IHOP – Day 4

This morning, Justice didn’t want to sleep either, and Joe ended up with him sleeping on his chest for a while!  I got showered and ready for the day while Joe fed Justice breakfast, but then Joe got a migraine headache, so I hung around for a bit longer to help out until my coffee date with Christina!  I met up with her at Higher Grounds and we had a great talk about what things God is working on in our hearts and things about the prayer movement and our house of prayer in Winnipeg – good stuff!  It will be good to have Christina back home with us in just a few weeks!  After that I went back to the hotel to pick up Justice so that we could go to the Malachi Prayer Meeting (MPM), a prayer meeting for parents and their kids, led by kids!  It was so awesome to see the worship team of young people leading the room in worship and intercession and all the kids who repeatedly got in line to pray on the microphone for issues like abortion/adoption, healing/signs & wonders, and the Onething conference – I even got prayer for healing from the kids!  Since I’ve never really been a part of children’s ministries, I think it’s important for me to get a vision of where our children can go in God and what we want to teach them about intimacy with Jesus, the Word and prayer and intercession.  I think I have an idea of what I desire for my children to be able to enter into in their relationship with God, but I don’t yet know how we’ll get there.  We are definitely on a huge learning curve and need the wisdom and guidance of the Lord in how to raise our kids to be in love with Jesus and partnering with Him in advancing His kingdom!

After the MPM, I took Justice back to Higher Grounds where I bumped into Joel again and fed Justice his lunch.  Then Justice and I went to catch a little portion of the Worship with the Word set in the Global Prayer Room (GPR) where they were singing about the Song of Songs and how His name is like perfume poured out – love it!  At this time, Joe was in the prayer room as well, so we said a quick hello and brought him some tissues for his tears (gotta love it when you get a good cry in God’s presence), and then headed back to the hotel to give Justice a bath and a nap.  After his nap, we went to pick up Joe from the GPR and headed over to John & Tracie Loux‘s house where their son Nick did a photo shoot with us, which he is doing as a fundraiser for their adoption of a little boy named Aiden from the Ukraine!  (Feel free to visit Tracie’s website for more details if you would like to donate to their adoption)  We sadly had sort of yucky weather with a misty rain in the air, but we made the most of it and we were totally impressed with Nick’s photography skills and his ability to give us direction and come up with creative ideas!  I couldn’t help but laugh though when Nick was taking some pictures of just me & we came upon a bridge with a metal pole railing and he instructed me to “interact with the pole” – lol.  We also got to meet the rest of John & Tracie’s children – Taylor, Isabelle and Elia.  Elia is 2 years old and it was quite amusing watching her play and interact with Justice.  She is really sweet, but definitely more assertive than what Justice is used to, especially since he doesn’t have many opportunities to play with other children.  It didn’t look like he quite knew what to make of her, but I think he still had a fun time!    It was also great to have the brief opportunity to chat with Tracie, whom I had only previously known from reading her blog and talking to her on Twitter.  It’s always great connecting with new people who are of like mind and heart and seeing what you can learn from them.

After our photoshoot, we headed back to the hotel where we fed Justice his supper and gave him pureed chicken for the first time!  Ha!  He continuously gagged and coughed until I mixed it up a bit with some squash – I don’t think it was the taste so much as the texture that he had a rough time adapting to.    While I was feeding Justice, Joe perused the Streets & Trips software that we borrowed from my parents, which also shows you where restaurants are.  We decided to drive to one area where we saw several that looked interesting and then ended up going to Old Chicago, which turned out to be a specialty pizza type joint.  Kristi, you’ll be happy to know that they had the sweet Raspberry Iced Tea, which I tried – I liked it, but found it was actually a little too sweet for me.  Joe and I both got Calzones – kinda like a huge pizza pop, except way better!  Then, since it was our first time at this restaurant, they have us a free ginormous, soft & gooey, warm chocolate chip cookie with ice cream – yum!

After supper, Joe and Justice stayed back at the hotel and it was my turn to go to the GPR!  Luke Wood’s team was leading the intercession set, which was packed, since it was Tuesday and an all-staff prayer meeting.  The theme was Israel, so I just entered into agreeing and joining in with the intercession for this nation.  Towards the end of the meeting, Wes Martin told anyone who was sick to stand up if they wanted prayer, so I did so and several young ladies came to pray for me, which was awesome!  More than just praying for me to be healed, a couple of them gave me prophetic words, which really encouraged and ministered to my heart.  I then stayed for an hour of the Worship with the Word set being led by Jaye Thomas, but I was beginning to crash, so I headed back to the hotel for some sweet sleep after a very full day!