Blessings,
Chris Newton

YOUTH_NEWSLETTER

Outreach. After 3 intense months together, learning the love, and fear of God; receiving healing in countless areas, and restoration from past hurts, the team and we were ready and excited to head into the bush to pour out all that had been deposited into us.
But, would God meet our YWAM supernatural expectations? We received a resounding answer familiar to words spoken by Jesus 2000 years ago…”I AM WILLING.”

ERWEE
We head 7 hours northwest of Windhoek, winding through dirt roads and valleys, deep into villages and past northern towns-to the small outpost village of Erwee. There we were met with our host, Sodina, who is a primary school teacher at the 200-child youth hostel and school where we ministered. Peppered in between afternoon youth programs, morning art and bible classes, and a whole slew of other things that we did while there, we found time to go into the extremely rural village surrounding the hostel and evangelize. It was during this time that I want to share God’s miraculous work:

We broke into 2 teams, and went out in opposite directions toward the mud and stick huts and small adobe homes that are scattered all over the countryside with a spirit of high expectancy. As I have witnessed repeatedly in Africa, we were received by everyone whom we approached, stopping what they were doing to sit down and find out why we had come to their home. We prayed for young and old, workers and stay-at-home-moms, but the true miracle came when we stopped at the last 2 houses on our way back.

Stopping at a local “house turned to mini-mart/bar”, we spoke with two very intoxicated teen boys sitting outside the building. Then, the owner of the bar came out to sit with us and find out what we wanted. After leading her back to Christ, as she committed to come and visit us at the hostel later in the week (which she did!), we prayed again for the two young men, who were now somewhat interested in what we were sharing. Immediately, one of the boys drops his bottle of beer, and looks over at Anna, one of the students on the team. Saying something in Herero, a language none of us know, as we are not from that tribe, Anna speaks back in perfect Herero dialect in response. They begin to have a conversation, and Anna leads the man to Christ. Sober and alert, the other man looks in wonder at what is happening. They both receive prayer, and ask Jesus into their heart.

As we walked away, I asked Anna what happened. She simply said, “I don’t know, all of the sudden I knew what to say, even though I don’t speak their language.” God had given her, through the Holy Spirit, the ability to communicate in an unknown tongue to these two men, and lead them to Jesus. Yes, that was cool.

A woman who had heard us praying with them approached us as we walked away and asked us to come to her house immediately. We followed her up a dirt path to a small house with 3 little children playing in the dirt near the front door. She shared that she wanted “our God” to break off the addiction of tobacco in her life, NOW. We prayed with her, and she immediately told us that she has no desire for it any longer, and asked if we could pray for her baby to become a man of God when he is older.
Blessing the next generation is an honor we all too often overlook, so we took this moment as sacred, and prayed for her son, commissioning her son to intimacy with the Father. It was powerful.

BACK TO WINDHOEK
Next, we came home to Windhoek for Easter weekend, but pressed forward with doing treasure hunts in the city, and visiting the gov’t hospital to pray for the sick. A quick praise report about praying in the hospital:
My wife prayed with a mother whose child was unable to defecate or urinate since birth, and the child was 4 months old. With a tube inserted into his side above his hip, the child was bound to a hospital bed so that he can relieve himself. In constant pain, the child couldn’t even breastfeed. As Aguste and the team began to pray with the child, he stopped crying, and for the first time in his life, attached to the mother to feed!
Aguste noticed a bracelet with nutshells tied around the child’s waist. This is always a sign of traditional witchcraft given by witch doctors for “divine healing”. Immediately Aguste told the mother to take it off the child, as Jesus will heal the child, not traditional voodoo. When we returned to the hospital a few weeks later, and inquired about that family, the nurse said 2 days after we left, the baby checked out of the hospital HEALED! He can go to the toilet on his own now! PRAISE GOD!

GOBABIS
Our final leg of our outreach saw us traveling 3 hours to the east of Windhoek to the sizable town of Gobabis. There we met with Henk, a 30-year missionary to the town, and part church planter, part pastor, part pre-school principal, and completely humble and gracious host. We spent our days teaching in the classrooms of the primary school, running youth camps and afternoon programs, and doing prayer walks around the community. A few times we found ourselves going to the hospital in Gobabis, and doing treasure hunts in the city. Here are a few stories from those encounters:

While the students were out in groups of 2 in town to find their “treasures”, two of my girls walked up to a man they had seen in a vision while praying, who was standing outside an office building talking on a phone. They waited patiently, but were very nervous of what he might say, and if they were doing the right thing. He turned to them after getting off the phone and asked, “Do you need to speak to me?”
The girls began to share why they were there, and how God had shown them that they were to find this man while they were praying. He asked them into his office, and sat them down while he walked a few steps away to speak to his employees. Confused about what they were getting into, the girls began to panic. They could hear what the man was saying to his employees, and it completely floored them! He said: “Do not be afraid when you go out what they will say to you, or if they receive you. You are supposed to say what you’ve been trained to say, whether they listen or not…” The girls were wondering if he was talking to the employees, or if God was speaking through him to them about being confident of what God was charging them to do. Either way, he sat down with them afterwards and began to pour out his heart, and asked for prayer in the office. How cool is God??? I could share many other stories that happened while we were out on treasure hunts, but it would take up a whole book, God was so good!!!

While at the hospitals, we led a drunken father to Christ on the day that his daughter gave birth to her first child. She is 17, and has been praying for her father to come to the Lord for years. We prayed for many people, all of whom were willing and thankful for us to come, and saw quite a few leave the hospital within a week of us coming there! The nurses were BEGGING us to come back and pray for the tuberculosis patients as well; but sadly time didn’t permit us to return. Even so, one of the greatest healings happened not in the hospital, but at the missionary house where we were staying.

We were staying on a property shared by 2 other families, where they practiced traditional medicine and worship. They were part of the Zionist Church-a mixture of Christianity and ancestral worship. Many nights we could hear outside our tent the all night worship meetings these churches were having to their false gods. The toughest part was that as the weeks went on, more of the Zionists from the churches came and began to camp out on our property. One tent turned into 4 tents, filled with local Zionists who seemed to come for no other reason than to watch what we were doing. The Spiritual atmosphere was thick, to say the least. Many nights we interceded and militantly marched around the property praying and binding and loosing. You could feel the tension on the property, even though the land was created for visiting missionaries. We got serious about possessing the gates of the enemy!

Finally, we agreed that the best way to break the tension was to engage our neighbors, in love. After speaking to them one afternoon, the father of one of the families asked if we could come that night and pray for his wife, who had been afflicted with a serious skin rash for 2 months now. Unable to sleep because of the pain, the woman was miserable. She had been to the doctors, they didn’t know what was causing it, she had been to the “prophets” in the Zionist church, and they had prayed for her, and given her a “special tea” and sprinkled “holy fire water” around her. When that didn’t work, they decided to see what our God could do…

We all piled into their living room that night and shared a bit about forgiveness and the power of letting go of grudges, as we felt the Holy Spirit said that was a root of the rash. Then, as she prayed a prayer of repentance and forgiveness, we began to command healing and rebuke sickness from her body. For about 15 minutes we warred in the Spirit for her deliverance. She then admitted that she felt our prayers made a difference, and she believed she was healed.
The next morning…NOTHING. THE RASH WAS GONE…SHE HAD SLEPT WONDERFULLY AND WAS COMPLETELY HEALED!

Coincidence? Had the “magic tea” finally taken effect the same night we prayed? NO, JESUS HAPPENED. Our Lord and Savior set the captives free…AGAIN. She rededicated her heart to Jesus, and it seemed as if the atmosphere on the property shifted after that. Even though we were only there for a few more nights, we felt that something had changed, and we worshipped and gave thanks to the Lord for His victory!
We also ministered to a few youth and young adult group while there. Performing powerful dramas and testifying to God’s healing power. I was given the opportunity to preach a few times, and was led by the Spirit to minister to the “leaders” of one youth group, challenging them to live holy as examples of His grace.
The coolest cultural difference I witnessed was when we showed up to a church we had never been to before-20 minutes before the service started-and simply said we were with YWAM and wanted to minister there. The pastor gave us half the service, and invited us at the end to come back again and minister to the youth and the church next week. Probably would never happen in the USA…but I loved it!

Close to the end of things…
Now we are back in Windhoek, and have less than a month to go. We have already gone again into the city to do treasure hunts, and have seen people healed in parks, walking along streets, and even in pharmacies…so they left without buying the medicine they came in to get! We graduate the students on June 7th, and I would love your prayers and thoughts as we want to finish strong and plan for the future.
We have been invited by a pastor in Kenya to preach at revival meetings and conferences in Kenya and Tanzania in July. We are praying about God’s will, as that would be a momentous opportunity for Aguste and I. Please pray for us and God’s financial provision if it is His will for us to go to Kenya.

Taking the Gospel all over,

Paul and Aguste Street

Upcoming:
May 20 First Children’s worship service. K-6 will go to Annex before service.
May 26 Men’s Meeting Saturday at 8:00 AM
May 26 Craft Club Saturday at 8:00 AM
May 27 Potluck after services
May 28 Memorial Day BBQ & Baptism @ 5:00 PM
June 1 Prayer and Praise @ 7:00 PM
June 3 Move up Sunday (move up to the next grade level class)
June 3 Meet and Greet @ 6:00 PM
June 10 Children’s Worship Service. K-6 will meet in Annex before service.
June 12 Foster and Adoptive Support Group meets at 6:00 PM
July 19-21 Kids Camp in Payson
July 26-29 Youth and College age Summer Camp in Payson (This date is the correct one)
September 14-16 Women’s Retreat
November 9-11 Men’s Retreat

We would love to see your beautiful faces! We have a new online church portal. You can now put your family’s information into our online directory and even give online. We really want each family to set up their profiles online and upload photos. This will help us to stay connected to each other in a greater way as we grow! And, as I already mentioned you can give online now. That makes paying for events or tithes a lot easier! And you can access all your giving records online as well.

Here is the link to the 2 Rivers online portal:
http://tworivers.logosconnect.com
It is also linked from the home page of the website in the little green box in the lower right.

Please keep in mind that it will be a two step process to set up your account. Once you put your info in we will need to approve our entry on our side.

Blessings,

Chris Newton
Two Rivers Church

Upcoming:
May 18 Prayer and Praise @ 7:00 PM
May 20 First Children’s worship service. K-6 will go to Annex before service.
May 26 Men’s Meeting Saturday at 8:00 AM
May 26 Craft Club Saturday at 8:00 AM
May 27 Potluck after services
June 3 Move up Sunday (move up to the next grade level class)
June 12 Foster and Adoptive Support Group meets at 6:00 PM
July 19-21 Kids Camp in Payson
July 26-29 Youth and College age Summer Camp in Payson (This date is the correct one)
September 14-16 Women’s Retreat
November 9-11 Men’s Retreat

We are so grateful for the progress that so many are making in the Lord in so many areas in their spiritual and daily life. One area, which has been spectacular, has been in the area of physical healing. We have had a number of powerful healings in these last few weeks. It means so much to see some one who has suffered for years receive a complete healing. God is good!

We are continuing our series on Attributes of Revival. We have looked at the Goodness of God, Joy and Hope and Honor so far. These next weeks we will look at Risk and Faith and how they impact our lives. Let’s look forward to being stretched to move outside our comfort zone.

It is going to be a great journey together!

This past week we experienced several miraculous healings as Pastor Tom mentioned in service last Sunday. We are seeing even more! Tonight Josh from the Bethel healing rooms spoke and God moved powerfully. We believe that God is going to continue to move in such a powerful way this Saturday as well. We urge you to bring anyone you know that is sick or in need of healing of any kind. We are not trying to sensationalize this, but the reality is that we are seeing genuine miracles and healings take place. Please don’t miss this service if you are able to make it. And again, we urge you to invite anyone who is in need of any kind of healing.

When: This Saturday, May 5th @ 6:30 PM
Where: Two Rivers Church Annex (Children’s Building)

God’s blessings on you and your families,

Two Rivers Pastoral Team

Upcoming:
May 4 Prayer and Praise @ 7:00 PM
May 8 Foster and Adoptive Support Group meets at 6:00 PM
May 12 Men’s Meeting Saturday at 8:00 AM
May 12 Craft Club Saturday at 8:00 AM
May 13 First Children’s worship service. K-6 will go to Annex before service.
May 27 Potluck after services
June 3 Move up Sunday (move up to the next grade level class)
July 19-21 Kids Camp in Payson
July 26-29 Youth and College age Summer Camp in Payson (This date is the correct one)
September 14-16 Women’s Retreat
November 9-11 Men’s Retreat

- School of Supernatural Ministry meets tonight!
- Gilbert Healing Room Ministries meets at the church this Tuesday at 7:30 pm
- The accelerated Arizona School of Supernatural Ministry is this Thursday & Saturday @ 6:30 pm. You can audit any class for $20!
- We are hosting the 2012 Fellowship of Christian Assemblies convention this year, April 24-27. The evening sessions are free to the public, Tuesday through Thursday at 7:00 PM. The conference is located at the Embassy Suites Phoenix, North: 2577 West Greenway Road, Phoenix, Arizona 85023. If you want to carpool please meet at the church. The caravan leaves at 6pm! Please plan to attend if you are able to. Go to www.fcaconvention.org for more information.
- Men’s Meeting is this Saturday at 8:00 AM at the church
- Craft Club is this Saturday at 8:00 AM
- Sunday night, April the 29th, at 6:00 PM we will have a special service with Tom Flaherty. Tom has been a strong voice in our church since the beginning.

Upcoming:
April 24-27 FCA Convention. Evening meetings are free! (visit www.fcaconvention.org)
April 28 Men’s Meeting Saturday at 8:00 AM
April 28 Craft Club Saturday at 8:00 AM
May 4 Prayer and Praise @ 7:00 PM
May 8 Foster and Adoptive Support Group meets at 6:00 PM
May 27 Move up Sunday (move up to the next grade level class)
July 19-21 Kids Camp in Payson
July 26-29 Youth and College age Summer Camp in Payson
September 14-16 Women’s Retreat
November 9-11 Men’s Retreat

We know how you all love the Starbucks pastries we serve each Sunday (well at least we know the kids love them). We are in need of volunteers to work with the hospitality ministry. We need volunteers to pick up pastries from Starbucks locations. We also need some volunteers to set up and clean up during services.

If you are available and would like to help with this, please contact us.

Thank you for all you do!
Blessings,
Two Rivers Church Staff