A dog stole my sandals, but it was totally worth it.

Tonight is a night that I will never forget (and I mean it). Jesus Christ has power.  Tonight we did a program in an unreached slum. Our stage was a Hindu temple. We did skits, we sang songs, we proclaimed the name of Jesus. At the end of our program, we opened it up for prayer and told people that we would pray for anyone that wanted it. We were asked to go into a house and pray for a man that was paralyzed. I really wanted to see this man healed, but it would all be by God's power. It was Denanje, Paul, Sam, and me. This man had had a stroke two years ago. For two years he hadn't moved his right hand, fingers, or elbow. For two years he hadn't moved his left leg, toes, or walked. He also had some issue in his brain, so he couldn't speak.

We dove into prayer. Nothing ever happens by man's power, by my power. Every miracle that ever happens happens by God's power. So we prayed that the Holy Spirit would over take the man. After 15 minutes he could close his hand. Next he could move his toes a little. His muscles were shaking. We could hear bones cracking. He was sighing. We kept praying and calling on Jesus. We told him to praise Jesus, even though he couldn't talk. His tongue started to loose. He said "Yeshu" (Hindi for Jesus). He started talking more. God continued to heal. Eventually he stood up and walked to his door and back. While he was standing he accepted Christ as his Lord. When I left, he was standing in the doorway with his left hand on his head. He shook my hand and gripped it tight. Never have I been so full of faith. This is real. Jesus's life was real.

More than physical life, this man received eternal life. I know that this brother of mine will be with me in heaven. This is a night I will never forget. There's no way that I can deny that Jesus is Lord.

And...when we came out of the house we found out that someone had stolen our shoes (probably a dog). I give up all my shoes to see this again :)

This really has been an adventure

So I'm writing this while riding on a train. Today was pretty amazing. I can't explain it. The amount peace that god has given me is phenomenal. Our God is good. Since we got here we have prayed so much. Some people have been healed, some haven't. At first this was very hard because it's hard when God doesn't answer prayer the way we want him too. 

One family we prayed for had multiple injuries. One lady had a big boil on her neck, and she had dark dreams every night, and was depressed. When we prayed for her, the Spirit came on her and she was healed. That night the bad dreams stopped. The next time I saw her you could see joy radiating off of her face, telling you she had exeriwnced something amazing. Her husband had had a bad ankle, and after we prayed for him two weeks before this, he was healed. We talked to them and they wanted to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit again, so we shared the gospel with them, and told them again that it wasn't by our power, but because of God's love. After this they both accepted Christ.

Another time we were doing prayer visits we went into a Christian home. A man asked us to pray for his two sons, both of whom were mentally handicapped. As my leader Brandon and I started to pray, we asked God if he wanted to heal these boys. These boys were the happiest people I had seen. They had so much joy. They showed us notebooks of pictures they had drawn, and I was so encouraged. As we prayed, I felt God say that he wasn't going to heal these boys. Instead of praying to heal these boys, I prayed that God would use them to show their community what this joy is that comes from Christ. That's what matters.

God did not send me to heal people physically. Yes, that has happened, but only by God's power. We didn't do anything. Physical healing isn't what matters. What matters is internal healing; finding the joy and freedom that comes in Christ's love, and then spreading this message of good news. YOU, MY FRIEND, CAN BE SET FREE AND EXPERIENCE THIS LOVE. GOD LOVES YOU! That is our message and the only thing that matters. That is what God is trying to get across to the people of India, the people of America and the rest of the people on this planet.

Today a Hindi man asked me for a Bible after seeing us pray for a woman's group. He saw the love and joy. He told me he knew nothing about Christianity, so I shared what I knew. God made us. God loved/loves us. Man sinned. Man turned from God. God condemned man to hell. God felt compassion and love. God came down as human and was perfect, innocently being nailed to the cross. God raised him from the dead and conquered sin and death itself. In doing so he brought freedom to all that ask for it. "If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." It's a gift. We are saved by grace, not works. I have a God that loves me, and cares about the little things. That is why I can smile when life is hard. That is why I can find peace when I have no money. That is why I can't help but talk about my best friend, Jesus Christ.

India is awesome. My team is another part of my family. I rode a camel. I've learned to play cricket.  I played jingle bells with a group of Chinese people in front of a couple hundred Indians. I watched cats play with a toad the size of a baseball. I've played an improv worship set on the side of the street to a crowd of 40 Indians (then we preached!). It's been awesome. I'm really learning about God taking control. We pray so much. We go to slums multiple times a week. Our God is good, so good it's worth talking about.

I've been so humbled by the love of Christ. Reading Matthew has humbled me. Jesus was so wise.

India is SWEET!!! And Merry Christmas :)

Hello friends! I have made it to India and I am safe! Life here is so awesome. God is doing so much in my life. We have had a blast. It was a bit of a shock going from 12 degree weather in Montana to 80 degree weather in Mumbai. After 38 hours of travel we arrived in Mumbai. When we got out of the airport it was 2 o’clock in the morning, and even at the time there were people everywhere, and it was super humid. One of the first funny things I saw here was a man that drove past our van when we were driving. He had his wife behind in and a new born baby in his lap. None of them had helmets. Well it turns out that that isn’t abnormal here. There are mopeds and motorcycles everywhere! Sometimes there will be 4 people on one bike.

Well God is definitely at work here. We have been able to pray for so many people. We have been doing a lot of children’s ministry. We have visited a couple different schools and ministered to the kids. We do a lot of skits, one that we’ve been doing is the Christmas story, and a lot of interactive songs with the kids. Then we have been able to pray for the students, and pray with the staff. It has been a blessing to both us and to the schools.

We have also been doing a lot of house ministry in the slums. The slums are unbelievable. The houses that these families will live in are so small, the area is so dirty. I guess I thought when we came here that I was more blessed because of what I had. Well, that is not the case. The people here are so blessed too! I can really see the love of God in these people.

Tomorrow we are driving 9 hours near some villages that we are going to work with. We will be there for Christmas. With these people we will be sharing our skits and dances, playing music, one of us will give a message with our testimony, and then we will be praying for people. We are hoping to see a lot of healings. I don't have much more time because I'm sitting in an internet cafe paying for the internet, and dinner is soon! But hopefully in when I get back to the town I will be able to write more and put up some pics.

Prayer...

We could really use prayer for 2 things:

1. The girls on the team have been having spiritual attacks during the night, and will sometimes wake up screaming. We could use prayer for peace in the girls.

2. Prayer for Brandon and Leah (our team leaders). They under a lot of pressure and could definitely use prayer.

3. And pray for unity. Like any team of a bunch of teenagers, we have our issues. God is definitely working in all of our hearts and we are all growing so much closer to him.

India is super awesome!!! I hope everyone is doing good at home :)

Also, I love to hear from people. If anyone feels so inclined, send me a message on facebook or an email (skycapttain123@gmail.com) and let me know whats up!!! I'll write back too. It super fun to get messages from home :D

I'm A New Man

If you would have met me a year ago, and asked me, "who are you?", this would be the answer:


"I'm a musician, I want to be famous; I'm a hard worker, proud of all I've accomplished; I'm insecure, letting peoples' opinions change who I become; I'm a hard man with a dark past." I probably wouldn't have phrased it that way then, but that would have been the truth.


But now I'm a new man. Ask me who I am now and you'll hear something different: "I'm a child of God".


"And what might that be?" some will ask.


"I play music to glorify God; I'm a servant for Christ, willing to become the least for him; fear of man has no grip on me; I'll dance like David danced and look like a fool for my God; I'm called to missions; I'm  becoming full of love, even towards the different people who have hurt me; the past is gone and taken care of. I'm loved by God; He told me so."


Over the past months I've been set free. Our God is an amazing God. Tomorrow morning at 3:30AM I'll be getting in a van to share this good news. We'll be flying to India and staying there for 9 weeks, with our one goal being to do what God says.


Here is a picture of my team:

The team is (back row left to right) Brian, Jordan, Justin, Me, Sam, Cassie, Leah, Jayden, Becca, (Front Row) Chelsey, Yoi, Megan, Hannah, Brandon and Erica. Brandon and Leah are our leaders.

Another bit of information to anyone that didn't hear, I'm engaged to this girl!

Proposed over Thanksgiving when I came home. She's definitely the most amazing girl in the world and I can't wait to see what God has in store for us!!!

God is good and I know he has my life in his control. Things you can pray for:

-Unity in our team. We have a strong team, but we are going to be up against tough situations. Pray that God will give us the strength to stay united when things are rough.

-God's protection. We could use prayer that while we travel things will go smoothly and we can make it to India with no issues.

-Justin, one of the members from our team, still doesn't have his visa. He is going to be staying home until it comes, so pray that it will come fast.

-And pray for me that I will have boldness in Christ to step outside of my comfort zone and do the things God is calling me to do.

I will try to update weekly while I am gone!! Love you all and am so thankful for the prayers!!!

Skylar

Mark 16:15-18 He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

Its about time for an update

So I figure its about time I posted an update :) Let me start by saying God is good! Really good! I don't even know where to start in explaining what he has been doing. Last week we talked about the basics of Christianity, and alot about God's love and who he really is to us. That was amazing! Here's some pics of what we have been doing:

This is my small group. Brandon (our leader has the bandana), Jordan is in the log, Bryan is on the log, and then there's Sam.

This is Avalanche Lake. Our small group hiked up hear for our first meeting. Jumped in and it was FREEZING!!!

The two pictures above are from up on Blacktail Mountain. We drive less than a mile off base and hit a gravel road, and that goes right up the mountain. In the pic above, you can't see it, but the base is right down by the lake.

And here is the sunset that we get to see on base almost every day :D They are super amazing with super vibrant colors. It's been a full moon the last couple nights and was bright enough to read under. I love it!

So we are headed to India. We have already started praying for this part of the adventure, and I know that God is going to do amazing things! We are going to be staying in Pune, and will probably be visiting Mumbai. We could use prayer that the Visas will all go through (we have one guy that still hasn't gotten his passport). We also need prayer for direction, because Mumbai can be dangerous, and has the biggest slums in the world. We are praying for direction on where God wants us to go. I'm quite confident that we are going to see some very hard things, but also confident that our God is bigger than that and is going to use us and cause us to grow.

Pray for our leaders Leah Crout and Brandon Ashbough.

Pray for team as we fight to keep darkness from entering our lives.

Pray for me that I can be willing to do the big things that I know is calling me to do.

Can't wait to come home see all my friends :)

Skylar Brown / DTS 

501 Blacktail Rd. 

Lakeside, MT 59922

(USA)

Week 2

God has been awesome and has definitely been changing us. Last Friday we had an event called welcome to Montana night, where we all dressed up like cowboys and square-danced and played tug of war. It was awesome! I have some great pics of it on my Facebook. Last week we learned a lot about meditation, intercession, and hearing God's voice, which was awesome. I really put that to work this weekend. Over the weekend I struggled a lot with hearing God's voice, and discerning his voice from among the other voices in my head, and it was awesome. It is really cool to see how god speaks. Then yesterday, we had an hour and a half long worship session. We'll do that every monday morning. What a great way to start the week.

We also have opportunities to help with worship on base, which has been fun (and some of you know how much I enjoy this :D ). Got to play bass with the team this morning, and guitar tomorrow. Its awesome.

This week is going to be awesome too. We learning about the Father heart of God, and what our relationship with him should really look like. I know this is going to be a hard week because of a lot of my insecurities, but I am excited to see how God works. We had our first session this morning and it was awesome. It has been really cool to see God working in the people around me. I have really seen a lot of hearts change, been encouraged by a lot of people's attitudes. It's amazing.

I can use prayer that I can keep my focus on God. I am definitely learning a lot about discerning God's voice, and also that I can be open with who I am, and willing to let those around me help me through. That is very difficult for me.

O and I guess this is somewhat important too….I'M GOING TO BE IN INDIA FOR CHRISTMAS!!! We found out locations yesterday, and figured out our teams. So that is where my mission will be, which I'm super excited about. We will mostly working in Mumbai. I miss everyone back home lots!!! :)

Skylar Brown / DTS 

501 Blacktail Rd. 

Lakeside, MT 59922

(USA)

P.S Someone should send me mail. I really enjoy getting letters, and will write back! :) Even if its something stupid. I enjoy mail

Day 1

So today was day 1, and it was awesome. As soon as I first walked on this base, I felt welcome. The staff here are super amazing and my fellow students are as amazing. God started to work on all of us before we even started today. God's has really been teaching me a lot through meeting new people, because I have pretty much never gone anywhere without having friends with me. Its great.

I had a great road trip getting out here; spent two days driving with Kyle Clancy, and got an opportunity to explore Glacier National Park with him before he departed. Found a church on Sunday that I like pretty well. Our group is already super close. Before we had dinner tonight, I felt that I trusted so many people already, was so close to people already, and then at dinner everyone shared their testimonies and how God brought them to this base (which took about 6 hours total woo). After this we were all just so pumped, and everything is so deep. Its really easy to jump into a real conversation here because we all have one thing in common: CHRIST!

And CHRIST is the focus of why we are here. God has already done so much in me. And it's only day 1 (well technically day 2…as of 5 minutes). Continued pray would be awesome and much appreciated, and I'll update more on what God is doing soon! Specific things I could use prayer for:

-Humility. I want to become nothing and have Christ be my something.

-I want to have a reckless spirit, that is willing to give up anything to follow Christ's leading

-Trust that God has my future in control and I don't need to worry about what is going to happen afterwards.

Thanks so much for your prayers!!!

O and also, my address is:

Hey just in case anyones interested :P my address is:

Skylar Brown / DTS 

501 Blacktail Rd. 

Lakeside, MT 59922

(USA)

I love letters and the like, so send away :)