart of heaven. It was pretty sweet. and then we went in to prayin and several youth prayed on the mic at different times.
and then after we prayed for a while, we did this thing where we got in circles and talked and then prayed some more. it was pretty incredible.
And then these two old spirit-filled black ladies got up there and were shoutin and testifyin and dancin and talkin bout the old days and about what God is doing now and stuff. they were so cute! everyone was laughin. that was fun. i didnt get to talk to lou tonight cuz they had to leave, but i am pretty sure i will get to within the next few days. Ya so today was awesome. this blog is really long and that wasnt even all of it. Jesus blows my mind. And today is only the first full day of bein here...wow.
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Sunday, April 23, 2006
Sweet!
This morning at like 9, there was a 3 mile Holy Ghost processional march thingy that went from the Bonnie Brae street house to the original Azusa Street location. The Bonnie Brae Street house was where the revival began with a prayer meeting, and then so many people were there that the porch collapsed and then they decided to move to a new location thus being 312 Azusa Street. (there was a sentence-long history lesson for ya.)
So anyways on the way there, our driver got us lost so we were a little bit late but not too bad. Well in the car we were talkin about how we didnt know how many people were gonna be at this thing and dad was like well maybe like 100 or so. So then we get to the Bonnie Brae house and were basically blown away.
So at first we were standing down in the road with everyone but then Jack Hayford spotted my grandma and so we got to go up right in front of the house with all the VIPs.
So then the march started. And we were at the front and could look back at all the people. And as the march went on we got to a couple hills and turns where we would look back and people just kept comin. So much for the 100 people! There ended up being 3-5 thousand! It was awesome!
So we went along for a long time and took lots of pictures and listened to music and talked to people and stuff . There was a lot of countries represented there. And there was different groups like the Bahama Brass Band and a bunch of Filipino's that were singin and flag groups and all kinds of people.
The parade ended up at the Azusa Street site where they have a tent set up on the original location of where the building was.
Jack Hayford led a thing out there under the tent for the people who were there before the processional got there.
Then all the people from the processional got there and then that began worship, prayer, singin, dancin, and shoutin, that is gonna go around the clock from what i understand. Sweet!
When all the people from the processional got there, they stayed outside at the tent stuff while we got to go in and eat cake and celebrate what was basically the kick-off event for the Azusa Centennial week. That was some good cake. There was like a ton of press people in there too and someone wanted to interview me but i passed on that one. haha.
David Bishop also presented his painting of the Azusa Street revival. Its pretty awesome.
After all of that, we went back to the hotel which is connected to the mall so we ate in the food court and then i went shoppin but didnt find nothin tho. of course. i stink at shopping. somebodys really gotta help me with that one day. then we went back to the room and went to my grandmas room and her sister was there too so talked to them for a long time and then we just stayed in the room and I talked to rachel and bree and people online and talked to linz and perry on the phone and stayed on myspace for a long time. Fun fun!
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Monday, April 24, 2006
Unity is a good thing.
Today we didnt much because it was sort of our day to rest i guess. So we were just in the room a lot and I went and ate at the California pizza kitchen with my moms boss and his daughter jacki. Later tonight we went over to Azusa street where they have been having around the clock worship and prayer. but before we went out there, me and my mom went to part of the rehersal of the covenant which is a musical they are gonna do here, cuz jacki is in it. So then at about 9:45 we went out to the tent and it was pretty cool. There was quite a few people there. and it was cool to look around and realize that we were some of the very few white people,but then i looked around and realized that there was a awesome mix of peopel all together. Many nations,ages,ethnic groups and denominations were all represented adn we just worshipped together. it was pretty sweet. so anyways these filipino girls sang and led worship and that went good and we all sang a bunch of old but good songs. and then my dad was taking a few pictures and then he motioned for me and mom to come up there. so the 3 of us sat up at the front and realized that were VIPs even when we didnt want to be. haha. because we were about to leave when we went up there and then the guy randomly had my dad speak and pray out of no where. it was funny. he did good tho. but ya tonight was really cool to realize how we could all come together in unity. and it was pretty awesome because of that.
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Sunday, May 07, 2006
Azusa stuff. (World's longest blog)
I definately did not have time like at all to update this thing towards the end of the week in LA. and then once or twice I deleted blogs. Annoying... and then i had a busy week so ya. Here we go for some Azusa updates...I'm gonna start back at Tuesday to add pictures and stuff.
Tuesday
so today i got up really really early and we had to leave the room by 7:30. so we get to the convention center and there was already a bunch of people and more kept comin and comin and before we knew it people were in a big mob waiting to get in the door for the first general session with charles blake and ron kenoly. and the registration line grew and grew and started going way down halls and stuff. i didnt go in the session but could see it from the second story in the office where my dad was. its actually a really cool view from there cuz you can see everyone. it was cool to just look through the glass into the service and see thousands of people with their hands raised.
It was great to just sit back and take it all in that all this was actually really finally here and happening. then at 10:15, i went to a ministry tract (like a teaching session) on pentecostal worship in your youth group. well the guy that was supposed to speak had to be in argentina for a meeting so some other dude had to spoke and it was pretty good. nothin incredible, but good. then at 11:30, we didnt go to any of the tracts, me and brooke ray went and ate in the food court. then we went back over and went to a worship conference session and Christ for the nations institute was there and they did great. Jesus was there more than them so ya. good stuff. they sang eddies's lion of judah, that was good. ha. Then after them this dude named georgian got up there and he was well....interesting. he was a great violinist but his singin was kinda um different. but the weird thing is that he did everything to a track and it wasnt even a split track. so no live band no nothin... just him and the cd. o and the violin. and the crazy thing is that u could hear him singin and playin on the cd and on the mic and it wouldnt always quite line up...ya we definately couldnt take this guy seriously and we ended up just leavin. but it did us for a good laugh. then i ended up goin back to the hotel for a while then back to the convention center to hear benny hinn. so we got there and we decided to just listen and watch from the upstairs office through the window looking down into the service. so we went up there and it was awesome to watch. You hear peopel talking about a "wave" of worship, well ya i really understand that now. because we would watch and you really could see the wave of the spirit. it was incredible. like people responding at different times in different ways so it looked like waves. ya.
cool. we also saw this woman get up out of her wheel chair and start pushin it around. it was great. and then later he said if you are hungry for the spirit to go up there and so thousands of people rushed up to the front and so then we got to watch as benny hinn prayed for different sections of the crowd and it was like a wave or like dominoes people falling out under the power of the anointing of the spirit. and then like at one point my mom looked and saw like several people in different areas of the room all fall at the same time which was cool.so all that was fun. um after that i think i just came back to the room i dont really remember.
Wednesday
Today Darlene Zschech led worship in the morning session and that was great and then Brian Houston who is the pastor of Hillsong, spoke and he did a great job.
He talked about calling and purpose and about how what is in your hands, like what ur good at, is your calling. what you do, and whats in your heart, like who u wanna be, is your purpose and he talked about using whats in your hands to fulfill whats in your heart.
Then at 10:15, I went to a ministry tract called How to Birth your God-given vision. This guy Al Hollingsworth taught it and it was really awesome. Then I didnt go to a tract at the 11:30 time. Judy Jacobs did a tract at that time that I wanted to go to, but it was full and some people were being jerks basically about wanting to get in but the fire marshall stayed at the convention center to make sure we didnt crowd to many people in rooms. So ya. Then I ate with several of the Fisher family up in the offices. so that way we didnt have to leave the convention center. Then me and my momma walked around the exhibit hall some then i went to a few minutes of a worship session at 2. This girl Julie Meyer was there. I liked her a lot. Kinda reminded me of misty edwards or jessie rogers. Ya i know they sound a lot different, but ya basically just a prophetic edge to her music. Good stuff. Then I looked online later and i think she has done stuff with IHOP. Then I had to leave that early to head over to the Azusa site because in theater right by it, was a musical that I went to called the Covenant. It was awesome. I was actually in it a few years ago, but theyve changed some stuff and ya its awesome. Its the story of the nation of Israel and the Jewish people from beginning till present day. Most of the people in it are from Israel and they take this show lots of places but especially all over israel. They added a scene about Azusa street that was sooo powerful. Since my mom works with Ministry to Israel, she knows all these people so we went to th reception afterwards with israel people and pastors and important people basically. After we left there we got a taxi back over to the convention center and we went to the service that Claudio Fredzon and Carlos Anacondia spoke at. What i heard of it was good but i realized i am really bad at trying to listen to translators... then i think we came back to the room.
Thursday.
This mornin i had some really weird rash thing before i left which looked and felt like a sunburn so ya that wasnt good. but then before too long it went away... anyways...Rod Parsley did the general session.
That went really well. At 10:15 I went to a session called A Generation at Risk with Ron Luce. That was good. After that I think I just walked around and stuff and probably went and got junk food out of the green room and stuff and went and hung out upstairs in dads office and stuff. Ok so after the 11:30 sessions, theres not another session till 2. It was like 12 and all the sudden I look out in the hall and there was a massively massive line to get into the Apostolic and Prophetic ministy conference session with Bill Hamon. like hundreds of people. And it just kept growin. Like that session category had been really full all week but this was insane. and the room couldnt even hold that many so they were trying to figure out what to do so they moved a couple of sessions to other rooms and stuff. It was crazy. people everywhere. Then at like 1 i went down to the Re-digging the Wells of Azusa Street session that had also been really full all week. And i got in but had to go to the back against the wall. So I just sat there and watched people. It made me feel like crap too to see the way people were acting just to get in....For some of it I just wanted to be like people this is a Christian event so act like it. But anyways it was crazy and quite a few seemed to think that rules didnt apply to them. but it did make me really proud of some of the staff because they handled some crazy people really well. I was talkin to ashley wilson who was the centennial administrative coordinator, about it later like the next day or something and he said that a couple people came up and apologized after so at least they did that. Basically that whole situation made me realize how much you really do have to guard your actions to not get to that point and how it can be so easy to slip in to acting worse than u probably even realize if you dont. But on to the better part. After the session finally started at 2, it went really really well. Cindy Jacobs spoke. She's pretty awesome. Much of the time was her prophecying over random people. It was cool to see God move like that cuz she read a lot of people's mail.She talked about revival (obviously) and we had some good times of prayer and stuff and we spent some time in worship .Quite fun. All throughout the week, as I would be walking through the convention center, theres was always people prayin for each other or random Holy Ghost times right in the middle of the floor.
It was great to see that all week. Later I hung out with my friend Rachael Caffrey for a while and to make a long frustrating story somewhat shorter, basically we wanted to go to the youth service but some certain people she was with were being over protective and so we didnt have a ride and then finally we got one then ended up at the wrong place then finally got to the right place. The service was at a Church of God in Christ church, I love black people really. They are so much fun. The service was good, they did a couple cool drama/dance things and other stuff. Well a good chunk of the way before it was over, our ride shows back up and i was like guys i dont want to leave and so i will just ride the shuttle back and the guy didnt believe me that my parents would be ok with that so i let him talk to my mom on the phone so she said i could stay and they left. Well after they left, a guy spoke and we worshipped and danced and just had a good time and stuff, and i stood with this girl i had met earlier that night and stuff and we talked some and then 45 minutes later, one of the girls that was with the driver dude came in and was like ummmm he didnt feel comfortable leaving you here by yourself so we waited on you.... ya, that made me pretty mad... cuz #1 i was at a church service with a lot of centennial people, #2 my parents were fine with it, and #3 they made me think they had left... ya. i was not happy to say the least. Then after i got back to the room i talked to Johnny speed on the phone updating him on everything and he updated me on what was going on in good ol Cleveland, or maybe that was a different day. i dunno. anyways So parts of this day were quite frustrating, but parts of it were pretty awesome as well. The good definately outweighed the bad tho so ya.
Friday.
Today i got up late and later in the mornin i realized a had that weird sunburn lookin thing again and i later figured out that i was like allergic to the soap they had there. which was weird cuz i am not allergic to much of anything besides like cats. o well so anyways i got to the convention center at maybe like 10 i guess it was and then i hung out in my dads office and just walked around and ate and did whatever and then went down to help out wiht this luncheon that we were going to later. The luncheon was the Centennial Ministy Team(CMT) and the Fishers. the CMT is basically all the speakers throughout the week and all these well known people so it was cool to be with all them. My family was up at a table at the front and it was pretty interesting to see who all would come and jsut talk to us and its pretty crazy to actually be with all these people at one time. So we had a really good lunch then they honored the memory of my grandpa and then the guy who played like 75f the music in the Passion of the Christ and in other movies, played some cool instrument for us and then Rick Warren spoke on leadership and did awesome. That whole experience was fun but the only downfall was that it was like past 2 when it ended so i was missin lou engles session. but right after that was over, i went to the end of the session which was overly full but we got in (oh the power of a purple lanyard. gets ya anywhere. ha.) So i go in and i caught the last chunk of Lou's thing which was great of course and then heidi baker got up and spoke. She wasnt even scheduled to be there at all but the Lord told her to to come so she flew there for like that day in between flying to diffenent countries ha. she was really awesome and hilarious. then towards the very end of her thing, i saw Lou walkin out so i went ahead and left to cuz i knew he was headed up to my dads office cuz he was doin some interview thing. (my dad was over the media stuff). So once we were up there i got to talk to Lou and I told him hey from Ramp Cleveland and stuff so that was cool.
So a little later, i was txting rachel dotson and she asked what he said and i told her he had basically been like o ya cleveland, theres lots of roots there. and so she was like thats crazy cuz of Jessicas dream so then i was like whoa that is cool. A while back, Jessica Montgomery had had this dream where basically our prayer group was on this hill and we were told to dig down to the roots and then the holy spirit covered the whole hill once we had gotten down and dirty. wow. i just summarized a really long detailed dream in like 1 sentence. amazing. ha. anyways so ya it was cool that he had said roots. i knew he meant heritage, but it was still cool. so i got off the phone and was all excited about it and so i was tellin kay horner, who was like a secretary person about it and she was like Amanda. Look at this. and she pulls out her big ol azusa notebook and opens to the front page and hands me this piece of paper of where they had typed out points of a prophetic word given at a Azusa prayer meeting on Tuesday March 21, that went with that dream really insanely well. so then i was like really freakin out cuz Jesus just likes to continually blow my mind. so heres a copy of that...
The Word of the Lord came saying:
The Lord is doing a foundational work, it is a deep work, not shallow or flitting,
A deep prodding will cause a high flow, bringing new plants, new growth, and new revelation..
Out of the depths will come freshness, it is a freshness that will amaze many, including scholars, historians, and church and denominational leaders.
Movements thought long gone will find a new beginning. It will seem as though a generation has been birthed at once.
Dry, arid places will bloom with new spiritual flowers. Crusted, hard people will become softened.
I will dig beyond the flesh, beyond the carnal, and shallow. To the base, the core, out of this will come new life, new understanding.
Fresh manifestations will come, and even the secular will be amazed. It will be a chain reaction.
People who havent embraced the supernatural will grasp it and be amazed.
Do not mix and mingle that what is of man with that what is of me. Dig into the word
Rejoice at what I Am about to do says the Lord.
This prophetic word was delivered by Bishop Billy Wilson at 8:50 pm on the twenty-first day of March 2006 at the Tuesday night Azusa Street prayer meeting in Cleveland, TN.
Ya pretty amazing. So then i mentioned it to Lou a little later and he was tellin me about Dutch Sheets prophecy over Lee and stuff and i actually knew it better than he did ha but that was cool and then we talked for a sec. and he was sayin how theres definately good and bad roots in Cleveland and stuff. and then later after we had talked, i watched just a tad bit of the service and then talked on the phone and stuff and then later that nite i went down to a youth worship thing but people were comin in and out a lot and it was kinda confusing at what was going on and i ended up havin to leave to catch the shuttle back to the hotel but for what of it was there it was good. Then i went back to the room.
Saturday.
The big day! First thing this mornin, they had Reach LA. It was an outreach thing where Feed the Children brought 30 trucks.
Each of the trucks had 400 boxes in them. Each box helped feed a family for 2 weeks. So ya 12,000 families were helped out. Cool stuff. Today was the day where everyone came together in the sports arena and had a big together again meeting service thingy. It was pretty awesome.
I dont feel like typing a ton about it but if you wanna know what went on, just turn on TBN or Daystar at the right time or go to streamingfaith.com where that service and a lot of the others are achived. But ya it was pretty sweet. And then the youth convocation was awesome as well.
Ron Luce and Jentezen Franklin spoke and a few others. Good stuff.
One of the coolest things was when the whole CMT (centennial ministry team)layed hands on and anointed all the youth.
That was great. We all stood in huge lines and worshipped and prayed and then we would walk through one of the several lines of CMT people then go back to your seat and then just really enter in to the worship that was going on. But what was so cool for me, is that the line i went in, my grandma was in and so i get to her and we just stood there and hugged each other and she was cryin and was sayin i prayed i'd get you. it was a really cool moment cuz the reality of everything both of us i think right then. Cuz it was like whoa. 1.we were standing there in a line where the older generation was laying hands on the younger generation which was one of the main things my grandpa wanted to happen 2.grandpa wasnt there, but he had a much greater view of it all sittin up there with william seymour and all them, and God knows so it was ok. 3. It had been an incredible week. this whole thing had really happened. 4. the laying on of hands thing was about passing mantles which theres tons of stuff about that cuz of what God is revealing to me and others about my Grandpas mantle of spiritual renewal being passed to me... ya its crazy, and we all have questions of what its to look like and thinkin of the whole mantle thing at that moment was a bit overwhelming, God is way bigger than me, thats all i know... So ya all that combined was just really a surreal moment. Anyways and then afterwards we worshipped a while and it was awesome adn the Lord really worked in a lot of peoples lives.
then at the very end we were shoutin about something,(we did a whole lot of shoutin that day) and brooke looked over at me and was like i bet i can shout louder than you and then a little later we were clappin and she said i bet i can clap longer than you so starting then we both clapped non stop for a really long time. it was funny. and then finally after forever, all 4 of our parents attacked us at the same time and pulled our hands apart. so we decided we would have to continue another day haha. then we went back to the room and i got online and stuff and talked for a little bit then packed and only got like 2 hrs of sleep cuz we headed out to go back home at 3am... nice.
So basically the whole week was amazingly incredible. Jesus never ceases to rock my face off and amaze me like all the time. It was awesome to get to be around a whole lot of amazing men and women of God. And it was crazy that I really did get to be like right there and I met so many of them. It was awesome to see tons of denominations all there together in unity. There was so many times where I just kinda stood where was and was like wow. Ya. I love Jesus. He's cool like that.
