NEWS: Spring, 2013
Since we’ve been completely redesigning this website, it’s been a long time since we’ve published our news. So the first bit of news is that we have a whole new website, thanks to Scott Bowen, our son-in-law. Wow: to have such talented family members close at hand to do stuff like this–what a gift. The main new areas on this site are the video teaching, the arts Pages (my poetry and pottery), the board of directors pic and additions to our photos. Oh, and we have added a donation button with all transactions handled through Amazon, including sales from our resources page. Hope you’ll take some time to familiarize yourself with all this new stuff.
New Ministry Launched
We had received a prophetic word a year ago last November that we would get launched into our ministry at The Clearing last August-September, so we were looking forward to an expected infusion of cash, thinking we’d be able to start building The Clearing facilities last fall. (See “Long Range Plans” page.) That didn’t happen. What happened instead is that God opened up new relationships and doorways that seem to be leading to international speaking/teaching opportunities. These have come out of the blue, beginning late last summer.
The first of these was the 2012 Korea Prayer Dunamis Conference.
The picture at left shows me getting prayer before my next teaching in this five-day conference, co-taught by myself and Fr. Ben Torrey (at right). In the center of the picture is Pastor Ahn, pastor of one of the largest churches in Busan, the second largest city of Korea, and the leader of an important movement of citywide prayer in that city. Father Torrey is the great grandson of the revivalist R. A. Torrey, and the director of Jesus Abbey, which was founded by his father, Archer Torrey. The Torreys have been highly respected as spiritual leaders in South Korea, and I felt uniquely honored to co-teach with this man. Carla had her first experience teaching alongside me (about the importance of couple prayer), and she was even more encouraged than I, how God used us that week.
As a result of this profoundly encouraging experience, we have gained a permanent spiritual bond with Korea, gained the Torreys as friends, and reconnected with the ministry of PRMI in Black Mountain, NC, who arranged the trip. (See our
intro on the “Video Teaching” page for a little of our history with PRMI.) Not only do we sense that we will have a great many more teaching trips under the auspices of PRMI, but God is also linking us with several other ministries to teach what He has given us to teach. More about that as this new development unfolds.
GEORGE OTIS AND DANIEL JUSTER
For now, let me just tell two stories. About the same time that we were in Korea, Scott Bowen, our son-in-law, began a relationship with George Otis, who produces the Transformation videos I have often written about in my writings. As a result of this relationship, Scott arranged for me to have a wonderful private talk with “Mr. Transformation” this past weekend at JHOP’s Hilltop Conference in Washington DC. To say this private dinner meeting was a privilege for me would be a gross understatement. As with my experience with Ben Torrey, I had a strong sense that God was in this meeting for some purpose, and the conversation we had did not discourage me in that hope at all. And by the way, look for George’s next Transformation video in perhaps a year, a story about a little community in Brazil that will make the Almolonga story in “Transformations I” look tame by comparison.
Again, late last summer, I was reading a book by Don Finto, Your People Shall Be My People, about Messianic Judaism, and the emerging unity between Jewish and Gentile Christians. Starting on page 146, I began running across the name Dan Juster. On the very day I was reading about this person (perhaps the most important theologian of the Messianic Jewish movement today), I got an email from that very person! No joke. He was congratulating me for my part as co-author of the book, Receiving the Power, which Brad Long and I wrote fifteen years ago. It would take too long to explain how this happened, but again, here is another relationship that started budding along with the others and it is leading to an invitation to attend the next Tikkun ministry family conference, where Carla and I will be able to form a whole new set of relationships. Where is this leading, God?
Glory Through Time
I have nearly completed a series of teachings that has been growing and growing in me over the past quarter century. I call it “Glory Through Time.” These are the first teachings I have uploaded onto this website; they describe the track record of God’s power through the “Church Age.” I believe these teachings have been given to me by the Holy Spirit. Having said that, I want to emphasize that they are all based on sound scholarly research into our past, with the goal of recovering the outpourings of the Holy Spirit during the entire period Jesus called “the times of the Gentiles.” I believe that God wants me to help people to see that history is truly “His Story,” not ours. And the end will be His, not ours, also. To gain a fresh view of our past is one way to prepare for our future.
I am eager for all of you who follow our ministry to absorb this teaching, which is divided into 20-minute segments you can listen to easily when you have a spare moment. I did it this way so you wouldn’t have to sign up for a full-blown conference, which would cost you a weekend. (On the other hand, I am willing to do “Glory Through Time” conferences where there is interest–and they would likely include a good deal more material than what I have uploaded onto the website.) I strongly recommend that you listen to the teachings in order, so that you can sense the full sweep of history between the time of Jesus and the present. There are important lessons and perspective to be gained from this study, and most of the stories will knock your socks off. Several themes emerge, including the surprising announcement that the Holy Spirit is a west-blowing wind. Trust me, you have never heard of most of this material, because in our secular culture, these things are simply swept under the carpet as though they had never happened.
OHWIHSHA CD
Many of you know Jonathan Maracle and his ministry group, “Broken Walls.” We invited this team to Virginia back in 2000, and have been privileged to host them here on our property several times since. I encourage you to explore their ministry at BrokenWalls.com, where, among the many music CD’s they have produced, you will find this one, shown at right, with the name of our ministry on the jacket. Yes, this cd was dedicated to us here at “The Clearing Where Eagles Fly,” out of appreciation for the friendship that has grown up between their ministry and ours, and our support of each other. Jonathan plays flute in every cut, so this is more meditative music than some of the other Broken Walls CD’s.
The Broken Walls team are about to embark on a trip to Ireland, and one of our Chickahominy friends, Seth Adkins, is going with them. This is an answer to many prayers we have prayed here at The Clearing, that God would begin raising up Chickahominy natives into worldwide ministry in Jesus’ name.
