The final chapter of the Winter Dream Tour of 2012 is over. 

- We traveled 4,000 miles.
- Met over 500 people.
- Personally coached and prayed with about 150 people.
- Were lavished upon by new friends.
- Were challenged in our faith, encouraged by each other, and inspired by faith-filled dreamers.
- We never went without food, fuel,  or a place to stay.

We come home joyful (and a bit exhausted).

My favorite story of the whole tour is still the first one.  The Winter Dream Tour team initially started out as four of us; Katherine, Sarah, Lily, and me.  But, I felt God telling me to leave room in the van for another person.  I put the back bench seat in the van and left the camping equipment at home.

Sure enough after arriving in Georgia, we found our other person in Pei Yee.  I am so very glad God told me to leave room for her!  Read more here.  Read Pei Yee’s version here. 

Sarah’s favorite story is when we woke up one morning not knowing where we would stay that night and God came through in amazing ways.  Read more here.

Katherine would say her favorite story was about learning how to ask for what we really want.   From the very beginning, we all felt God laying it on our hearts to go to the Magic Kingdom in Disney World.  Well, that seems crazy – until God provided free tickets.  Amazing.  Read her story here.

Pei Yee’s favorite story is about Eloi.  In her prayers, she saw an image of a Hispanic man and wanted to give him a Bible verse.  She told us about it but really didn’t think that she would ever see him.   Sure enough, a few days later, she saw him and told him about the verse.  Turns out he is getting ready to head to Panama to start a 24×7 prayer ministry there.  It’s a fabulous story.  Read more here. 

We met some pretty incredible people along the journey.

We met dreamers who are in medical school, praying for supernatural healing.  We met dreamers starting law school, seeking to bring justice to the world.  We met teachers who want to bring the Kingdom into their classrooms even though they can’t use words.  We prayed with a man who’s family travels the US doing circus shows and preaching the Gospel from the high wire.

We met dreamers who are in aerospace engineering school and want to see other students come to know Jesus.  We prayed with a marine who was heading back to his base soon that all the men in his barracks would know Jesus.

We met a woman in her 60′s and a woman in her 50′s who both said, “God’s not through with me yet!  I have a lot of dreaming still left to do.” 

We prayed with pastors who dream of their churches coming alive.  We prayed with them for their church, their community, and their cities to be changed through their Kingdom dreams.

One night, we prayed along with thousands and thousands of other believers for our government and our country and for the Kingdom of God to be glorified.  We saw women in nice outfits kneeling and praying quietly.  We saw young men and women dancing around with joy.  We saw men in business suits with their arms raised, worshiping beside men with tattooed arms raised, standing beside people with long hair and hippy-styled clothes with their arms raised – all praising God for our country.

We spoke in traditional, charismatic, and Non-denominational churches.  We were in the nicest of neighborhoods, in the center of the  hood, and several places in between.

And we found dreamers and dreams of every kind everywhere.

Here are some of our favorite stories of dreamers; here, here, here, and here.

Julie (see pic to the right) joined the team as our office, moral, prayer, and logistical support in the Kingdom Dreams office.  She got to spend a few days on the tour with us.

I think her favorite part of the tour would be meeting Jen in West Palm Beach and hanging out with her as she took steps of faith and obedience toward her dream.  We went with Jen on a crazy errand to talk to the owner of a house, and found out that it was much more about the owner than about the dream.  Read more here.

Sarah, Katherine, and Pei Yee are moving on into the next steps of their own dreams.  Be watching for the posts this week about what each one will be doing.  This chapter is done, but the next is already beginning.

Thank you for your prayers!

Keep dreaming, keep hoping, keep moving.

p.s.  We’re already gearing up for the College Dream Tour with a planned launch on March 24th.
Stay tuned for more info. 

“Hey. So can I come stay with you with four friends tomorrow night?”

“Yeah!”

On more than one occasion, this has been the response of friends of friends, acquaintances and sometimes even total strangers.  When we arrive at a house, it’s not unusual to be greeted with hugs, free food, towels, and aerobeds already blown up.  When we leave, it’s not uncommon to be sent off amidst prayers and “we were so blessed by you” and even more hugs.

And so I keep coming back to this question…who’s blessing who???

Our team of 5 (complete with a little girl) come into a house and take up space for 1-3 nights. We often eat the food there (when it’s offered). We shower and use their towels and sometimes even their washing machines.  Doing our best not to be a burden, we pray for our hosts, encourage them, love on them as best we can.  We do our best to leave peace.  But I can’t think it’s easy to take care of all of us.

Instead, I have a feeling that it’s more about our Papa.  That it’s more about how they see themselves as my brothers and sisters.  That they see the work we’re doing as important in the Kingdom of God.

The Dream Tour is wrapping up, but I’m still dumbstruck by those we’ve met.  Fellow missionaries sending us off with a full tank of gas, all the canned goods in their cupboards and plenty of smiles.  Families of little ones letting us sleep on their couches and cooking every meal for us with joy.  Young couples who consistently blew up their air mattresses every time we rolled through their city (which was 3 times).

Thank you to each and every one of our hosts and fellow dreamers. Every washcloth, every non-PB&J meal, every extra blanket, every dollar and cent.

Thank you. May God bless you like you blessed us!

We’ve met countless dreamers on this Tour.

Some already know what their dream is and are already pursuing it.

Some have an idea and just need people to speak truth and life into it.

Some are unsure.

Something that I’ve noticed though is when people speak out their dreams it does make a difference to them.

• For one woman, I could see that as she spoke out her dream, she found value in her life.  It was almost as if there was a shift in her spirit, from unworthiness to worthiness.  She found a meaning, a niche that she could live out.
• Another person just needed confirmation and a push.  She needed to not be apologetic because she doesn’t have her dream all planned out yet.
• For some others, hearing someone else’s dream encourages, challenges and causes them to reevaluate the life they are living.

The dream that God placed in us isn’t just something for us to dream about.  It’s not just a castle in the air.

It brings meaning to why we’re here on earth, how we fit into the big picture of God.  When you speak it, share it, take the risk to be vulnerable with others to share your heart, something happens…something that makes it more than just a dream in your head.  More than just a a thought or an idea.  It brings value and helps life make sense.

Have you gathered around like-minded people lately to just share and bounce ideas off each other?

I met her at a prayer service in West Palm Beach.

She is a petite woman whose smile warms your heart.  Whose words are like honey to the soul.  Whose voice is soft and soothing.

Until she prays.  Then she has the heart of the fiercest warrior.  Think 300 kind of fierce.

As the Pastor invited people to come up and pray for different aspects of their church and community, Adua went up, grabbed the microphone, and started pouring out her heart.

Her prayer went something like this, “Lord Jesus, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, you are mighty.  You are merciful.  You are powerful.  You are the King of this city.  We are taking back this city for the your Kingdom, the Kingdom of God.  We are claiming our inheritance as more than conquerors!  We say “NO” to the powers of darkness who seek to destroy.  We are mighty in you, Lord Jesus.  We have victory over our enemy  This city is ours!”

The more this tiny, faithful woman prayed, the more I visualized the demons quaking in their little, baby seal, devil boots.

After the service, I just had to go talk with her.  I needed to pray with her.  I wanted Jesus to transfer some of her faithful, dangerous Christian faith to me.

The smile that met me almost knocked me over with love.  Beauty radiated from within her.  I knew this was a woman in love and loved by the Most High King.

I asked her more about her prayer.  She put on her fierce face, one that would rival anything from America’s Next Top Model, and said, “I want to do damage to our enemy.  I want to crush him with our faith.  I want to annihilate his hold on our people.  I want to do damage.”

Adua is a dangerous Christian.

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. “  Romans 8:37

We need more dangerous Christians.  We need people who are willing to accept their inheritance as more than conquerors, as sons and daughters of the most High King, as ministers of reconciliation, as priests, as representatives of Christ, as his Bride, as his Church, as his hands and feet.

This world needs us to do damage to our enemy through our faith in Jesus.  This world needs us to go to battle to vanquish the powers of darkness that enslave and oppress our people.

I’ve met a dangerous Christian doing damage to the enemy…and she looks like this.

We are at the end of Week 4 of the Dream Tour.

It has been so awesome to see America and how there is a movement to bring Kingdom on Earth.  I have been in many church in the past four weeks and I have to tell you that God is doing something, He is moving through America for His glory.

When we were in the West Palm Beach area (Juno, Jupiter, and St. Port Lucie) the woman we stayed with (Jen) helped us learn how to ask for the things we needs.

I am sure most of us know those verses in the bible about asking and receiving.  We saw them in action the other night at Starbucks.

It was almost closing time and Jen saw all the pastries that would be thrown out if not sold, so she asked if we could have them rather than throw them away.  A few minutes later the cashier comes out with two trays of muffins, cookies, donuts, and apple fritters.

Jen said, “You have to ask for your pastries!”

I sat there in disbelief that we were getting blessed with about $30 dollars worth of free Starbucks pastries.  But none the less, we got breakfast for the next two days.

While we were sitting at the table enjoying our pastries, we were talking about how Teri kept having visions of the Magic Kingdom (the place where dreams come true.)  We talked about how she felt we should go there but that it seemed ridiculous to think or ask for tickets.  Jen said, “oh let me just make a phone call.”  The next morning we had tickets to the Magic Kingdom.

Again Jen said, “You have to ask for your pastries!”

In the past, I have not asked “for my pastries”.   I tend to ask passively for what I want or need and just hope I get it.  I have a fear of asking for things so boldly.  At that table in Starbucks in West Palm; God started teaching me how to ask boldly.  If I just state my need clearly then I will have a better response.

God wants to bless us.  I heard the other day that God doesn’t really answer our prayers out of lack, he wants us to pray in faith.  We need to have bold faith that he is a good God and he wants to bless us.

I have never been one to speak boldly about things.  On this trip I am learning that I do have a voice and it matters to God.

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”  Matthew 7:11

You know the street.  You know the neighborhood.

It’s that neighborhood.  The one in your city inhabited by the prostitutes and drug dealers and the homeless people.  There might be a few neighborhoods like that where you live.

The people are nameless.  They live as if they are faceless.

They are broken.  They are lonely.  They are hopeless.

You know that street I’m talking about.

No one should be without hope.

We met a woman who is doing something about it.  Her name is Melissa and her heart has been broken for the women in that neighborhood in West Palm Beach, Florida.  She wants to give them hope.

She started simply by walking down the street and looking into the faces, asking for their names, and telling them that there is hope.  She told them that Jesus loves them.  Then she started showing them just how much.

She began a ministry called, Epic Beauty, whose purpose is to show the brokenhearted women that they are loved and they are beautiful.  Epic Beauty is a coalition of women committed to addressing the unique needs of women in crisis.  Their goal is to inspire, educate and counsel women so they can reach their full potential in life.

They reach out to hurting women, offering a better way of life by providing an environment where they can be restored to Christ and made whole. The ministry helps women by responding to their desire for help, participation in small groups, mentorship programs and training classes.

Then Melissa went even further.  She opened up a flower shop.

Epic Arrangements is a for-profit business designed to employ the women from the neighborhood who are choosing to take a second chance.  These are women who are choosing to walk away from their lifestyle and begin hoping for a better future with Christ.

Start something beautiful.  Do something epic.

Here is more about what Melissa is doing.

The lovely young lady in the video arranging the flowers is a dynamic dynamo.  Leah’s a dreamer.  Her passion is also to help the brokenhearted women stuck in homelessness, addiction, and prostitution.  Not only that, she also has a passion for flowers.  It was a match made in the Kingdom of God.  She stepped up and is helping serve Melissa’s dream.

Together they are going to welcoming in the first woman to the Epic Arrangement staff who is making her way back from the streets.  Melissa’s dream to see restoration in women’s lives is beginning to bloom.

You didn’t know flowers were so powerful, did you?

What’s your dream?

Two weeks ago I turned thirty. 

I remember struggling and hating myself that I didn’t know what my next steps after the Dream Tour were.

Yes, I know I have a passion to ‘wake up’ the youth and children to their true identity in Christ, and it all sounds dandy and lofty, but what do I DO with this passion?  The more I thought about it, the more vague I felt it was.

I hated that people around me seemed to know what they were doing – Sarah was going to London; Katherine was going to work with homeless shelters and/or Habitat for Humanity – their dream just seemed so clear and they knew what their next steps were, but I still had no idea where I was going to land my feet in twenty days.

I questioned myself that had I listened to Jesus and answered His call way earlier in my years where I would be now.  Had I listened earlier, I probably wouldn’t still be here, at thirty years old, still trying to figure out how I fit into the big picture of God.  Why didn’t I listen to Him earlier?  Did He call me earlier?

And then God’s voice tells me……

MY TIMING IS PERFECT

But……

MY TIMING IS PERFECT

I am learning to trust that His timing IS perfect.

That there really is no point being apologetic that my dream still seems unclear at the moment.

What’s important is that I am going to run as hard and as fast as I can after Him.

I am not going to back down or look back.

I am not going to regret or question one moment in front of me whether I had chased after His heart.

I am chasing. And I will keep chasing.

Philippians 3:13-14

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Sometimes dreaming big is not about what God is doing for us.

We’ve been staying with Jen these past couple of days.  She is a dreamer and she dreams really, really big!

She and her husband have a dream about opening up a bed and breakfast here in Florida.  They love to serve and, let me tell you, they know how to serve well.  They love hospitality.  They love food and they love loving on people (which has been very, very nice for us.)

They have been looking all over the world for the right spot but after years of searching, they realize they want to stay in Florida.  Jen’s eye is always roving around for that place.

She found that place in a newspaper article this week.   That place is on the market.  That place is just what they dreamed.  That place would in their budget if one of the zero’s at the end was knocked off! 

She’s had an internal dialog all week that went something like this, “No, there is no way that’s going to happen!  But…it is perfect.  And God is a big God.  But…NO it’s impossible!“

We talked with her about it.  We prayed.  We all felt that we just needed to go to the property and pray.  That maybe if the owner heard her story it might…DO…something.  What?  We had no idea.  But we felt led to go.

I must confess that I was really worried that it was only going to be a let down.  That we wouldn’t be representing God well if we dreamed so enormously big.  The Doubting Thomas in me was in high gear.

We went anyway…

We all thought it was a little crazy but we felt led to knock on the door.  Who knows?  Maybe the owner would be there and Jen’s dream would bless him somehow.  God is a big God after all.

We pushed through the fear and knocked.

The owner came to the door and we introduced ourselves.  Jen mentioned something about God and dreams.  The man came out of his door and talked with us for about 10 or 15 minutes about his life, his house, and his faith.  Then we prayed for him.

It wasn’t so much about Jen’s dream, although she certainly received insight.  It was more about him.  He needed us at that moment.  He needed to know that God is real and sends people on crazy errands to minister to just him.

We went assuming it was about a Kingdom dream.  Instead it was about God showing his love through us.

I wonder how many crazy errands God has tried to send me on that I pushed away thinking, “impossible” when maybe it wasn’t going to be about me at all?

I pray God sends you on a crazy errand today and you believe.

We’re headed into the home stretch for this Winter tour.  We’re on day 28 of 40.

I’d like to give you a little sneak peak at what’s next for the Dream Tour.

I’m so excited!   (drum roll…….)

COLLEGE CAMPUS DREAM TOUR 2012!

The Tour is slated to launch in Minneapolis on March 23rd or 24th.

We’re planning stops at campuses in Minnesota, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada, Southern California, Oklahoma, and Kansas.

I believe God is calling the Tour to the campuses.

There are many students out there wondering what their next step and how to take it.  I want to help them discover their God-given passion and begin to dream big.

There are also a lot of students out there struggling in their faith that desperately need some encouragement.

We can help them.

Want to invest in the lives of college students?
We need your help in these ways:

• Do you have college ministry contacts in our glide path?
• Do you have access to a 12-15 passenger van we could use for the Tour?  Or want to donate the funds to rent one?
• Will you partner with us and fund a day of the Tour?  It costs about $75 a day to run the Tour.
• Do you want to join the team and hangout with some really cool people, talk about God, life, and dreams for about 40 days?
• Will you partner with us in prayer and intercession for colleges to be impacted and dreams to be launched?

Let me know! 

Email me for more information.

Donate to this ministry here.

We need the Body of Christ to come along for the journey and help launch this College Tour dream.

We’ll keep you posted….

All my life I’ve been a “Doubting Thomas” type personality.  Most of it stems from a fear of doing it wrong or having wrong done to me.  Some of it is the way I’m wired.   I’m a contemplater…a thinker…a ponderer.

I’ve been doubting again lately.  SO it got me thinking…

Being out here, risking just about everything, being outside of my comfort zone – doubts are inevitable.

The good news is the doubts don’t overwhelm me as they once did.  They don’t cause me to become paralyzed by my insecurities anymore.

Instead, I’m hoping they will help me fail forward.   (John C. Maxwell wrote a book of that title and I would recommend it to every dreamer out there.)

The concept is easy, “‘Failing forward’ is the ability to get back up after you’ve been knocked down, learn from your mistake, and move forward in a better direction.”  John C. Maxwell

The farther outside of your comfort zone you are, the more you are going to fail. 

The bigger the gap between what you have and what you need, the more likely you are to fall short.

However, I’m learning three things while I peer over a pretty large chasm between what I need and what I have:

• Failing as part of the journey:  I’m failing now on a very regular basis.  Where I used to spend soooooo much time trying to avoid failure, now I see it as part of the journey.  Now,  I spend more time on learning from the failure.
• Growing:  I’m learning much more about life and relationships and myself and God.  I’m growing more equipped to handle what is before me.
• More of Jesus:  Jesus is becoming my greatest source of comfort.  He is becoming my God who fills the gap.  I’m relying more and more on Him and less and less on my ability, insight, or strength.  I’m pretty sure that’s called faith not foolishness.

I can choose to use my failure and inadequacy as a springboard into MORE.  I choose how I respond to the ups and downs of life.  I can choose more faith over more comfort and security.  I can choose to follow God’s dream and calling for my life.

My choice is a powerful weapon against getting stuck or giving up along the way.

I choose more…more life, more dreams, more courage, and more and more and more and more of Jesus.

What are you choosing today?

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”  Winston Churchill

“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.”  Theodore Roosevelt

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”  Steve Jobs

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  2 Corinthians 12:8-10