"My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!" 2K2:12
"My friend, my friend, the chariots and its horsemen!
Don't you dare to go ride with them so soon!"
I asked permission of my friend Carin who was in ICU for the last 5 days, if I could share her email to us friends, with you. It is such an example (as always) and very encouraging.
First, I will share our common background.
Although still in danger-zone, I am very grateful God did not take this special voice in my life right now. Not so soon after my brother!
Mom is still very ill too and not recovering as fast as we hoped. Her vocal cords definitely got badly injured with the constant coughing. It has been weeks. She is still very weak and her body constantly aches. Please keep mom in your prayers.
We don't often write a blog about A Friend
We don't often blog about A Saint still living.
I am doing both.
Today I received a letter.
Friends wanted to know her ICU story and she told us... what really happened.
I will see Carin on my Birthday this year... 7 weeks to go. We arranged this months ago. I fly out of the UK from a meeting via Dubai and land on the 1st of July in Abu Dhabi. I am so excited but after this morning I am way more than excited.
For years I told Carin, that one day... one day... I will swing by!
Never in my mind,
did I even THINK or consider
that God
might perhaps
swing by before me!
Not Carin!
I got to introduce Penny, to Carin in 2009 when we visited her in Scotland for 3 days. We literally sat for 3 days on Carin's incredible comfortable pink couches and talked Jesus non-stop while drinking coffee. That is all we did.
My family moved to Stilbaai in 1995. During 1996 I joined an odd Bible study group. I was at least 20 years younger than all of them. Carin lead our Bible study group. She would put on Vineyard worship, teaching and modeling to us how to listen to the words and sing it back to Jesus. It is engraved upon my memory.
There she sat.
She pressed "play" and then she would simply sing the words back to Jesus as if we were not in the room. Tears would stream down her face. I was 20. I have never seen someone worship like this. Definitely not in public. No pretense. Not a worry as to what we were thinking of her. It was simply her and Jesus. At the end of the song, she wiped her tears and said "oh wow, I did not expect that to happen today"
Here was Carin,
What I observed was a lady whoactually knew Jesus,
and had the ability to worship
so that we all could sense
Holy Spirit move in her house
Here was Carin,
talking about the YADAH hands of God as if she has really seen it. I still see her holding the big brown pottery hands teaching us about the Father's love. This was in the beginning of 1996. My life was about to change.
Here was Carin too,
5 May 1996. I was reading Jeremiah 1:5 when the words leaped off the page. God took my vow in church serious. I said yes to the call to full time missions but five days later I flew out to the Netherlands. I was there 4 months with a heart burning to get back home to do missions. I was mocked by the other South African girls for being too serious about God. I was mostly alone that time and would daily do what I saw modeled by Carin to me. I would put on Vineyard, and worship my heart out, and journal while leaning my head into that Yadah hand.
September 1996
I was back in Stilbaai. Carin was an old YWAM'er. Hammanskraal days. She was part of the Intercession-Worship schools. She was the first YWAM'er I ever met.
(She is not with YWAM anymore)
Later that year in 1996, in November, I read the book of Acts one morning and when my eyes fell on Acts 2:38. My world stood still for a moment. “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."
I got kicked out of church and went to great trouble to get baptized as an adult in Stellenbosch. I also knew that, even though I could not, I was suppose to be able to speak in tongues. That only happened much later in 1998. I was praying for someone when it literally felt like someone took a hold of my tongue and turned it 180'.
A language burst out of me... quite unexpectedly. Those where the Muizenberg Friday night worship gatherings with Stefan Huge in his house. I knew Stefan Hugo from before.
Why? Carin, of course.