What happens when the Goodwin's hit the streets...

Honestly, you couldn't listen to this message from Todd White and not be compelled to go out on the streets and start talking to people and telling them about Jesus and praying for them. After dinner on Friday night Jody and I couldn't resist hitting up the streets even though we have been super hesitant to do this kind of ministry in the past. I've always thought it was super rude and abrasive to just go up to people and start talking to them about Jesus, but many many times in the bible this is how the disciples did it, plus we figured, what did we have to lose? Worst that could happen would be that people would tell us to get lost, in which case we would smile and tell them that Jesus loves them and move on.

There are too many stories from just one night of hitting the streets to write in this blog, but I will tell you about two. First night after being rejected by a few people and happly moving on, we spotted a lady off in the distance who had a cane and a visibly deformed foot. Jody said "great, let's go pray for her!" but I thought to myself, how can God possible heal her, she has a visible deformity??? Oh me of little faith! We were walking her direction anyways, but in my mind I was going to keep walking, but as we were walking past, she noticed Jonah on my back in the carrier and started talking to him and saying how he was such a cute baby. I knew then that I had to talk to her. So we slowed down to walk at her pace and began making small talk. She was a very sweet lady in her late 30's and let us know that she had had a stroke and that was why she walked with a cane and a limp. Our conversation quickly turned towards spiritual things and she began talking about her knowledge of Buddah and Mohammed, but that really all she wanted to do was to be a good person. I told her that the amazing and unique thing about Christianity is that it doesn't depend on the good that we can do because we all know that we have failed in our own human goodness at some point in our lives, but that it is because of Jesus's death on the cross that we can have a relationship with God even in our unperfection.  I then told her that Jesus is a healer and asked her if I could pray for her foot and healing from her stroke. She agreed and I prayed. As soon as I was done she burst in by telling me that she had a dream once of God as a heavenly mother and asked if I believed God could be a mother too (I think she was feeling the intensity of the situation and didn't know how to respond to the prayer). I said, "Yes! God has both mothering and fathering characteristics and he is neither male nor female, but encompasses both. I then looked her straight in the eye and said "Wow, I can really see that you are seeking God and I think that is amazing and I know that God is pleased with you and your desire to find him." At this point she said "I'm going to walk away now, only because I hate crying in public, but I really appreciate you guys and hope you have a great rest of your day." I truly believe she had an encounter with the Holy Spirit in that moment and didn't quite know how to process it, which is totally understandable! So she didn't get healed, but God still moved and met her where she was at! If you think of it, please pray for this sweet woman who we can call Samantha for now :)

The next night I went to another YWAM base down the road with a friend in her car and Jody walked there with the baby and Jonathan. On their way they met a man in a wheel chair with a dog. Jonathan remembered this man and his dog from another time that we had walked past him at that spot so he was very excited to see the dog! Jody began talking to the man and asked him how his health was and if there was anything he wanted prayer for. The man said he had bad knees and that was why he was in a wheel chair. So Jody asked Jonathan if he would pray for the man. Jonathan in his sweet innocence put his hand on the man's knees and began to pray. "Thank you Jesus for knees, and scooter rides, and airplanes, and doggies, and Amen." Jody also had his hand on the man's knees and when Jonathan was done his prayer Jody looked up at the man and asked him how he was feeling and he said he felt warmth in his knees! So with excitement Jody began to pray again. As he started to pray he heard cracking and popping in the man's knees and at this the man freaked out and began to wheel himself away. Jody could tell he was feeling overwhelmed by the crazyness of what was happening and just said, "Hey man, I'm going to be praying for you and I believe Jesus is going to heal your knees." He said, "thank you sir- I'll never forget you four! Its the 4 J's- Jody, Jonathan, Jonah, and Jesus!" Yet again, although Jody did not see a completion of healing in this man, he knew he was touched by the love of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Let's continue to catch of vision for the biggness of God and boldly proclaim his goodness and truth! Be blessed my friends!

Todd White Week!!!

Hello Friends! As seems to be typical with most novice bloggers I have fallen behind! I don't even know what week I am writing about so I have just titled this post Todd White week, because he was our speaker for the week last week and my oh my was I blown away by all that he had to share with us. If you haven't heard of Todd White before I highly recommend you look up some of his teaching or evangelism videos on YouTube. We had only heard rumours of him from Jody's brother and wife so we didn't totally know what to expect.

Todd is a man filled with the power and love of the good news of Jesus Christ and it seems to exude from every part of his being when he speaks or even walks into a room. A little summation of his testimony: Todd grew up in a lot of dysfunction, was in a bad relationship, had a child, and was addicted to drugs and alcohol. He had just gotten into a fight with his girlfriend and left the house with suicidal thoughts ready to give up on life all together. He ended up flipping open a phone book and a list of churches was the first page to open and he decided to call one of the churches in a desperate attempt to search for meaning in life one last time. He ended up getting saved when the pastor reached out to him and discipled him even in his addiction and dysfunction. At first his life didn't change and he continued to struggle with sin, even though his desires changed and he now started to feel conviction for his wrong choices. With the help of his pastor he realized that he needed further help in the area of his addiction and ended up going to Teen Challenge. There he had a radical encounter with Jesus where he was told in a dream that he would never struggle with addiction again and that he was to go home to his family and devote his life to serving God. Todd has never looked back and lives his life in a way that is completely devoted to serving God, loving others, and sharing the Good News with a powerful ministry of love and healing.

Todd is definitely a captivating speaker, but as soon as we heard that he had struggled with addiction and gone to Teen Challenge, our ears really perked up! The intensity of love and freedom that this man walks in is so encouraging and got both Jody and I fired up to return to our first love, Jesus! Here are some of the main points that stuck with me through Todd's teaching.

1. "I'm free from me which makes me free from you. I owe you nothing but a debt of love." Todd walks in an incredible freedom from the fear of man (christianese for "he doesn't care what anyone thinks of him"). He lives to please and serve God and he knows that that has the potential to offend people because the bible says it will. The amazing thing about him though, is the intense love that he walks in. He is a big burly guy with long dreadlocks- honestly, he looks a bit scary! But you can literally see the love of God in his eyes when he talks.  Jody and I have both caught a vision for what it means to love people with the fierce and awesome love of Jesus and living only for the approval of God, not of other people.

2. Identity!!! Even though Todd is well known as an evangelist, he told us that he doesn't really like to talk about evangelism much because that will naturally flow from a heart that know's who his heavenly father is.  I was reminded how essential it is to be rooted and grounded in our knowledge of the love of God- to know that we are chosen, adopted, beloved, children of the King of Kings, redeemed, forgiven, holy, blameless in his sight- and all of this because of the blood of Jesus, not because of any good that I have done! I realized that I didin't really believe a lot of these things. If I really thought about it I believed that God was just tolerating me but that I was never quite measuring up. I now know and stand on the truth that God loves me SO much and that he has chosen and adopted me into his family, not based on my own merit, but just because he wants to pour his love out on me and have an intimate relationship with me. It is out of this amazing revelation of God's great love that I can serve God and pour his love out on others with ease and free from wanting to receive anything back because I know where the love comes from in the first place.

3.  "I didn't learn God through going after the miraculous, I learned God through going after him every day in the midst of great persecution." -Todd White
Todd shared many amazing testimonies with us during his teaching time. He fearlessly shares the love of God with everyone he comes into contact with. This includes at the grocery strore, at the gym, at family reunions, you name it, the guy is just one ball of muscles and dreads exuding love for Jesus. He has a powerful healing ministry and will often ask people if he can pray for physical healing in their bodies and sees miracles all the time. Of course in this sort of bold evangelism he also encounters a lot of opposition and people who don't want anything to do with him. But as he kept reminding us, "I'm free from me so I"m free from you," meaning he doesn't mind if people mock or ridicule him because he knows the love of his father and lives to please him alone.

Tomorrow I will add an extra post telling some stories of how God moved when we hit the streets with our new freedom and boldness in the Lord! Friends, let's let God define our identity so we can be free from ourselves, free from others, and free to love and serve God in boldness and power! Jesus loves you SO much!!!

Todd White!!! 

My sweet big boys :)

Asa's class was learning about the armour of God and this is the adorable costume he made!

Todd White spoke at the open Thursday night gathering and he drew quite a crowd!

Asa's drawing of a tractor! Very impressive for a 4 year old in my opinion!

Me and our lovely nanny Katie :)