Auckland to Nadi
July 10th, 2008
Tavua - Viti Levu - Fiji
Fiji and Mining Camp
Michael and I believe to fly to Fiji this coming day in the evening (July 10th NZT). Fiji is going through great political turmoil at the moment behind the scenes and we pray for peace and the well fare of our brothers and sisters in Christ who we hope God may grant us to bring His encouragement to.
Northern Territory
We believe to be there for about five weeks God willing and then head back to New Zealand briefly, before heading over to check out a mate and some prayer meetings that are starting in an Australian mining camp, way out there as they say.
Holy Spirit led prayer would be appreciated for these trips please.
There have been so many things that the Lord has been doing in the last few weeks, here are some of the recent happenings. Please also have a look at the earlier update, the updates get added to until there is too much in them and a new one is started. So it is always worthwhile to have a look even at an update you have already read incase more has been added at the top of it.
There is also a bit of a blog here: message.paulanorman.com, that is looking at the moment at the Return of the Lord Jesus and what we need to do to prepare ourselves. Those notes will be added to from time to time, so check back there every now and then.
Winter, time to feed the Birds
But someone is always waiting!
So you feed the birds on the roof.
It has been a cold winter in Auckland, so it has been good to feed the birds which are lacking natural food reserves at this time of year.
On Saturday we were in the centre of Auckland, and saw snow flurries!
Christian Travel Agent
Tay - Christian Travel Agent
We were really blessed by the Lord with some excellent travel industry advice given to us by a Christian sister over the last few weeks. Tay and her husband run a Christian youth group, a very important thing to do in the Lord in these days! Please pray for them that they can hold and share the full gospel with the children.
Auckland - Spiritual Confusion
This one picture here, from a Central Auckland foodcourt, explains the spiritual confusion that is Auckland today. The Mexicano food bar, is staffed by a very polite Asian lady, owned and run it seems by an Arabic gentleman, and serves as its name suggests, Mexican style food.
Auckland Spiritual Confusion
In fact the Mexican flag is even draped over the counter (left in picture).
However I think that the Mexicans might be surprised to see what is written on the yellow sign on the back wall (click on the picture to enlarge).
Graeme, Mel and Andrew
We believed last Sunday that we were to head over to the Royal Oak part of Auckland, and have a meal. When we got there we cruised around the large round-about looking to see if anything stood out against anything the Lord had been showing us during our times of prayer that day.
Turned out that we were both thinking of the Dennys. And after we had parked in a side road and prayed, believed to head there. A group of young adults came in and three sat together not far from us.
After a while we believed that we were catching Christian themes in their conversation whenever their voices rose. So we introduced ourselves to them. They were all Christians and quite serious about their faith as well.
We ended up having an impromptu sharing time on missions. Andrew had been in Germany and Russia in 2007 with a performing group reaching out to youth and established groups. He hopes if it is God's will to return some time in the future.
Graeme is hoping to use his engineering degree for useful purposes in the Lord, and Mel is training as a teacher and already has had a taste of teaching in Africa.
It was awesome to meet such ones who have set their hearts and minds so solidly on serving the Lord Jesus.
We shared with them how precious they are to the Lord. And the importance of learning to hear the voice of the Lord, even in daily living, and remaining true to whatever the Lord reveals to them. True for all Christians in our whole lives!
Hearing God on big decisions, starts on living by His word in Scripture and direct from the Holy Spirit in normal mundane life.
The staff at the Denny's let us stay talking and sharing long after they closed up and started to wash the floor!
Strange Spirits
After we parted company, Michael and I waited in the car praying what to do next. A motor scooter pulled up beside us and the man on it went up to the Dennys door looking quite determined to get in. He realised after a while that the place was shut for the night. Then I lost track of him through the steamed up windows (its been very cold in Auckland lately).
Next minute he's tapping on Michael's window, but can not see in.
He's asking whether any one wants prayer! Saying that he had been to a meeting where prayer was being offered, and then had felt all fired up and believed strongly to drive all the way from Avondale to Royal Oak (as we had).
We'll call him 'Steve'. We invited Steve into the car, and once he was seated I believed I was led by the Holy Spirit to immediately pray against "strange spirits". Which I did out aloud.
Spiritual Confusion - Where is
their signal coming from?
Turned out he was in a fellowship that believed there were new types of spiritual experiences that they say are so new you can not use the Bible to check them out. Strange animal noises, people sounding like door buzzers etc ..
We explained that there were no such things in the teaching of the Lord Jesus or His apostles, and that if a doctrine said that it can not be checked in the New Testament, then the doctrine is automatically wrong straight away!
The Lord also led me to specifically pray against Eros spirits with Steve. He did not know what that meant but said that he had been troubled by bad sexual dreams and the like! So we explained to him what Eros spirits were and then prayed for his deliverance. The Lord led in other words of knowledge as well which were used to really bless 'Steve'.
God had been speaking to him through his landlord to be free from tithing, and God led me to strongly mention a certain Scripture which re-enforced an aspect of this for 'Steve'. And God had given that portion of Scripture to him in two other ways in the last few days!
In the end we could see that God had really led Steve to where we were and it was a great privilege to be able to pray for him to be set free.
Right Beside the Deli Lama
This evening we strongly believed that we were to eat at a certain asian place where we had been once before. We had previously started to get to know the owner, a leading restraunter in the Auckland Asian scene, and a very nice person.
We were blessed to be able to talk to her tonight about the way in which only the Lord Jesus can take your sins away. She is a spiritually minded woman and taking a paradise leaflet from us, pondered deeply for a while and finally placed it beside a picture box of the Deli Lama next to the till. So we hope the gospel message in the leaflet will yet save who ever reads it!
Towards the end of the evening, Michael heard the chinese ladies sitting at the table next to us talking about the Holy Spirit!
We introduced our selves to them and were pleasantly surprised to find out that they were both Christians. As we left the restaurant, the owner had gone over and sat with these two Christian sisters. So we hope that good things in God have gone down tonight!