Encounter Weekend - Awesome God

God is so awesome. It's amazing to see how He can change lives, transform people, give them a new hope and heal them up. The Encounter retreat is something we have a couple times a year at our church, and it's really just a weekend where we receive awesome teaching from God's word and then have a chance to apply it to our lives. And the cool thing about it is that we always have a team of intercessors praying around the clock for those at the Encounter. And then there's always really cool surprises over the weekend. And God always does miracles in people's lives. This weekend, I was out there to help out, and 6 people from our Life Group went: Matt, Dewald, Kevin, Degory, James and Ruth. We had 20 people from PEI that came for the Encounter as well, and 4 of Lancy's friends from Queen's University, all fiery, God loving Asians - Collin, Michelle, Fran and Claudia (even though they live in Kingston all year, they consider our church as their home church cause the love us so much).
It was a beautiful weekend up north, and right by a lake too. Gorgeous. I wish I'd taken some pictures... but it was such a busy weekend that I didn't get a chance.

God healed Ruth from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Syndrom from seeing the horrors of the war in Haiti - something counselors and doctors told her she'd never get over). She was so excited about it she kept telling everyone. That's really cool. God also showed Kevin how much He loves him, something he'd always struggled to understand. Several of the peeps received the baptism of the Holy Spirit this weekend, and that was so cool, and so God too. Jenna, one of the youth who was there this weekend, said that, although she's always been the type of person who didn't smile much, she just hasn't been able to stop smiling since she's come back from the Encounter, and people think she's weird cause she's so joyful.

The Encounter comeback was fun too. Here are some scenes taken from the platform where I was with the rest of the worship team. Really cool things happened then too. There were 13 people who got baptized. Several people gave their heart to the Lord, including Megan's mom, one of the youth who was at the Encounter. She had never liked Megan coming to church and youth, and even called it a cult, but now she's so excited she tried to convince Megan's brother to come out this week. And a couple girls too, friends Dewald had invited out accepted Jesus. They'll hopefully be coming out to Life Group this coming Sunday as well. Actually, one of them is a girl we've been praying for as a Life Group for several months... God answers prayer! Sarah's (another of the youth who was at the Encounter) little brother also gave his heart to Jesus, and he's totally changed already - he's got so much joy and peace. She's so excited.

With God, all things are possible. I've seen it so many times in my life, and this weekend was no different.