Back in New Zealand

Hey Everyone!
It's been so long since I've posted anything on my own blog! I hope you've been enjoying the posts on our team blog which you can find at www.pacificoutreach.wordpress.com.

My team and I arrived back in New Zealand on November the 11th, I believe. Tahiti was really good but it's so great being back in NZ. The atmosphere in this nation is so different than in Tahiti. It's crazy! Here's a blog post I started just after we returned from Tahiti:

So my team and I are back in New Zealand after our 28 days of outreach in Tahiti. Tahiti was amazing! We stayed with an incredible host family for the duration of our time and we were so blessed by them! The Tahitian people are incredibly hospitable, generous, kind and they make AMAZING food! Let’s just say that we did not leave Tahiti the same - physically or spiritually! We all grew more than we thought in more ways than we expected, if you know what I mean! ; )

Here are a few highlights from Tahiti:

*Our first Sunday in Tahiti one of the women at the Tabernacle of David (a weekly worship meeting) came and greeted all of our team and when she got to me she started weeping. I got to pray for her that night and she got really touched by the Holy Spirit. The next week she came and told me that since we had prayed for her she had been feeling the presence of the Holy Spirit in a tangible way and the Lord had been waking her up in the night to pray since then. She felt a fire all over her when she prayed and she was experiencing the Spirit in ways she never had before. Hearing the fruit of what had happened only one week later was so encouraging!

*One day in Moorea (a small island we went to for a few days) we baptized a woman who was a new believer, prayed for a radio host who interviewed us, had one woman healed from knee pain (literally, she was able to run to her bus when she almost missed it), had a prophetic word for a widow who broke down crying and experienced some emotional healing, and we ended up leading a young lady to the Lord while our translator cried because she was so moved as she heard the gospel again. All of this happened in about 20-30 minutes! It was amazing!

*On the Friday before we headed to Moorea our team met up with the pastors of the Calvary Chapel church in Tahiti. We went to their house, spent time with them and swam in their backyard…which just happened to be the incredibly beautiful ocean! Just after we had gotten too far out in the ocean to go back (we got their by boat) I realized that I had forgotten to put on sunscreen. Needless to say, after a few hours of swimming in the sun and laying on a boogy board, I was as red as a lobster. By Sunday we were at Moorea and my body was in such shock from the sunburn that my calves and ankles got extremely swollen. According to my team members I had “thankles”…meaning my ankles were the size of my thighs! It was brutal. My skin was really painful from the burn, incredibly tight from being so swollen and it was really hard to walk. There’s an amazing woman on my team who’s in med school and she was worried about my feet but we prayed and I spent all day Monday in bed and eventually my feet began to get better. Thank you, Jesus! Let’s just say, I never want “thankles” again and I have been even more diligent to put sunscreen on :)

*We saw a number of physical healings while in Tahiti. Here are just a few:
-A woman with night terrors was delivered and decided to follow Jesus! We saw her about a week after she got saved and we couldn’t recognize her because she physically looked different because of the transformation of her heart!
-A Catholic man was healed of knee pain. We ran into the man who witnessed him get healed and the Catholic man had been pain free for about a week. He called it "magic", we called it "miraculous".
-A man was healed from back pain and other ailments.
-A woman experienced significant healing in her right ear.

The Lord is so good! He's done some amazing things in and through my team as individual's and as a whole! We're currently in Christchurch praying, encouraging and meeting people and asking the Lord what He wants us to do here. We're hoping to do some night outreaches on Manchester Street which is the hub of prostitution and we're hoping to volunteer at the local food bank. Each day we pray and ask the Lord where He's leading, so we don't have a very set schedule. God is good, though, and He's been leading us well!

Well, I should jet! I hope you are all doing well!
I love you all and miss you like crazy!!
Blessings,
Stephanie