Prayer Requests for India

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Pastor Timothy in India has sent us an excellent set of specific prayer requests. We invite you to join us in holding these things before the Lord, together and in agreement, and in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  

i.            In October because of cyclone & heavy rains in AP Lakhs of hectors field destroyed, many houses damaged, roads also severly damaged. Pray for the normal life in flood affected areas.

ii.            There are 1600 languages in India. But bible in available in only 187 languages. The bible society, IEM, IBT {Indian bible Translation}, and other organizations working on Translation pray for them.

iii.            In our country child abuse and rapes on all ages of women are happening every day. Hight insecure for young women. Pray that people mind should be change and respect the women.

iv.            Pray for the people of Goa state in India it’s population 14, 57,723 Dts-2, that they give their priority to Jesus.

v.            Pray for the district Hyderabad in AP. Population – 40, 10, 238, Cities-4, there are Muslims & Hindus. Pray for their salvation.

vi.            Many children are born with AIDs because of their parents sins, children are suffering. Pray that they know their hope is Jesus.

vii.            Pray for Christmas programmers like children & youth Christmas, women Christmas & carols throughout December month. Through all these programmers many non-Christians can hear the gospel & save.

viii.            Pray for Christian TV channels like GOD TV, Aaradhanna,  Subhavartha, &local channels many will watch them and know that Jesus is their savior.

ix.            Pray for good news for all {LOVE IN CHRIST PRAYER HALL ASSOCITAION} children ministry working among children, children prayer warriors, children bible readers, pray that children can pray daily &read word of god daily.

x.            Pray for the state Kerala in INDIA. Population 3, 33, 87,677, Dts-14, the people should be obey the God & be saved.

May God bless you always, Amen!

Your brother Tribal Timothy www.tribalevangelisttimothy.org

 

A Three-Fold Ministry

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At Capturing Courage International we bring a three-fold braid of ministry. These following three dynamics strengthen and create a work that is not easily undone. These three focuses create a strong bond in the Lord and with each other.

These three priorities mirror God’s position toward us:

  • God the Father continually initiates RELATIONSHIP with us
  • Jesus Christ his Son, through salvation, makes TRANSFORMATION possible
  • Our Holy Spirit DISCIPLES us, helps us, guides us

Strand #One: Authentic Relationships (Coming on the Inside)

This is marked by three simple processes: 

  • let’s get to know each other
  • let’s wait on the Lord together
  • let’s enter into the Lord’s work together

This begins through email, Facebook, and phone calls. First we get to know one another. What are your callings and visions from the Lord? How is the Lord leading you? Together we begin to pray about what the Lord might have us do in person alongside each other.

And God-willing, and as the Lord leads, we come to where you are. Even on the ground we enter into fellowship first and foremost. We then minister as you invite. On the ground alongside the work God has given you we bring:

  • inner healing and deliverance, heart healing for you and your people
  • intimacy with God through prayer, humility, and leading
  • heart conversations, preaching and teaching, about life, love, and ministry

“Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. Do not banish me from your presence, and don’t take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of my salvation.” Psalm 51:10-12 NLT

Strand #Two: Spiritual Transformation (Authentic Conversations)

Through dialogue, preaching, teaching, and healing prayer we tackle heart issues such as:

  • how much does God love us?
  • what do we do with sin and failure?
  • how might our churches reflect the heart of God?

Once we are on the ground, living alongside you for a time, eating what you offer us, travelling as you travel, we have opportunity to discuss the many difficult and tangible questions facing leaders and churches today.

There is a fresh movement of the Lord throughout the global church and as we pay attention to this, learning from it, we are positioned to bring perspective outside your own area. We are continually learning and becoming bigger thinkers ourselves and this we offer to you towards your own success. We therefore dialogue and seek the Lord together for wisdom’s and clarity for you and the ministry you are uniquely called to. We might discuss issues such as:

  • law, legalism and rules, versus freedom in Christ
  • men and women in marriage, the church, and leadership
  • leadership basics, integrity, holiness, humility and more

“Make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous portion of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.”  2 Peter 1:5-7 NLT

Strand #Three: Ongoing Discipleship (Spiritual Teaching)

Through CCI Materials we are challenged: 

  • to align our lives with the heart of God
  • to become personally intimate with our God
  • to be bold in our love for each other

A big part of the work of Capturing Courage is the continuing development of relevant materials to encourage and equip both leaders and their congregations. We bring the heart of God to our lives. We bring forth issues of compassion, mercy, gratefulness, faithfulness and more.

While Bible Schools around the world are doing a great job of bringing the hard skills of expository training, Biblical studies, historical Christianity and more, we at CCI are bringing the soft skills of hearts made right with Christ. Out of this flows wise and compassionate ministry that changes lives. We do this through:

  • Capturing God’s Heart – a monthly topical Bible Study sent direct to your email
  • Walking in Spiritual Authority – A Discipleship Training Course set to equip you to carry the heart of God
  • Other Specific resources and answers to dilemma’s and questions found on the field as we travel from place to place.

“Preserve the teaching of God; entrust his instructions to those who follow me.” Isaiah 8:16 NLT

This Three-Fold Ministry:

  • Relationship
  • Transformation
  • Discipleship

Serves the hearts, minds, and lives of the body of Christ. 

“Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.” 1 Thessalonians 5:11

To get this and more about what to expect from us at Capturing Courage Int’l  CLICK HERE for a PDF you can download and print for your reference.

It’s Not Our Work

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“I was somewhere with you, a place I did not know…..there was people around  big ugly people that were chasing people and when they caught them …they would throw them in this muddy river…

You Cyndy  were standing on the shore and I was  standing beside you watching …..Then Cyndy you bent down and reached and caught one of people in the river and pulled him/her up. I could not tell if men or women or child was being pulled up with only one hand, so strong you looked, so strong you were.

I was afraid for you Cyndy you just kept pulling and pulling crying out “I can’t let go” over and over. and when you pulled we saw that the people were all attached to each other so that that there was a long line of them  coming up …how many we did not know .? It seems like never ending….

Then we heard a loud noise coming from where the ugly big people were, and then everything got quiet, and they had disappeared….we saw the water become clearer and all the people you had pulled out started to walk away from you and I. they were singing….loud singing and walking away.

You turn to me and said, “You must go home now” and then I woke up.

The depths of work done on this last ministry trip to Mozambique are slowly coming out of the depths of myself. The entire time I was away I kept thinking, “How am I going to share this trip? How do I summarize this in words?!”

Slowly, bit by bit, I’m finding words for it all. This prophetic dream (just above) was given to one of our prayer partners and it summarizes perfectly the work in the spirit realm and the impact in people’s lives.

I am glad for a dream that helps to explain the work, for I’m finding it difficult to put words to what was deep and under the surface. The trip, on the surface, carried no drama and held little spectacle.

There was merely four of us (and one little one) traipsing across many kilometres by train and bus, truck and motorbike, and by foot, to visit ten churches, their pastors, and congregations, and then these profound conversations.

It began in Chupanga. Our first real stop. We had arrived in the morning and the first service was that evening. I cannot even remember what I spoke on but at the end of the service I was asked to pray for the people.

Now I have a bit of a rebellious streak to me, and over the course of the trips I’ve taken I’ve become really tired of being brought out as the circus performer who will now work wonders on you through her prayers. blah…

So that night I refused. I said, “No, I won’t be praying for you. Rather, I am going to teach you to pray for each other.”

And so this is what I, and my translator Whisky, tried to do. Once I was done teaching Whisky went on with much encouragement’s. All to no avail. It was a bit of a dismal failure from what I could tell.

But the evening concluded and back we all went to the house we were staying in. Upon our arrival we found the Pastor and his right hand man already there. How they got there so fast I’ve no idea!

And I realized that I just might need to explain why I had refused to pray for their people. So I shared what I had been learning the last few months.

I shared the bigger thinking the Lord had been giving me, the conviction to teach the people to do the work of the Kingdom (it doesn’t just belong to a few), how churches grow when people are empowered, what I’ve been learning from the house-church movement in India, and I also shared a prophetic word from one of our pastors in Kenya.

It was a bit of a long explanation, really a laying out of my heart and how the Lord was leading us at Capturing Courage, and once I’d finished their immediate question was, “You mean people can pray for each other?”

I was stunned. Struck. Saddened. In disbelief.

“Yes, people can pray for each other.”

And there began hours of conversation, late into the night, about life in Christ, about prophecy, about prayer, about leadership, about marriage, about men and women in the church, about so much.

Question after question was directed at me accompanied by a hunger for wisdom and clarity. Long past bedtime we finally broke up our gathering. And then picked it up the next day.

That next evening I didn’t preach, we simply held a forum. With Pastor Daniel, Whisky, and myself on chairs at the front of the church Daniel presented question after question, Whisky translated, I answered the question, Whisky translated, and on we went.

Life changing conversation that will not fade away.

And I still don’t have words for it all. But I’ll keep sharing it a layer at a time. So many dimensions.

The Lord is simply at work. This I know. My bag had been packed for Mozambique for an entire year. Literally. Packed and ready to go. For a year’s time.

The timing of the work of God is critical to any ministry. It is why we move in sync with the exact leading and timing of the Holy Spirit. Not before, not after.

For these works are not of us. In any way. We are simply conduits of God’s heart over people and areas. There are so many things that must align in realms that we do not see, that it is best to simply trust and wait, and then when we hear the ‘go’ we go. Quickly, efficiently, simply.

This is God’s work, not ours.

 

Serving Up A Feast

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The following message is one I gave a couple times over during my recent ministry trip to Mozambique:

I have a friend named George. He makes his living bringing out the best in other people. Every time I get together with George over a cup of tea I receive a great big hug and an ‘I love you’.

George makes it his mission in life ensuring that everyone he comes across knows they are loved. (Everyone gets a hug!) I have learned a lot from George in the time that I’ve known him.

Forefront for him is ensuring his wife and three kids know his love. There isn’t a time I have tea with George but he isn’t sharing the latest things he has been doing for his wife and kids. In his decisions and manner of being he is committed to serving his family well.

So we might ask, how it is that George can get away with hugging women who are not his wife? I tell you, it’s this: It’s because the feast, the real banquet of love and respect, of honour and regard, is happening at home.

The rest of us are just getting in on the crumbs from the table.

I propose that if we want to change our cultures and communities for God that we begin with a feast at home. Building a culture of regard, tenderness, compassion, acceptance, value, honour, mercy, dignity, justice, love, and understanding in our homes will in fact impact our world.

It begins between a husband and his wife. Men, you have more power than you know.

If you treat your wife with regard and respect each and every day she will shine. Look her in the eyes, acknowledge what she does, thank her for her sacrifices for you and your children. Take the time to ask her about her day and really listen to her. Be tender and understanding.

“In the same way, you husbands must give honor to your wives. Treat your wife with understanding as you live together. She may be weaker than you are, but she is your equal partner in God’s gift of new life. Treat her as you should so your prayers will not be hindered.” 1 Peter 3:7

It has been said that a woman is a crown for her husband (Proverbs 12:4) and I ask you men, how shiny is your crown? For the quality of a man can be found in the light in his wife’s eyes, the countenance of her face, and how she carries herself.

A woman treated well, who knows she is safe and secure, is accepted and valued, will do most anything for her man. Women are naturally wired to open themselves to their man. Women are naturally wired to pour themselves out to their families and beyond. Who is pouring into her?

Perhaps you might pour into her so that she might continue giving out and opening herself to you and others.

There is a verse in Ephesians, “For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church.” Ephesians 5:23, and from what I can tell this means that men are given the awesome and terrifying responsibility to answer before God one day for the health and well-being of his wife and family.

It is his role to assume 100% responsibility before God. It is a grand opportunity to become like Christ and to lay down his life in service and sacrifice.

But how is a man to take on this terrifying responsibility successfully? Well, he has been given a helper. The same word used to describe the Holy Spirit. His wife.

“Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.” Genesis 2:18

She knows things and sees things that can help you as a husband and father. Women intuit how things are and they have particular wisdom that, if respected and regarded and listened to well, will enable you as a man to stand before God one day and hear, “Well done good and faithful servant.” She is uniquely designed to help you be wildly successful.

A man who takes on the challenge of setting an every-day feast of regard and respect, love and compassion, acceptance and patience, understanding and value, will not only have a wife who shines but will have children who also know these same things. Your children will be secure and settled and they will learn faster and they will mature easier.

A wife who is stressed, afraid, unsure, has children who are stressed, afraid and unsure, and the whole family begins to suffer. A wife who is not stressed makes a soft landing place for her children and her husband will one day reap the rewards of his due care and diligence as he watches the well-lived lives of his children.

As leader of the home you set the standard, you show the way, you model Christ. We are told in 2 Corinthians 5:19 that Christ’s ministry is one of reconciling the world to himself.

Reconciling is accomplished through careful listening, by taking 100% of the responsibility for the messes around us, and through understanding. Men are called to this same ministry of reconciliation.

And not only our men, but our churches too. What if your church was to commit to holding their women in high regard? What if you as a church made sure that you uphold the safety and security and value of all your women and those round about? What kind of a difference might this make in your community and beyond?

Christ calls us to be set apart and different from the world. Well, the world disregards women. The assignments against women have been long-lasting the world over and for centuries. We the body of Christ are called to be different.

While men are creating a feast at home it must also be followed up on by the church. Are we willing as a body of Christ to support our women? Are we willing to ensure they need not remain in abusive marriages?

Are we opening up all levels of leadership within the church so that they really know they are fully welcomed and wanted? Are our churches safe for women? Will we make the honouring and dignity of our women a priority as we create church policy?

For not only does all this hold a space of value for women but it holds a space of honour and value for our men.

For men are not just beasts to be obeyed. Men are not like children who can only see their own need. Men need not be given over to rage and violence.

Rather, men are called to enlarge and strengthen the lives of everyone around them. And out of this feast that begins at home everyone else round about gets in on the crumbs and we are all changed in the process.

The feast in the Kingdom of God is for everyone and our understanding of the gospel is ultimately reflected in our ministry to women and children.

“Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.” James 1:27

The feast begins at home. The church carries it on. Everyone gets in on the crumbs. None of us remain the same.

“Some of you will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities.
Then you will be known as a rebuilder of walls
and a restorer of homes.” Isaiah 58:12

Christmas Shopping

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Help support the work of Capturing Courage International by purchasing your 2014 Calendar, Wheat-free Fruit-Cake, or both.

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Our 2014 Calendars feature Children of Uganda and are accompanied by a various Psalm. With quality paper and stunning photos these full-size calendars will bless your entire year and make great Christmas Gifts.

Cost for One is $19.95, and you can buy Two for $33.20. Connect with me in Surrey and you can pay by Visa, Mastercard & American Express.

Contact us at cyndy@cyndylavoie.com to arrange your purchase.

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We also have a limited supply of Wheat-free Christmas Fruit Cake for sale. $10 a loaf – You do not want this to pass you by.

Again, Connect with us in Surrey and you can pay by Visa, Mastercard, or American Express.

Contact us at cyndy@capturingcourage.org to arrange your purchase.

Capturing God’s Heart – Rules for Living – Volume 31

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It is easy to want rules for living. Something that tells us “do this” and “don’t do that” removes us from the need to walk in true relationship with God. If we can just figure out what he wants then we simply have to follow a to-do list.

But the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the work of The Kingdom is much more than what we are doing or not doing. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is about relationship, about nuance, about principles for living (not rules), and about our manner of being woven throughout everything.

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True Poverty

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I’ve arrived home from my trip to Mozambique. It was stunning and simple, beautiful and layered in profound peace. It will take some time to put words to the time and experience. Yet bit by bit I will share the goodness of God in Mozambique. Where to start? This is pressing on me:

I came across my first poverty this trip. And it had nothing to do with available possessions or food and everything to do with pain and sorrow.

Here in a small church we found sadness pressed down running over. It was all we could do to stay there. Even our small group found ourselves pressed under it.

The houses were the same as everywhere else I’ve been. The cookhouse was large and spacious. The dirt floors were no different than any other we had been in. The storehouse of grains and such seemed well stocked.

The first indication that things were different was that the floor in the house was not as well swept as other places we’d been so far.

The second thing was the sorrow of the children. I don’t think there was a minute that passed without at least one child sobbing over something.

My heart was already heavy as we gathered for worship that evening. The songs were the same, the dancing by the young teen girls was the same, and yet such a difference.

There were visible medical difficulties. A number of the people, young and old alike, had crossed eyes. One young teen was mentally challenged.

And to my shock the ‘choir’ girls mocked and laughed at an old woman passing by. I had never before encountered such disrespect. To the girl who was mentally challenged they laughed and made fun. This is when I really knew that something was very wrong in this place.

While singing my own heart had been despairing. Every persons eyes carried so much pain. And into the weight I too almost became bowed down to hopelessness. Yet into that space God reminded me that he was big enough for the problems here. “Of course!” I was reminded.

I was to bring the message that evening, but opted rather to simply pray for the children. To speak, to declare, goodness and light over their lives, to agree with God’s hope and plans for their futures. And so one by one I prayed and declared the goodness of God over each little life.

It was the least and the most that I could do.

At first I thought that the parents just didn’t know how to love their children. Children would cry and parents would laugh or ignore. But in the course of our twenty-four hours there I realized that it wasn’t that they didn’t know how to parent, but that they were all caught in crippling cycles of deep pain.

It is no secret that those in pain pass on pain to others. That when loss and sadness increase we either work our way through these things or we become hardened and flat in our own responses. Hardened in our own responses we have nothing to give to the pain of others. We cannot meet them in their pain for our own is just too great.

In that space we begin to mock others, to make fun of those less than us, to hold off hope, to refuse comfort. We cannot, after all, give what we have not yet received.

And so I began praying against the cycles of pain that are there. Began standing in the gap, like one putting a stick into the wheel of a bicycle that just must by stopped.

Our one evening there, over an open fire and under a stunning starry sky I did share a message on my heart. A favorite one of mine, that we need not bring our much to God, but rather we bring our little, and God makes it into much. Of how we do one day at a time and of the importance of leading in generosity toward each other. Of confessing our fear and trusting God to pour through us in ministry to each other.

It seemed appropriate in this place that was bowed under such weight of sorrow and sadness. God’s way out of heartache and despair is the same for each of us. Truth transcends culture.

This word was well received and in the gentle spirit in which it was given I trust is even now making its way through layers of hurt and pain.

As we left the next day, we gathered as usual in the main home to sing and pray. I closed off the time in prayer and made sure to speak directly to the cycles of pain and to declare their end and in their place the goodness of God.

My prayer was of course much longer than this, for in the praying I sought to validate where they were at, the state of things as they were, and to bring hope and a sense that healing is possible as they go forward.

As I finished off and said my Amen the women wiped tears from their eyes.

This community will continue to be in my prayers. And the churches nearby are gearing towards more intentional care and mentoring and healing alongside them. This place of true poverty, that had nothing to do with possessions or food or clothes has everything to do with cycles of pain and of sadness that overwhelmed.

It is as I have suspected. Poverty is not often about food or clothes or housing (although I understand it sometimes is), but the most crippling poverty of all is a lack of knowledge of the goodness of God. True poverty is an absence of hope.

Intimacy With God

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bkk5_TheLordYourGodIt is Thanksgiving here in Canada, and for this celebration the spirit of this verse from Zephaniah seemed just right.

My own journey towards intimacy with the Lord included becoming comfortable with his glory. I won’t ever forget the fear that rose up in me as the Lord was wooing me to himself some years back.

It was a guttural fear of being too close, becoming consumed, and simply being seen. This verse from Zephaniah 3:17 can either soothe or having us running.

“The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.”

But over the years, and as I stopped covering up my inner person I slowly became used to the glory of God as it seared through my soul. The chaff was burnt away and what was left of me was solid and strong in the Lord.

And when I think of thanksgiving it is for this intimacy with God that I am most thankful. My home is in the nook of his arm, and my heart is at rest in his heart.

His glory presses through me now and I’m not burnt up, and not afraid any longer. Gladness permeates it all.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends and may the intimacy of our Lord transform your life.

The Power of Waiting

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Cyndy in rural Uganda - November 2011I am heading to Mozambique in less than a week. The invitation has been since the early months of 2012. They’ve been waiting quite some time.

I’m finding though that our characters are proven in the wait. That what we think we are ready for right now may very well need some more time before coming to pass.

From the time that God first spoke out the possibility of Capturing Courage International until it was launched there was nine long years of preparation and prayer and waiting.

I don’t rush to make things happen so much anymore. I’ve learned that God is not in a rush, and that everything has its own best time.

In the waiting we grow in commitment, patience, and bigger picture understanding. Nothing else produces these things quite like waiting.

While we want everything yesterday God says, ‘Walk with me awhile, we will get to it.’

This last year has been another year of waiting. It’s been over a year since I’ve done an international ministry trip and how difficult it has been to stay home.

But in the waiting of this last year we have learned quite a few things at CCI. We’ve realized the core of our work. We are settled in the few solid things rather than trying a myriad.

Waiting did this. Waiting set up the framework for wisdom, for clarity, and with perspective that is deeper than our own best ideas and thoughts.

Waiting grows our capacity and I am realizing that until God can trust us with waiting he can’t really trust us with action.

So however you are waiting today, engage the wait, learn from it, allow it to expand your soul and your mind, take on the difficulty of waiting, rest in it.

God is in the waiting as much as in our actions. Find him there.

Capturing God’s Heart – Holiness – Volume 30

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Holiness is the call of those who claim to know God.

Holiness is the work of the cross done first in our own lives.

Holiness is our personal proving ground before we head out with the gospel to others.

Before Christ we were enslaved to our flesh. Our hungers were focussed on our physical body and our heart sins. We lied, we cheated, we were licentious and gluttons.

It was easy to hate. It felt good to slander. We brought others low so we could feel big. We were consumed with how we could bring pleasure to ourselves.

Then we came to know Christ.

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