What an amazing month I've had here in Kona. You got a little of my schedule in the last post...but essentially God has been tilling the soil of my own heart to make me ready for what He wants to do. I've done a lot of repenting! Haha...but it's such a joyful thing to bring my heart into right alignment with the Lord and allow Him to soften my heart once again! So as a result I've been able to do a lot of rejoicing as well! Jesus is SO good and I'm so excited to see what He's going to do through the 300 students after this last week in Hawaii as we're released into Orange County, Alaska, D.C., Ireland, Nepal, & the Middle East! Personally I'm so ready get back to Harrisburg and the northeast and just allow God to use me in whatever way He wants to spread His love and salvation!! I stand on what God has promised for America and believe with all my heart we're going to see revival!!! YYEEAAA!!
Since we've been here the Lord has been talking to our leadership team and staff about some changes He wants to make in this upcoming year as the Harrisburg Fire & Fragrance team. We're actually going to push the start date of our DTS (discipleship training school) back to January. Our crew of staff will still be moving back to Harrisburg in September to live in community and put into practice everything we've been training for. We'll be joining musician Sean Feucht for the God is Not Dead tour by going around to the Ivy Leagues teaching, worshiping/praying, and evangelizing. We'll also be joining with ministries in Harrisburg and traveling to D.C. to join up with Jason Hershey to interceed for America and the ending of abortion. So basically...we're being released as just regular 'ol missionaries in the northeast!!! Our desire as a YWAM base is not to be a training school that does missions but a missions school that trains! We long for our community to be solely focused on the Lord and His desire to reach the lost and from that place move into training new students and missionaries!
Below is an explanation written by our leader Jeremy Bardwell of how we came to this decision and what the Lord is saying to us for this time. (I highly encourage you to read it!)
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Hey friends my name is Jeremy Bardwell and I am the director of Fire and Fragrance in Harrisburg. I wanted to fill you in on the journey we have been on as a community that has led us to push back the start date of our DTS. This is a big shift for us but we couldn’t be more excited about it as we dream about the future!
Our heart in pioneering a Fire and Fragrance community into the Northeast of America is to plant a community focused on revival in America and training for a new wave of missions to every nation from university campuses!
As we look unto that goal of being a “beachhead of revival and revival training” on the east coast we began to realize that one of the biggest hindrances to true revival culture would be for us to become “training centered” instead of “ministry and revival centered.” Essentially, the grave danger would be to become a people with all the right answers without a gospel/revival lifestyle. The danger would be, to “know” everything about revival and never simply live it in our daily lives! To train others into a lifestyle we are not actually living ourselves.
As we prayed into the fall for us in Harrisburg we felt the Lord’s loving voice alert us that if we didn’t practically shift we could head down that road! We eagerly received the word and praised the Lord for His faithfulness to us! He had showed us a great pitfall and how to navigate around it! Truly His leadership is the best!
So, from this word, we knew the Lord was calling us to push back our September Fire and Fragrance DTS to January 2012 and truly live out our values! He began to speak to us about this fall being a time of ”intentional community,” and “great open doors” in the region! We know that as we center our community on “ministry to the Lord and ministry to the lost” God is going to pour out even more on our training when we start up in January 2012!
We have never felt such openness from the Lord, and with such expectancy and joy about what He is doing!
We know that many of you care for us and are following us on our journey, so, I have wanted to catch you up on our prophetic journey! We are truly feeling like children born of the Spirit and led by the Spirit! Our Fire and Fragrance community has grown now to 30+ full time staff and everyone is ready to dive onto our faces before the Lord to see further into what He is leading for this fall. Please join us in prayer and feel free to share words dreams and scriptures with us! We love running with friends who are intimate with Jesus, and hear His voice. _________________________________________________
I love following Jesus where He leads! Thanks everyone for journeying with me in all of this. I remain so thankful for your support!
What an amazing experience and beginning of an awesome adventure! Praying for you, your team, those that will touched by yall! Praying for revival in America!! Keep us updated! Love you Jess!
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