Winter Wonderland



Where has January gone?! The delayed blog post could well be attributed to a lot of mountain time and some sweet powder and great snow fall here in Mammoth!

Plus, we've had an amazing few weeks back at school, where God is taking some of us on a fast track of breakthrough but also doing a lot of breaking in our hearts! Hard but good times and so worth it, as we ask him for more guidance in showing us what He wants to do in our hearts.
Just before we started back at school, the four of us organised a Winter Wonderland fundraiser; live music, a roaring fire, hot chocolate and mountains of whipped cream and a LOT of finger food cooked by "CJ's" restaurant's finest chef! Organising an event during the holidays definitely presented it's challenges, but as well as fundraising for our Switzerland missions trip, we were able to bless our Lighthouse community with a fun night and a ridiculous amount of food!
We were also blessed to host Chris Gore and his team here at Lighthouse, Bethel's Healing Director and head of the Healing Rooms there in Redding. In between waiting for the lift to 'Cornice' to open on the mountain and hearing amazing testimonies of healings over bowls of deep-fried potatoes, we had the opportunity to just get to hang out and get to know Chris and his team which was really special. We knew how unique this was to actually spend time with our speaker and team – that's the advantage of a small ministry school in the mountains!
In this next season, particularly before we head off to Switzerland on our missions trip, our focus is on intentionality. What does it look like to talk to God before we enter a room, or get on a chairlift, or stand next to someone in the coffee queue? Does He have an encouraging word He wants to give them? Does He want us to just chat to them? Or does He actually have something prophetic that He wants us to share. As we start asking God to share his heart for people around us, there has been a combination of freaking out and excitement for us!! But not only are we blessing the people around us, we are being blessed ourselves as we step out and take a risk. We're finding this treasure hunting pretty fun! And that God wants to love and bless His people!

 

Testimonies, dreams, breakthrough prayers - and SNOW! #Mammothsopen!!


Encouraged by our time with Michael Dalton, this week was a chance for us to step into more of what God has for us. We've done five full weeks now at school, and so much has changed in our hearts, miracles have been happening and we're expecting more!
Yet, we hadn't shared our testimonies with each other. Although each of us had heard snippets of the others' life journeys, telling our stories in an intentional way, chronologically, and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, was such an amazing way of sharing what God had done in our lives. Each of us seemed so different now to the person described in the testimony, having gone through some crazy times - and we were able to give Him so much glory in that, because only He had been able to bring that turnaround.
We started to share about how God spoke to us at night, learning that we could ask the Holy Spirit to invade our sleep and speak to us through our dreams. A few of us shared dreams we had had, and we started to learn how to decipher whether the dream was from God or not (ie. we could just ask him!) It was an amazing opportunity to start to learn what to look for when we feel like a dream is more than just what we think we initially see. 
The questions we could ask the Holy Spirit were:
- God is that you?
- What should I do?
- What are you saying? (Is it literal?)
- Can you show me more?
Dreaming in the prophetic also turned into learning to discern in the prophetic - and that not every prophetic word is to be shared right away. We can often end up sharing what God is saying and then adding on another 50% of our own interpretation.
And with the first snow - and the mountain opening a week early - we were amped to get out there! With nearly a 3 foot base of fresh snow, it was a pretty good start to the winter season. We can't wait for who we are going to meet, connect and adventure with on the mountain during our school! 
And God's doing some powerful things - miracles are happening and specific prayers are being answered - from phones to laptops to donations to help with course fees! We are still praying for breakthrough in other areas and believing God is going to bring it! Including MORE SNOW! 

 

Big Snow Year Coming

There is a lot of talk that this coming winter might be 'the big one'! The Los Angeles Times newspaper just did a huge article on the weather patterns that have been surfacing... that usually lead to amazing amounts of snow in Mammoth! They're calling this El Niño: Bruce Lee and describing the size of its potential as Godzilla. 

Checkout the article here!

We love snow!
We love skiing!
We love snowboarding!
This could be the best year we've had in a while----so you may want to apply now!