God encounters in the news

 

God has been so good to us here in Bakersfield manifesting his presence in so many different ways. We are glad that he chose us to be a part of what he is doing here. This morning paper had a picture of the service at the Garden Community Church, where Dani and I have been preaching. This is what senior pastor David Goh said about it:

“This morning, the Bakersfield Californian ran three articles about the God Encounter Meetings. I really appreciate the sensitivity and concern reporter Louis Medina has desired to extend to those involved as he fulfilled his responsibility to present this news in a fair and unbiased manner. (The only fact in question is that GCC has grown by 50% since these meetings started.) I encourage you to purchase a copy of the newspaper today, or to log onto bakersfield.com to view additional pictures and video.”

You can know more about it at the following link:

http://www.bakersfield.com/hourly_news/story/339186.html 

Blessings,

Edd Rocha

Bakersfield, CA

Bakersfield is a beautiful place, most of all, there are some awesome people living here! We are having a wonderful time, meeting some more amazing people and enjoying God’s presence at the God encounters, services from thursday to sunday at three different churches. God is promoting unity here in the city and those who are opened to hear and obbey the Lord are being tremendously blessed by a fresh outpouring of his presence.

We will be speaking in a conference here at the Garden Community church from the 17th to the 20th. Until then we are enjoying our friends and visiting some really nice places. We are going to Disneyland next week, I can’t wait!

 Thank you all for your prayers, for your friendship and for your love. We appreciate your support.

Our phone number here is 661 304 9031. Give us a call!

 love you!

Edd&Dani

USA, here we come!

It is like a dream. I almost can’t believe we are finally going to the US for the first time in our lives. As a missionary I’ve been to many countries, including Albania, Iceland and Spain, but I’ve never set foot in the USA.

We’ll visit some friends and minister at the Garden Community Church in Bakersfield, CA and in Open Heaven Ministries in Cincinnati, OH.

 Thank you for all your prayers and financial support to us. May God abundantly bless you and lead you into the road of accomplishment of your dreams.

 Always ask God to guide you, pay attention to the soft voice of the Holy Spirit speaking inside of your heart.

 Love,

Edd & Dani

Detachment

I love our new table. Yeah, Its an old wooden table, it’s once white paint has almost all faded away but you can tell it was once painted and it was once white. I love the way the wood is showing trough the many scratches and worn out spots on the old paint. There are a few deep dents and carvings which show that this table has been used to more than just serving tee. Nevertheless, despite the obvious age and pain it has gone through, it still looks beautiful. I don’t know what we are most proud about this table, if because its still so beautiful and solid even though it has been through so much or if we are proud because we bargained and got a great deal on it. Anyways, it is great to finally have a table again. Dani and I had been living in other people’s homes since January. God told us to move to Londrina and we did, we moved here in June but God only gave us our apartment now, in November. It was hard for my wife and I not to have our own place and privacy all these months. It was hard to live in other people’s homes and not me able to walk around comfortably in our pajamas anytime we liked or wake up in the middle of the night and go say “hello” to whatever was in the fridge. It was hard, but it was a great lesson on “detachment”. Yes, yet another lesson we learned from our God and Father. Dada is so good, see, he doesn’t spoil us by giving us everything easy and when we want it. No, he gives us a hard time, he doesn’t give us what we want, he gives us exactly what we need to become more into his likeness.

Contrary to what a lot of preachers have been teaching today, God is not concerned with our comfort, with the car we drive, with the house we live, with luxury or natural worldly greatness. Those things are good but they should be just side effects of a life of greatness and greatness, in God’s eyes, is to reflect his character and will. If he was Jesus would not have been born in a barn surrounded by animal droppings and hay. God is concerned in making you and I look like him in the inside, to have a heart like he does, to be pure and holy as he is, to be patient as he is and to make us realize that our time in this world is just a transition to the heavens where we’ll live with Him forever.

This world is not where we are supposed to live clothed in royalty, our royalty is not of this world. We are of royal blood, yes, the royal blood of Jesus which was spilt for man.  He was the king of kings, nevertheless he said it himself, Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.” Jesus had come from heaven, before his life on this Earth he had been, he had a life in heaven, he already was. So, the reality of Heaven for Jesus was clear. For us, it’s just by faith, we hope and believe in heaven and that we’ll have there all the things God promised he’d prepare for us, but for Jesus, it was not a hope, it was not faith, it was experience. He had lived in heaven, in fact he built it. He knew that his life in this world was just a season and the body he lived in was just a vessel. This assurance, this knowledge of who he really was, King of the everlasting Zion, totally affected the perspective he had of this world.

This is God’s main goal in our lives, to draw us closer to Him, to open our eyes to the fragility and “ephemeralism” of this world and to help us internalize, discern, experience and understand the reality of his everlasting kingdom.That is why so many people misunderstand God and suffer. They become angry and bitter with God due to the loss of a loved one of when they suffer in this world. Christianity today is so fragile. In this last age the leaders of the occidental church have fed us with so many wrong teachings about God and about Christianity should be about that we have our concepts all distorted. We have been taught that God is a god of love, that he loves us and cares for us and that all things will work together for our good and so on and so forth. Yes, this is all true, but love is just one of the attributes of an almighty being which by the power of his voice created the universe, a being so humongous in essence and so incomprehensible in his totality and fullness that the only attempt to understand how is it possible that the universe he has created no beginning and no end blows away or minds. God has many other attributes besides love. For example,  justice, righteousness and holiness. But we only hear about his love and we get confused and suffer when we lose something of when something does not work out the way we thought it should have. Detachment… it is a consequence of death. When you die, you detach your true self from your phisical body and from everything in this physical world and we enter the everlating real world where Jesus waits for us. He wants us to do exactly that, to die:

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Mat 16.24

“… And anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” Mat 10.38 And about detachment of this world, he made it clear…

“Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”  Mat 10.37

“And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.” Mat 5.40

“Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” Mat 5.42

 

Jesus was awesome, his lifestyle and his message confronted most of the religious people of his days. It wouldn’t be much different if he walked on the earth today. He won’t do that today, I mean, come in the flesh again and manifest himself as a man, do you know why? Because now he’s counting on us to do so. 

Love ya! 

Edd Rock 

We saw the blind see

We just said good bye to the second team from the USA at the fifth city we ministered at in Brazil. We had a great time and met some really nice people whose lives were impacted in another trip to Brazil where we could experience more of the fire of God being outpoured over the lives of the thousands of hungry Brazilian people who attended our meetings.
For me one of the most remarkable moments was when I was translating for Randy as he prayed for a man and a woman who was blinded by diabetes. I had been praying and asking God to show me something amazing, I mean, I had heard many people tell about healings they saw but I had never prayed for a blind man and saw him healed. So I was praying that God would let me see and be a part of an amazing miracle, and God answered my prayer.
Randy had just decided not to preach due to the advanced time and released the team to pray for the sick. One of the pastors came to me and said, “Please, ask Randy if he can pray for two members of my staff who were blinded by diabetes.” I asked Randy and he said, “Where are they?” We went down backstage and they brought them. They were both in their forties but the guy was so depressed that he looked 60. He was suffering with severe pain on his belly, so much so that the feeling of his shirt touching his skin was hurting him. He had totally lost the sight on his left eye and 70 % on his right eye. So much so that he couldn’t walk without the help of his wife and he couldn’t go down a set of stairs without holding on to her. The lady had lost most of the sight on her left eye as well, all she could see with it was a blur.
I asked for three chairs, one for Randy and one for each one of them (I felt in my spirit that this wouldn’t be a fast prayer). I should have asked for four chairs, I knelt down beside Randy and agreed with his prayer as he prayed for the fire of the Holy Spirit to come. I almost didn’t have to do any translation as Randy’s Portuguese just keeps getting better and better, there were just a few words he didn’t know. 30 minutes went by without any major changes and Randy just kept praying, the lack of any phenomena didn’t seem to bother him, he just kept praying, asking God for more electricity, more fire, more anointing… suddenly this lady bursts into tears and a loud laughter as she said, “I can see, I can see, I can see his badge, I can see your faces… ha! The blur is gone! I can see better now with my blind eye than I can with my normal one!”. She was so excited, she jumped off of her chair and started to hug and kiss the people around us, laughing, crying and hoping like a happy little lamb. The whole atmosphere changed, the man, his name is Antonio, had been unbelieving and downcast all the time, but after he heard the lady beside him rejoicing, he lifted up his head and started to look up as if trying to grasp his healing too. Randy praised Jesus for the healing of the lady for about 5 to 10 minutes, he thanked Jesus looking up with a big smile in his face. All of the sudden this sweet presence of Jesus feel over us, it was so awesome, all of us felt it. We just started praising him for his presence, then, Antonio shouted, “Ouch… my head… my head…” I asked what was wrong and he said that suddenly this sharp pain started pounding on his forehead. Randy frowned and rebuked the pain, Antonio shouted again, “Ouch… Oooouuuch… the pain moved to the back of my head.” A big smile shone on Randy’s face… “Ha…” he said, “see, this is actually good… it’s good that the pain moved, now we know it’s a spirit of affliction, it exposed itself, now we can command it to leave” So, Randy commanded the spirit of affliction to leave, not to move again, just leave once and for all and never come back, and it did. “The pain is gone.” Said Antonio, “Hey, wait a minute…” he started touching his belly, “The pain on my belly is gone too…”
“Great…” Randy said, “What about your eyes?”
“Here…” I handed him my badge, “… try reading this.” He took my badge on his hands looked at it, flipped it a couple of times and said, “No, I can’t read it. Still can’t see nothing with my left eye and just see 30 % on my right one.”
“Ok,” Randy said,”… that is ok, let’s just praise Jesus for what he has done.” And for about 10 minutes we just thanked Jesus for what healing Antonio of his abdominal pain, then, out of the sudden, while we were still thanking Jesus, Antonio said, “Guaraci” and pointed to one of the usher’s badge. The guy was standing about ten feet away from him. Randy said, are you reading the badge or recognizing his face?” Antonio frowned and lifted his chin up a bit, “Both.” He said, “I can read hi badge and I can tell it’s Guaraci!” he smiled, “I see you my friend!” He said to Guaraci, “Ha, I can see your face!”
“Yey Jesus…” Randy said with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen on his face. Then, for another 20 minutes the healing just increased to the point where Antonio’s right eye was totally restored and with his left eye he went from seeing nothing to a little light, then to shadows and finally silhouettes. We were all so excited with the healing and with the sweet presence of Jesus we felt all around us. After we prayed, Antonio made a point in going downstairs by himself with his hands up and a huge smile saying, “Look, no hands!”
God is good. I saw his power, his love and his presence heal the blind. I will never be the same again.
I hope to see you all in a next Global Awakening trip to Brazil.
Love you,
Edd Rocha

We’ll raise the dead

It is so good to know we are doing what we are supposed to, that we are going were we should, that we are in line with God’s will and destiny for our lives. God is a good God, there is no question about that. I know that sometimes all the negative experiences we have in life tend to makes think otherwise, especially if we, or someone we love, is in pain. But we must never forget that God is good and he what he ultimately wants is to make His kingdom be manifest in and through our lives. The devil is a bad devil and he is not playing. His scores of fallen angels work day and night to make sure you fail, fall, backslide, give up, get bitter, dismay, get discontent, mourn, complain, sin, lust, lose your temper, cheat, curse, steal, gossip and a whole bunch of other sinful behaviors. The worst is that the dark side has a great ally in the spiritual battle against our lives: our old self. Yes, good old little me, our carnal man, our sinful nature, our adamic genes kick in against God’s perfect will and plan for our lives and that is when everything starts to go down the drain.
Jesus taught us a precious prayer: “… your kingdom come, your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven…” . If we think about this for a second, “… your kingdom… as it is in heaven…” . There is so much I’d like to share about this but, I know you don’t have time so, I’ll just say this: It is his kingdom… Jesus’ kingdom. He is the king, not you, not me. Here is the thing, if we want his kingdom to be manifest in our lives than we must start by letting him sit on the throne. He is the one who must rule, not us, not you, not me. His will must be done in our lives, not ours. Any and every blessing you can think of for yourself or for someone you love will only be established when his kingdom is established. If we are to experience his kingdom in our lives we ought to let him reign. Indeed and in fact crown him king over our will, over our decisions, over our business, over our marriage, over our finances… everything… let him be king, let him rule, take our time in quiet submission and in a simple prayer early in the morning just say,
“Jesus, you are my Lord, you are my king. I want my life to be an extension of your kingdom on earth, I want to be a living consulate of Zion. Tell me what to do Jesus, rule over me, show me your will, guide me, lead me my Lord. I commit myself to you, I consecrate my eyes, my ears, my mouth, my tact, my feet, all that I am to you. Do to me as you please my Lord, my king. Rule over my life, I want to and will obey, no matter the cost.”
Oh, my word, the power, the release that rest in this simple yet powerful prayer is immeasurable. We would walk away, I mean, God would guide our steps away from so many troubles and pains if we only did that prayer. Of course we’d need to reevaluate almost every concept we have about a successful life in order to obey God. Look at John the Baptist, look at Jesus… not really role models for nowadays success patterns. I mean, if they lived on earth today I can hardly see them on a Ferrari or wearing an Armani. There is so much we have to give up, actually, we have to give up everything to really see his kingdom come, to really be submissive to his will, to really let him reign, to just rely on him. The rich young man couldn’t cope with Jesus’ direction and immediate destiny for him. He was rich, he possessed many things. Jesus told him to give it all away and follow him. The young man probably looked at his disciples, all looking broke, tired, dust covered, going around on foot and suddenly being a disciple didn’t look so attractive. Here is the thing, we’ve got to give it all up if we are to get in his kingdom. Narrow is the way into the kingdom, we cant get through it carrying a huge backpack with all of our own wills, plans, projects, dreams and desires. They are all too heavy and deviate us from the path the Lord has designed. But if we unload all the burdens, all the tons of things we’ve decided to carry on our own, if we leave it all and just follow him, just do his will, just embrace him and say, Jesus, I surrender all to you, then my friend, there is nothing too much, too big or too high for you to reach. If we get in this journey where we only do what He tells us to do, then, we’ll do anything and we’ll do it all. We’ll not only heal the sick, we’ll raise the dead!

May his kingdom come and his will be done, on earth as it is in heaven!

Edd Rock

Let Jesus walk on Earth again

Working for Randy Clark is both a pleasure and a privilege. We get to receive so many impartations from so many anointing apostolic leaders such as Bill Johnson, Gary Oates, from Randy himself and so many others who have shook nations with the gospel of Jesus. I am thankful to the Lord for placing me in Global Awakening.
Recently I was watching a DVD from the Voice of Apostles Conference. It was Randy preaching on Power for Purpose. There is another video from the same conference with Heidi preaching and she is talking about “laying it all down”.
Both messages talk about the same thing, through many experiences, stories and bibles texts they go on to say that God sends his power for a purpose.
In do miracle crusades four to eight times a year, sometimes with a team from America, sometimes just Dani and I. and in all these cruzades we see a lot of people asking God for fire.
In the Bible we see that God sends his fire for three main purposes:
1 – To accept the sacrifice (see 1 Kings 18.38)
2 – To purify (Isaiah 6.6)
3 – To empower (Acts 2.3,4)
Most of the people who cry out for God to send their fire want the power of God to touch them, and that is fine. Most of the times they want God to accept their lives as a living sacrifice, or to purify their hearts or even to empower them. I just want to write this quick note about the latter, “Empower for what?”
This is a question that has been ringing in my spiritual ears a lot lately. The other day we went to the beach after my work hours as we usually do and we were talking about it.
We, as Christians, go to church every Sunday… what for? We sing hymns, hug each other and smile… what for? We hear the pastor talk about compassion and love… what for? We have a nice building which we only use for a couple of hours a week… what for? We go to church and cry out for God to send his power… what for?
See, this is the question we must be asking ourselves daily. “What for, God? What have you given us all this for? What is the purpose you have for my life, for my church, for our services, for our sermons and smiles? What is it all for, God?”
It’s been cold in the USA, cold weather… cold hearts. Two men died in the cold streets of Cincinnati yesterday. “He froze to death,” said a local homeless, Kenneth “Wolf” Niebel, 43. “He was sick. He has been sick for a while, though. He had throat cancer.”And where were we? Where was the church? Where was Jesus when this man died slowly in the cold weather? Maybe a hot soup or a hot cup of coffee could have saved him that night.
It is time for us to reevaluate our Christianity brothers and sisters, if you are still here reading this, I believe that this is because you care. It is time we stop talking so much about love and start doing something about it.
“But my church does have a “program” for the homeless.” Some of us might say. Ok, good, that means that your pastor and some people in your church cares, and that is awesome. But make sure you are personally there once in a while, looking at the faces of those who have far less than you. I love to go to the plaza with some friends to distribute free meals to the homeless at night. It’s amazing how suddenly we stop complaining about our problems and become so grateful to God for what he’s given us.
Lets ask God for more, lets ask him for fire… Lets also use what we have to let Jesus once again walk on this earth, this time, through us.
Love,
Edd Rock

Updates – August 10th

Thanks for visiting our blog!

Our latest news…
• Dani and I have received a clear word from God to move to Londrina in order to be with House of David Ministries for a time of impartation and equipping;
• An American family from the ministry has invited us to stay with them until we find an apartment we can rent;
• Apartment hunting is not an easy job, specially with a tight budget but we are asking and believing God for a nice 3 bedroom apartment near the CBA(House of David’s worship center);
• We don’t have any furniture since we sold and gave all of ours in order to move to the US but we are believing God for provision for new furniture and electrical appliances;
• We were invited by Davi Silva to go on a worship tour in the US with him;
• We are now talking to some pastors and setting up a schedule for us to minister at some churches in January;
• President Bush has signed a law allowing Brazilians to enter the US without a visa;

Prayer requests
• For God to continually brake us and mold us into his image;
• For an increase of faith;
• For my mother’s Portuguese passport to be issued;
• For our provision;

Thanksgiving
• For people like you who care about us;
• For our family, friends and supporters;
• For God’s continual provision to our lives;
• For our jobs at Global Awakening and for the privilege of working for Randy Clark;
• For our new boss Valerie Lawson and for her loving and compassionate heart and for the godly woman she is;

We love you,

Keep in touch,

eddrocha@aol.com

For those who want to know more…

We are so sorry that we havent kept everyone e-mailed about what has being going on. I’ve had a friend complain about it. We are really sorry… We’ve been so hectic with all that is going on and also with our work for Global that we couldnt write to everyone.

I’ll try to tell you in a few lines what is exactly going on in our lives… Here we go:

In April 2006 we got to know some people from House of David Ministries from the city of Londrina here in Brazil. They came to minister the worship during the Global Awakening trip in Rio. Davi silva ministered to us and it was amazing. God spoke a lot to us and told us that He wanted us to come to Londrina to be with House of David Ministries people for a couple of weeks. Last July, right after Randy’s Youth Trip to Brazil, we came here to hear from God and stayed for two weeks. During our time here in Londrina God told us he wanted us to move to Londrina. After the two weeks we went back home in Sao Paulo and got ready for the September trip. During this trip we met a group of people from Bakersfield, CA. God made a strong connection with us and clearly told us to go to Bakersfield. They applied for our visas and we thought we were going right away but, God reminded us he wanted us to come to Londrina. So, we prayed and asked God for direction… Londrina or Bakersfield… we heard him say, “House of David… Mike Shea.” So, we understood that before going to Bakersfield God wanted us to move to Londrina and stay here until he says so.

After talking to our Global Awakening leaders and receiving their blessing, we moved from Sao to Rio and lived with our families from January till the first week of June. We were getting ready to come here. We sold some of our belongings and gave a lot away too. We just kept some clothes and shoes, put it all in our car and drove here. It was a 14 hours drive from Rio.

We arrived in Londrina a couple of days before Gary Oates team arrived in town for their healing crusade. We volunteered to help as translators and that was a blessing. It was good to see some people we met in the Global Awakening trips. God performed many wonderful miracles and the worship with House of David was totally breathtaking. The crusade was over on Sunday night and the American team went back to the US yesterday.

Dani and I are working as never and we are overwealmed by all the preparations for the youth power invasion. This year we are responsible for contacting 25 churches and pastors in the Sao Paulo area. We are expecting 300 american youth and over 5000 brazilian. Besides that we’re also preparing all the arrangements for the September trip as well. This one will have two teams of 110 people from the US and will happen in four different cities in Brazil.

It is good to be here in the midst of so many anointed people from HOD and it is great to be able to go to the worship center and just soak in His presence but, we haven’t had much time for that. Since we arrived we’ve just done that twice. We’re staying in an American lady’s apartment for now, she has gone to the US for a while so, Dani and I are enjoying some time by ourselves. This is a blessing from God because in the last 6 months we’ve been living we’ve our family so, we haven’t had any time alone. God is good and he knows exactly what we need.

In 9 days we’ll be going to Sao Paulo for the Youth trip. We’ll be there for three weeks. Once it’s over we’ll come back here to find an apartment for us to rent. Please pray for provision for we’ll need another 300 dollars a month for rent and condominium fees. Please also pray for clear direction and guidance for us here, we want to hear God, understand Him and obey.

Check these videos out

Check these two videos of House of David at youtube:

Video 1

Video 2

This is what we are experiencing here and it is already changing our lives!

Love you!