The Rod And The Tsunami
September 20, 2006
In October of 2004 I was really struggling in my spirit about whether or not it was the right time for me to go into Israel . My problem was that it was the wrong time of the year, I had no money with Christmas on the horizon, and I had no peace about going, except for this insatiable feeling of urgency that I had to go.
As I prayed the lord showed me friends I had met on a tour with God Tv a year before, they were from Sri Lanka. It was during that tour that the lord enabled me to prophesy and pray over them and the nation of Sri lanka.
I had kept in touch with my friends I felt it was important to encourage them as much as I could. There were many problems in Sri Lanka, uprisings, Christians intimidated and beaten, churches burned. The government was trying to pass a law an anti converstion law which would infringe upon the rights of Christians to witness and minister to those who don’t yet know Jesus.
I knew that my friends from Sri Lanka would be visiting Israel in November 2004 and felt drawn to go and hold them and pray for them. My friends had been through many trials and I felt that they needed that.
It was a constant battle trying to separate the will of God from my own, never the less I continued to pray about this trip. Everything was against it, even friends couldn’t understand why I couldn't just pray here at home for them, there was an urgency about this situation that I couldn’t explain and in my heart of hearts against all the odds I knew I had to go.
I run an intercessory prayer circle and I asked Tommy Hays of Messiah Ministries in Kentucky to pray. He was so understanding of the dilemma I was in and he enabled me to see a thread of the Lord throughout this calling to go.
I wrote to my friends who were due to fly out to Israel, and told them that I would meet them on the last leg of their tour in Jerusalem, I told them that I wanted to pray for them and that the lord had given me something to give to them.
The week that I was due to fly out Yasser Arafa was taken ill, and left the country, he was deemed to be seriously ill and many believed that he would die. Suddenly I began to realise that if he died while I was in Israel there would be unease and instability in Israel,still I knew I had to go.
I was booked to stay at the Jaffa gate, I knew that I would be alone and suddenly Fear began to creep I cried and asked the lord to find me another way of doing this, but there was none, and I knew that I had to go.
To tell you I was happy would be untrue, I struggled terribly about this trip, everything within my flesh screamed no! but still this undeniable urgency surged within me. I prayed and said “well lord, I know that that fear doesn’t come from you, but I am fearful, so now I put my trust in you, and I put my own will aside, and I step through that fear to go into Israel to pray, my life is in your hands alone.
So much happened while I was in Israel that it's impossible to write it all here, the one thing that stood out was my vulnerability, Yasser Arafat died, everything shut down, schools, shops, ramadam was coming to an end . There were durges sang intermittently from the mosques, and relayed via tanoy sytems into the airwaves, there were women weeping and mourning the loss of Yasser Arafat. I have never been so afraid, I was a complete lilly, I cried every day to come home, but every day the lord said I had to stay, I had to persevere. The Battle was on for my mind, and I remember thinking about the book by Francis Frangipan about the 3 battle fields, and of how the enemy comes to intimidate and rob of of our peace.
Fire cannon and fire crackers were let off at night, and it was difficult to know what was going on, to someone who is ignorant of the traditions of ramadam these sounds could have been bombs and bullet fire. I lay on my bed and cried out to the lord. I was not the picture of what you would expect of a Christian woman who is in Ministry, and had been for 9yrs.
I battled with intimidation, and fear everyday, my mind was a battle field for the enemy as he desperately tried to stop me from praying for the people from Sri Lanka. I was so ashamed of myself that I could hardly bear to look, and yet still, the urgency to pray for my friends was so strong.
At last that day came, it was the day before I was due to fly home back to my beautiful safe Isle of Anglesey.
As I held my friends to pray, I was reminded of a gift the lord had told me to bring for them, I was a little sheepish about giving it, but knew that this was of the lord. I handed Shirani a piece of Bracken that was the shape of a rod, and was about 7 inches long! I had been to a conference in South Wales when I picked it up. I was at an Aglow conference, and I went for a walk with friends up the mountains I walked the pathway and stepped over a long stick, I believe the Lord told me to pick it up, that it would be as the rod of Moses. I thought, “oh yeah, and ignored the stick and carried on” subsequently, I came across a smaller stick, again the same unction to pick it up, but again I dismissed it. The third stick I came to was a much smaller stick and I distinctly heard in my ear “pick it up” I was so shocked that I quickly picked it up, and concealed it in my bag to my friends amusement!
Ruthanne Canning was speaking that evening, and she spoke to me before the meeting, she told me that the lord had given me a stick, and then she said, “no, it’s a rod, and at the right time you will know what to do with it” so here I was in Israel with the rod handing it over to my friends from Sri Lanka. As I did the lord showed me a picture, it was of Sri Lanka, raised up before the nations on the crest of a tsunami wave, "one last wave to sweep the land before revival and the coming of the Lord," and I gave this vision and word to my friends as we prayed, also the lord gave me psalm 91 and psalm 46 to give to them.
That was not what I was going to say to my friends, and I was so shocked by it!
I told them the story of the rod, and said that at the right time the lord would show them what to do and how to use it, I held my friends for a while longer and they left. I must confess, that I didn’t realise that what I had seen was a natural disaster, but rather believed that it was a spiritual flooding and awakening of the land and its people. If I had known the fullness of what I had seen I couldn’t have left my friends behind, the lord knows me so well.
I returned home, and was devastated, I felt so guilty about how I had allowed fear to come into my life.
Many good things happened while I was out there, I had sung out over Israel at the house of prayer, prayed for other people, met the producer of an Israeli radio programme on which I had spoken a few months before, but I was so consumed, with feelings of failure and guilt that is masked over the other wonderful things that happened, all I could see was a desperation and isolation I felt so alone. I knew that if I shared my heart with the people who had told me not to go that they would only tell me “I told you so”, and I just couldn't take that.
I went to a meeting the day after returning home, and someone came to me, and asked me about the trip to Israel, I was honest with him, and told him of the fear I had felt etc, before I had chance to tell him about the vision he said “you have to choose the right time to go to Israel you know” I was devastated, this man thought I had been unwise, he had no idea the cost of going financially spiritually, and emotionally. I stayed in a state of depression for about 3 weeks.
Suddenly the reality and the full meaning of that trip really came to light.
Boxing day 2004 will be a day forever etched on my heart, I watched as the tsunami hit the Isle of Sri Lanka, and to my horror realised why the urgency to go and pray for my friends.
I frantically tried to phone and email my friends in Sri Lanka but lines of communication were down, so started the desperate wait to hear from them. I waited for three days, and received the best email I have ever had.
Shirani wrote
“ It was boxing day, when a fisherman from our village ran to my house and said that the sea didn’t look right, we ran to the beach which is only 250 yards away to see the sea drawn right back exposing the reef. The beach was full of people, I had taken a camera and took photos of the sea. We started to shout to the people to get off the beach. We went back to our home and 10 minutes later the Tsunami hit. All 25 workers are alive, our homes are still standing, and the church is still standing in the midst of chaos, everything around it is gone. I watched as the vision you gave came to pass before our eyes, and psalm 91 has never been more real to me, as thousands fell at my side and thousands at my feet, but the water did not come near my gate or onto my land!”
She told of how they had remembered the rod, and knew that this was the time , when I had given it to her I had said “this is a sign of the authority of God that has been given to you, the stick in itself is a stick, but this is to remind you of what you have been given to overcome to His glory”. As they stood in the sea to pray, Shirani said that the presence of God was so strong that it was numbing, they had never felt anything like it. The second tsunami aftershock wave never came.
Months later, after another quake off Sumatra I had an email from my friends, telling me that while others ran to the mountains and hills for protection, they took the rod and stood in the sea and held a prayer and praise meeting. Again, that same presence of the lord decended upon them. That tsunami wave never came!
I have just heard from Shirani, its now August 2005 to say that God Tv have just filmed a documentary all about the tsunami, and the effects upon there land. The building programme is going really well, and many who were homeless have been blessed with food and supplys by the christians. Many are beginning to recognise that the Christians are the ones who have stood with them, who have kept there word to help in there time of need.
I want to encourage you readers out there, what the lord asks us to do doesn’t always come inline with what others believe the lord is saying. However it will always come inline with the word of God. There are many struggling with decisions, because in the natural it seems an impossibility, but I know that in spite of my circumstance, in spite of my self in my weakness and failing, the lord moved in a supernatural wonderful way to save His faithful children, those with a heart for Israel. He used a fragile vessel that should have been smashed into a 1000 pieces to bring glory and honour to His name. If He did this in me, He can do it in you. Stop seeing yourself in your smallness and start to see Him in His absolute greatness!
Don’t put away those dreams, don’t dismiss those words spoken over you, don’t let your reasoning get in the way of a journey the Lord wants to share with you. Nothing is impossible nothing. You may feel like a tiny flame today, but I tell you that that tiny flame carries the full authority of the kingdom of Heaven within it, and it has complete authority over the darkness, there is evidence of that flame the moment it is lit, and darkness has to flee, it cannot consume that light, the light is more powerful. So come on you lot, what are you waiting for, times short, get on with it, the lord promises to never leave or forsake you, many are floundering in the deep storm torn waters of life, they need Jesus in you.
I pray that this testimony will serve to Glorify the wonderful grace and mercy of the lord for His people.
Every blessing
Heather
Hidden Treasures Ministries International
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Its not by might, nor by Power but by my Spirit saith the Lord.
Location: Dehiwala, Sri Lanka
Website: http://www.ourchurch.com/member/k/keys
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