The days are starting to blurrrrr and I am starting to slurrrrr. The last two days I have been "vacked" a great deal of the time, I find that being here and the fuller I get the hungrier I become! The more God pours out his love, the more I see, hear and experience him, his love, gooodness or power the more I want and the deeper the realisation grows in me that a life lived without the manifest presence of God is a life of the most appalling poverty. We may not see it that way but when we see what the kingdom is meant to look like, and who we are and thus what we have access to in father's house to live without it is appalling!

Heidi Baker spoke yesterday both in the morning and in the evening. In the morning she spoke about being sealed by the Holy Spirit with the seal of adoption, at the end of her message she gave an invitation for those who felt fire on their hands or their chest to come for prayer to be "sealed". Now I must be honest and confess that I didn't feel particularly warm in either place, however I didn't feel cold either, so I went forward. The place in front of the stage was crowded with people so I didn't get that near to Heidi, but the anointing was tangibly present from meters away from the front. As I drew near to the front and put my hands up I could already feel the power of God going through me like shock waves of power making me jerk, as if I were having some sort of seizure. (My Inner Critic is saying I LOOKED like a jerk! Aww shaddap IC and have a DRINK!) A guy standing near me, I think he was part of the prayer team laid hand on my chest and prayed, THEN I felt the fire! I literally felt heat come on my chest, it felt like I had a hot water bottle being pressed to my chest, and I began to laugh and laugh and laugh. Now I know that I have never been accused of having a soft laugh, no-one has ever said for example that my laughter is like gentle music. Yes, I know, I get it, I laugh loud!!!!However This whole week I feel like have been ROARING with laughter, it has been bursting out of me, and bearing in mind that I am still recovering from a suspected cracked rib as a result of falling off a J-board two weeks ago, it has at times been not only uncomfortable but downright painful! I laughed like that, and even when I opened my eyes to find the poor guy in front of me using his finger to block his ear, which was about a foot away from my mouth, I couldn't stop so great was the joy that seemed to burst out of me!I just kept thinking of what it felt like growing up in my broken home, with my Dad gone and my Mum drunk (aside: no Icey, not on the Holy Spirit, on whiskey whiskey! You really need to get vacked you know that?) and feeling alone, stupid and worthless and contrasting the feeling of God's complete love acceptance and pleasure in me the more I though about it, the more I roared!

The evening was awesome too! I saw my friend Timothy Berry get ordained. Let me try and explain Tim...Tim is a fireball! At 22 he carries incredible fire, passion, anointing and a tremendous leadership gift. He lead our Global Awakening team in Pemba, Mozambique which I would have thought a huge challenge to leaders twice his age as not only were we from all over the world, many of us he had never met and he was surely one of the youngest members of the team. Yet he was fearless and lead with confidence and skill. He is a giant....in the spirit! (Sorry, Tim if you are reading this I couldn't resist! ;) ) Tim was prayed for by most of the Apostolic men and women, including Heidi who just seemed to be pouring love and anointing into him for at least 20 minutes of soaking prayer. Well, Tim was stuck to the floor for the rest of the night, a few hours at least. Great to see him on the recieving end for a change! By the way if you wanted to have him speak at your church, he is power-filled!

The night ended with what must me the most apostolic fire tunnel I have ever seen. As every person left they passed through a fire tunnel with Bill Johnson, Georgian and Winnie Banov, Che Ahn, Randy Clark, Roland Baker, Leif Hetland and many others making up the Tunnel. Needless to say I only just made it out alive!

I am in love-with a man!

I kissed Bill Bennot on the mouth today, but he is not the guy. The people who were in the queue to get into the church this morning could be forgiven if they thought that our group were a group of loud drunks with confused sexual identities. It happened like this. Bill is sharing a room with Gillian and early this morning they had a time of "GW" or "garage worship" Bill's famous early morning worship. As they were in the midst of that time the glory came into their hotel room and the two of them got "vacked". (drunk with god's love) When they joined Mark and I for breakfast they were still full of joy and so we entered in with them and on the bus over from our hotel we decided to see if we could get vacked too by the time we arrived at the church. Well, it worked! The presence of God filled us and that bus and we got to the church loudly and joyfully full of God's presence. Even though we had got there early the queue stretched around the building and we had a 45 minute wait to get in. Despite the cold we were all in good spirits and just like a group of pub crawlers- and to the consternation of some of the people around us, we were sharing jokes and everything seemed to be funny. We were having so much fun that Mark decided to take a photo of us standing in the queue so Bill and I posed for the photo and Bill put a comradely arm over my shoulder. Then I thought it would be funny if I pretended to give him a peck on the cheek, I turned to do so and to our mutual shock and horror I found he had thought of the same joke at the same time! That is how I came to kiss Bill on the lips! Just to be clear-Debbie kisses better, and, Debs, I don't enjoy beards either.

However the man I am refering to in the title of this blog is Jesus. In his presence I find that I come alive, my heart races with escitement, he makes me laugh, he brings out the best in me, has given everything for me, I can't stop thinking about him, I just want to be with him and spend time with him. Yeah, I am in looooooove! It is so cool!

JOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just a short post. We just got back from the evening meeting. It was wonderful! When I arrived I felt that I just wanted to soak during the P&W so I went to look for some level floor to lie on. I couldn't find a spot where I wouldn't be in someone's way or where I wouldn't get trodden on until I discovered that there was a little room hidden behind a curtain at the back of the auditorium. So I crawled behind the curtain and the moment I did the glory fell all over me! I laughed so hard for 45 minutes that I now need healing for my throat! At the end of P&W I made my way to our seats which were unfortunately right at the very back of the auditorium high on the bleechers. We were all buzzing, and it started to get quite "hot" up there. We were just managing to hold it all together until from behind us we heard "whirrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Jacques' characteristic sound when he gets vacked! The thing is it wasn't Jacques it was a tiny baby making the noise! We all lost it and the fire spread all over the back section. It took us a long time to recover.

John Arnott shared a brilliant message on Honouring the anointing, in others and on yourself it was HUGE!!!!!! It is definately getting deeper, and deeper!

John Arnott just walked past me in the lobby of the hotel and when I thanked him for the message he said "The Spirit of the Lord has anointed you!" and now I am cackling away in the lobby, raising a few eyebrows.

Glory, The Fall, and the Glory is Falling!

The country is covered with the glory-of the Fall. It seems as if the trees are having a last party before the cold and snow arrive and are decked out in gold, yellows, orange and bright red protesting the grey wardrobe they will wear in winter. Everywhere we see the glory, gold is falling, it covers the ground, pumpkins leer drunkenly from many shop windows, and the air is refreshing as you breath it in.
It is the same at the Voice of the apostles conference. There is glory all around, it seems to fall like the golden leaves that cover the ground outside, and yes the South Africans are getting filled with the intoxicating presence of Jesus and giving jack-o-lantern a good run for his money!
The sessions were once again so rich and wonderful, Che Ahn shared powerfully in the morning using his inspiring testimony to spur us on into more of God. Then in the afternoon John Arnott shared a powerful message on forgiveness and grace, which was filled with fresh revelation and old truths, it was a rich and refreshing message. The next session saw some of the leaders in this movement do Q & A, they shared such practical wisdom. Perhaps the most moving moment was when Roland Baker took the mike to answer a question, and before he could speak the whole place errupted into spontaneous cheering clapping and came to their feet to honour this man who has fought such an amazing fight, given so much, who earlier this year was expected to die but today is fit and well and continuing to press in. It was an awesome moment.
At the conclusion of the session we all made our way to the front to see if we could get prayer for impartation. We were not disappointed! Roland came off the platform and I ended up right in front of me he prayed for me several times, saying "give him more than he can handle". I got hit hard with waves of power and joy. Then I got prayed for by Winnie and Georgian Banov, the joy hit hard! I had to be carried from the auditorium, the party continued outside and on the bus to the hotel. Our bus captain asked for a volunteer so I put my hand up and the whole bus was told to pray for me and give me words. It was awesome the presence of God came on me in beautiful waves of love, I could hardly stand as people called out "firestarter!" "Scissorman" "Comedian" then the bus captain a young woman at the school of ministry prayed and prophesied over me saying "Just keep walking, Nigel" It was great! Joy broke out aon the bus and many of us staggered off the bus, happy grins plastered over our faces.
There is an evident hunger amongst the south africans which gives me such a sense that God is pouring grace out on our nation. John Arnott is sharing tonight fire is going to FALL

Favour in the USA

Well, I thought that I would steal a leaf from the Dembo's book and start a blog to keep any of you who are interested in the loop of my travels here in the USA.

Our trip started with great favour, being with Mark has been such a blessing, he really has a tremendous gift of favour on him. Not only did he sweet talk me into the voyager lounge at Jhb international, but he had reserved the emergency row seats on the plane months ago so we had leg room to spare!

I tried valiantly to sleep onboard but failed and so after a while I used the time to catch up on much needed "cultural research" ;) I watched 3 movies! Including Harry Potter 5! I know, I know some of you will be thinking that I lost my salvation, but honestly this time it WAS cultural research! I was forcibly struck by the fact that this generation are longing for;

1) The reality of supernatural experiences.

2) A cause bigger than themselves to live for, and worth dying for.

3) They understand that life cannot be lived theroretically, but that we only live when we are willing to take risks to step out into the unfamiliar to live what we believe!

And yes, I do understand that there was alot of evil stuff in Harry Potter, I just didn't eat that!

Got to Washington at 6a.m. local time, and ran into a friend of mine from the Global Aawakening trip on the shuttle. He was the first person we met in Washington, what are the chances? We had great chats catching up, just gave me a sense that God is lining up blessing and divine connections for us all. Got to our Hotel at 11:30. Had a bite to eat, slept for a for a few hours and then went to the church on the shuttle. (one of those typical yellow school buses that you see in movies, kids you would love them!)

The meeting was great, despite the fact that I am struggling with a painful back, Worship was really great tonight.
A lady gave me a word she saw me on a motor cycle with the Lord. Going places with the Lord. Open doors into every place I want to go. She also prayed Holiness over me, a new level of holiness and the mind of the Lord over me. Amen, dig deeper Lord!

Steve Vir-gin, (I'm not kidding that is his name), prayed for me and Jacques and Jenny and we all got totally wrecked in worship. Then Bill preached an awesome message on Honour and recognising someone according to the spirit.

At the end the prayed for people for healing and I felt a lot of improvement in my back, would still ask for continued prayer tho.

I miss you all so much and wish you were all with me. Sorry about the DARK Photo! It was taken with the Netbook cam late at night, it just shows the lobby of my hotel, I will try do better as we go on :)