This Means War: By Bernadette Groves-Wright

Today's post is shared by a dear friend and sister in Christ.

Bernadette Groves-Wright is an amazing British women whom I met on a combined Grace Chapel Alpha weekend during lunch. Bernadette has been a Christ follower for five years now and her joy for life and love for Jesus are truly contagious. I am thrilled that she said yes to serving on the Alpha team at Grace Chapel several years ago and even more excited that she said yes to serving as a member of our upcoming Global Alpha Team trip to Haiti. 

Various team members will be blogging through their experiences along the way, and this is the first GAT Team Haiti installment!

I was so excited when I saw Pastor Richard Rhodes’ email about taking Alpha to Haiti.  Little did I know that my excitement would so quickly turn into an intense spiritual battle!  

After spending a couple of days in prayer, I felt the call to go to Haiti. I emailed Lisa and told her that I was interested.   Lisa and I emailed back and forth for a couple of days sharing our excitement for this upcoming mission trip.  After a couple of days, Lisa asked if I would be prepared to lead the prayer team sending out emails and recruiting prayer warriors.  I was delighted to be able to help and sent many emails out over the course of the next few days.

On Friday morning shortly after I started these emails; I woke up with a sense of foreboding; my stomach was in knots and I was extremely irritated – my poor little doggies couldn’t do a thing right.  My day at work did not go well; it ended with me feeling extremely agitated and weepy.  Decisions I make on a day-to-day basis at work were absolutely overwhelming me – I chalked it up to a bad day!  On Saturday morning I woke up feeling worse.  I felt totally overwhelmed with life; useless, unable to do anything; my mind was an absolute whirlwind of emotions and I felt as though everything was caving in on me.  I was drowning in apprehension and fear; emotionally drained and totally exhausted. I started pacing around my apartment; the walls were closing in on me.  I had to get out, so I got into my car and immediately sent text messages to a couple of friends asking them to pray because I realized that I had been blindsided with an intense spiritual attack.   I had not “suited” up and had left myself completely wide open.

One friend called me while I was driving and prayed and I met and prayed with the other friend over lunch.  We agreed that I would go through each room in my apartment and bind Satan in the name of Jesus.  I did this immediately and then I got down on my knees and prayed to God to provide protection for everyone involved.The feeling of oppression continued to hover over me but I did feel stronger.  

 I met Lisa for supper on the Tuesday evening, explained to her what had happened, and she said she had also been experiencing intense spiritual warfare but her comment “I consider it all joy” completely changed my thinking.  I had never heard anyone refer to a spiritual attack as “pure joy” before; but she is absolutely right; we are stepping out in faith and in obedience to God and the evil one is hopping mad WHAT A JOY!! 

I will look at spiritual warfare from a totally different perspective in future and “consider it all joy” but I have also learned a sharp lesson, armor up every day, we are in a battle.  

So ARMOR UP my fellow “Alphanians” and keep your sights on Jesus and His plan  – TO BRING ALPHA TO HAITI!!!  

Eph 6:12-17 "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."


2 Chronicles 20:15 This is what the LORD says to you: ‘Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God’s.


James 1:2-4 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Missions

It's a privilege to work on staff with Alpha USA and Alpha New England and I love what I do! I find there are often a multitude of new outreach initiatives that vie for my time and attention. There are countless projects I could be working on, all with great kingdom building potential! This is fantastic, but frankly if I tried to implement them all, I would go down in flames for sure.  

I think my greatest challenge as a leader is to discern where God is inviting me to join Him in His work (to "lazer in on my mission" as Bill Hybels says) So this means learning to say no to great projects so I can say yes to God and His greater project. When I do sense God nudging me in a direction, at first glance, it often makes no earthly sense, but God patiently persists in confirming His plan. It's as if He is saying, "Yes you heard me correctly the first time, keep going this way." and so goes our journey with God, we walk by faith and not by sight!

About three years ago Alpha rolled out a new initiative called Global Alpha Training. I listened and I learned more, but I had a ton of things on my plate so I put it on the shelf for another time. Two years ago I attended a luncheon with Nicky Gumbel and heard him talk about the impact GAT's were making in countries around the globe. I felt God tap me on the shoulder, but I put the project back on the shelf. This past year I was in London and met leaders from over 100 nations during International Week at HTB. It was exciting to hear how God was moving in other parts of the world and I was stoked! I heard from Alpha Teams in Norway who traveled to Switzerland to help train leaders to launch new courses. I heard about GAT teams traveling to Costa Rica, Guatemala, Egypt and Russia. I heard about the courses that began and multiplied as churches worked together and celebrated the impact they were having as many souls came to know Jesus through their efforts. I was really fired up.  I talked with pastors at my home church, Grace Chapel in Lexington, MA. and they were really supportive of the idea, so I began to pray and ask God to send us the right opportunity. I had heard of many needs in different countries but none seemed like the right fit for us. Then a few weeks ago I received a note from a missionary currently serving in Haiti and she writes:

"I met with the Ouanaminthe pastors league.  It was fascinating.  A tremendous response too. The league has 81 local pastors in it that regularly meet.  A few pastors traveled a distance by foot to get there and some that couldn't come sent their representatives.  They were all wonderful. We introduced the ALPHA program to them and they are very excited to receive your team and host an Alpha training. I wanted your team to be in prayer for them.This group of pastors face extraordinary challenges and talked to us about problems with Voodoo, not having a building for church, and people not coming to church because they had no shirt to wear.  It was incredible. During this meeting, I felt so strongly the presence of the Holy Spirit. Listening to these pastors and sensing their joys and strength, and emotions.I really just can't describe it.  Wow, I just know one thing for a fact, that the Lord's hand is on this and for those that will be part of it I know they will be profoundly transformed beyond any expectation they may have. God bless all of them. Please have the group keep them in prayer to prepare for this epic spiritual enlightenment and transformation."

After reading this, I kind of felt like Paul and I was directed to these verses: 

Acts 16:8-10 (MSG)  They went to Phrygia, and then on through the region of Galatia. Their plan was to turn west into Asia province, but the Holy Spirit blocked that route. So they went to Mysia and tried to go north to Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus wouldn't let them go there either. Proceeding on through Mysia, they went down to the seaport Troas.That night Paul had a dream: A Macedonian stood on the far shore and called across the sea, "Come over to Macedonia and help us!" The dream gave Paul his map. We went to work at once getting things ready to cross over to Macedonia. All the pieces had come together. We knew now for sure that God had called us to preach the good news to the Europeans. 

So we are now in the process of putting together a Grace Chapel GAT team for a short term missions trip to Haiti the first week of July.


I know what your thinking crazy right, HAITI in July ??? I had visions of going by myself, until today when the Lord sent me notes from 7 other GOD CRAZY Alpha leaders to ask how they could be a part of the team! My level of faith has now risen my friends! WOOHOO! I am really getting excited about what God is up to and how He will shape us, teach, use us and change us on this trip! I hope to Blog a bit about our experiences as we go along, but if you would like to read more about Global Alpha Training (GAT) 
Click to visit our GAT web pages
 

Blessings, Lisa