October 2014 Insta-Recap

Studying, reading testimonies, working, creating, doing perhaps the best job anyone on the planet would ever be privileged to do, been sitting down for 3 hours #soretodaystrongtomorrow 😉 #sohappy #SOthankful #DreamCulture #HeavenInBusiness

today is a GREAT day for a bunch of reasons, one of which is hosting dinner later with some awesome Bethel people from East Africa. Thought it'd be appropriate to start the day with a Kenyan breakfast, uji with lemon (amaranth flour porridge with lemon) #theoriginalglutenfree #swahilinight #community

1st day of my internship training at Bethel Music!!!

Making tea for Bella & Rabson. how can I be a #Kenyan hostess and not end with a cup of #ketepa tea 😊 tonight was so great, we could have talked all night. God is so good in the way He knows each of us uniquely and moves through our lives. I get to be friends with some incredible (and I don't use that word lightly) people!

 10/5/2014 still reeling from all the love I was soaked in by my Revival Group family in Homegroup tonight. Its still strange for me to speak out & be the center of attention, but this family makes it so comfortable and so worth it. Thanks for letting me, God immensely bless you guys. #Presence #redemption #dreams #transparency

my super amazing, powerful, empowering, winning, championing, Spirit filled team today #teamwork #family #revivalgroup #davewardsrg

yeah, just taking selfies 60ft up in the air, no big deal 😨😅 #ropescourse

went first on a couple of these freakin the heck out, shout out to the champ @georgiaalexandria without whose strengths my day would have been completely different, appreciate you girl #ropescourse

Watching #BethelMusic soundcheck for the #OpenHeavens conference #volunteerlife #sweetlife #greatnight #livemusic #worship

Last week I was processing through life & I was just tired & really felt God say "stay home" & to cancel my plans. I was on Instagram & saw this singer @moriahpeters and it led me to her songs and testimonies and I sat there for hours reading, watching and listening and felt God reawaken things in my life and give me hope & a new lease on life(!) then I started writing songs for hours which I haven't done in a long time. I saw she was coming to Redding in a couple of days on tour with Rend Collective & I really wanted to go but money's tight & I have home group same time so I chose not to go trusting God would never make me miss out on anything and I would get to experience #teamBRAVE live someday, but still felt really bummed. Cut to today, my housemate Lindsey, not knowing this whole back story bought this CD at the concert and she felt God tell her to give it to me!!!! #Heknowsmyname #Heknowsmyeverythought

I wish I could explain what this sign means to my heart...I really wish I could, sometimes, like tonight I see it and it just hits me and even I wonder #dreams #hopes #promises #more #Yes

Fall weather = boot weather! If you're Kenyan, you know this sweater 😉 stole it from my mom's old closet, happy I can wear it in Redding and feel cool #ootd

I hereby christen Tuesday night as Creator Academy nights/YouTube University nights/Learning the learn out of Youtube nights/Geeking out over things normal people don't geek out over nights #youtube #socialmediamarketing #marketing #excellence #noideawhatIamreadingbutprayingsomeofitsticks 😉👍

yesterday our Revival Group decided to dress up in crazy outfits. I'm not a hugely self conscious person about my looks, I'm not the girl who says don't post that group picture I don't look good enough in it, I wear my "fivehead" like a pro most days because these things & those moments make me ME and I feel pretty dang good about myself, (being the only brown skin girl in the room most times releases a lot of freedom too, I highly recommend it! 😄) but it was good to see how crazy freedom would look like to a caged bird. It was a great experiment. I love these guys! #borntobefree #teamBRAVE #bssm2

Consider this an honest selfie 😞 Hit some rough seas, if you could pray for me & my family, I would be grateful #exhausted

So I've heard of twinning, would this be called tripletting? #fall #rain #oversizesweaters #boots #notherewasnoworkmemoinvolved #bethelmusic

pulled pork sliders, brownies, ice cream and my 1st full baseball game where I actually knew what was going on thanks to my #housechurch. I think I'm an honorary American now lol 👍😃⚾ #letsprayfortheGiants #theStirring #community

Haven't had my computer for the past few days, the only downside is not being able to work this week 👎 but the incredible upside is with no TV distraction, I've gone to the movies & hung out with a 💝 friend, went to my 1st braai with my South African friends and had great conversations, around the grill, just left an incredible Halloween party and heart talk with a new close friend. Feeling so happy, I might just stick to this no laptop thing. #introvertmyfoot #donthidebehindlabels #tvfast

Speaking of #halloween I went as Olivia Pope from Scandal. I think I came close, except that Olivia never smiles and I can't stop smiling 😃🍷

Make Me a Dream In Someone's Heart

So I heard this line randomly in my head and I thought, 'ooh that makes a good prayer', so I prayed, "God make me a dream in someone's heart" I guess in the sense that, I would fulfill someone's desire for a good employee, or good volunteer or maybe even good wife.

Anyway, I prayed and that was that, but maybe a day later, I thought, wait, what if  that was God telling me to make Him a dream in someone's heart. How would I even do that? By showing off what an amazing life I have? Because that would not be a really long list. Don't get me wrong, my life is amazing, but what is amazing to me, may look like a whole lot of not-that-great to one person and a whole lot of work to the next.

How do I make God a desire in someone's heart, when my life isn't all together?

Isn't that the point though? To make even one person see the passion the Father's love drives you into, that you could hold your worship through the storm, through the wreck, through the fire, because you know the Father loves you and you can't be convinced otherwise?

Bill Johnson says, God will often bless you only as much as it takes to keep your trust on Him and not the blessing. In my struggle, trusting Him, needing Him is easy. I don't want struggle to define my life and my relationship with God; but I feel like struggle sometimes births the sacrifice of praise, I'm actually sacrificing my right to be weighed down and sacrificing the focus due my struggle and gazing upon Jesus and singing, "You are good, You are here" when it feels like anything but that. Thing is, sometimes, I led myself into the struggle, in which case, I surely need Him; in another case, maybe the enemy is trying to rob you, in which case, you need Him still. Either way, I need Him.

Maybe making Him a dream in someone's heart looks like showing people what a heart sold out looks like. Seriously, there's no going back. I don't care what happens or doesn't happen, what the enemy tries or doesn't try. I will not leave my Father. Like, that's settled. I might be stubborn and petulant when He doesn't do what I want Him to do when I want Him to do it, but I will not leave Him, I will always come back to Him, He is home.

Maybe making Him a dream in someone's heart looks like dreaming big dreams, staying hopeful and giving God room to move on them. Anyone can make a small goal achievable, but it's the big things that cause the world to take notice and want what you have. That's the dream I want to inspire. That God adds super to the natural and extra to the ordinary.

My Amazing Children,

So, I am writing this, my first letter to you, in the most exhausted state I've been in in a while. Life is amazing and complicated, and I am in the complicated part right now, basically fighting and contending and pushing for something better, something greater than I could have imagined when I was your age. Pushing is sometimes exhausting.

Nights like tonight, I stand before God, needing Him to prove His word. I don't know how correct of a demand that is to make on God. God is sovereign and God, I would never ask Him to prove Himself, but I feel like it's a good place to be at, to ask God to prove His word, and that He is who He says He is. That's the point of the Bible, it's not just a storybook, it's living and active...or should be. I've had a lot of natural, I need some supernatural in my life. That's what I paid for, what I'm surrounded by, it's what I need because the things on my heart, the things I want for myself, the type of dad I want you to have, the things I want for you guys, the only way any of it is going to happen, is for Him to be who He says He is in my life.

Well, a year ago, I saw a vision of my sons, standing on a stage, amazing young men, leaders of leaders. Tonight, as I keep pushing and keep fighting to stay hopeful and full of joy, I questioned the point of it all, and I heard God say, "Someday, you're going to have a daughter." That spoke to me because there are battles, especially for the sake of my girls, battles that have to end with me. That's why I'm here, that's why I packed up my life for the sake of a crazy dream, because the thought of staying in the same cycle that so many others before me have gone in, kills me. I don't want you to be stuck with dreams in your hearts that look like they'll never come true, I want better for you. Guys, you're not even here yet, but you all give me life!


My mom, your grandmother, has opened a lot of doors for me. She fought, she's winning at life and she passed the baton to me. I promise, I'm going to be as open and honest as I can be with you and give you guys room to say everything you want to say from your 1st word, because as much as I know you need to conquer your own wars and win your own victories, if you fought the things I fought, then what would be the point in my struggle. My head will not be buried in my work, or a book or a TV screen or myself, I want to be present for you.

I want you guys to have an amazing life. I want you to have the toys on TV and the newest clothes in the mall. I want you to have a dad who's always there all the time & that showers you embarrassingly with affection, a mom that's healthy and whole and powerful. I want to take you guys to the best schools we can find where the teachers love on you, call out your destinies and believe in each of you as individuals. I want you to not have to compete with each other or try to be like each other, champion each other, support each other, love each other and not let a day go by without connecting with each other. I want to buy you guys a car when you can drive and your 1st house when you get married - married young and to the people of your dreams.

So, you might not be here yet, but thank you for existing as a dream in my heart. When I'm too tired to fight for myself, I'm fighting for you.

All My Love, 
Mummy

Stewardship = Investment

Something God has been speaking to me a lot recently is on stewardship. One of my goals in life is to be a good steward. I've lived under a poverty mentality all of my life, if it's not living in poverty, it's been running from poverty. I feel like I got a lot of freedom from that, this whole orphan mentality of spending as soon as you get money or hoarding it and hiding it away. I think I've found a happy medium. Sometimes though, I feel a bit of poverty creeping in. I currently stay in a country where I'm not allowed to be employed legally and can't earn any money while pursuing the dreams and desires of my heart. You'd think this would be an awesome vacation, not having to work Woo! No. It actually sucks. I had a horrible job before coming here but the feeling of earning a paycheck...I miss that feeling.

So here I am, I can't earn any money, money's tighter than it ever has been, so to show God I'm a "good steward of the little" so He can give me more, I strive and struggle and skimp and I find the more tightly I hold on for control, the more it all falls apart. Suddenly the bank charges you an amount you hadn't planned for or the electric bill comes in higher than you planned. 

Another funny one is, I'm not a big fan of peanut butter, but sandwiches are a way of life as a student, so I can handle almond butter. PB is $3, AB is $5, so what should I get? PB is cheaper so get the PB right? This is what I did. I got home, opened it, tasted it, hated it. So, my idea of stewardship ended up costing me $3 being stuck eating something I hate instead of adding the $2 and actually eating something I enjoy.

I could give you example after example of things I've bought because I thought a cheaper price tag meant stewardship and they all ended up being more wastes of money than if I had bought what was actually on my heart that I needed to buy. From 99ct avocados that all went bad in 2 days to other products that would be tmi 😉

I know this is a way of life for a lot of people and I understand the privilege of shopping for anything at all. I appreciate the struggle but I'd be lying if I said I could reconcile this struggle with the God who paints the most lavish, extravagant sunsets. I mean, why all the fanfare? Wouldn't a cosmic light bulb hanging on the end of a string switched on and off be enough? Yet He weaves together clouds and color and beauty. It's obvious God and poverty don't exist in the same world.

Yet here I am. Trying hard to hold on when the facts are staring at me dead in the face. The world would look at me, as I do sometimes and say, "It's time to live in the real world, go home, get a job". The thing is, this is my real world. Bethel, BSSM, this place saved my life, literally. I was hopeless and suicidal before that awesome day I saw Kim Walker Smith singing into my soul and leading me to my 1st encounter with God. I was cyclically depressed for my entire life until the day Bill Johnson prayed and I felt the power of God through the screen and I ended up laughing on the floor of my room in Nairobi for a straight hour. God could have touched me anywhere through anyone but this is what He chose and what has worked for me right now. This is the realest life for me.

God is teaching me stewardship isn't management, it's investing in what brings increase. Management puts me in the drivers seat, investing puts Him in it because when you invest, that money isn't in your hands anymore, its on what Management does with the investment.

One of my callings is brainstorming missions, especially to Africa because that's where I'm from. God is also showing me that the business world has more faith in Africa than the Church because the business world believes in investing but the church believes in giving. Investing is a huge deal and I feel like I'm investing into my future and my family's future and in a way the world, because the world can be the person down the street or at the store or it can be an entire nation. Pastors lose credibility for asking people to give, personally, I've lost family because they equated my being here as me gearing up to ask them for handouts and charity. For all that God has done for me, I don't need that.

I'm in the right place. I can't convince you of that with any number of words, but I pray my life shows it.

If you would like to invest in me, I can't promise you a nation or my continent, but I can promise you myself. I'm showing up where I need to show up. I'm being who He made me to be. I'm loving myself and the people around me. If you'd like to join my family that God's given me this past year, invest in me for me and financially support this journey of volunteering and seeing His faithfulness and saying yes and going where He leads me around the world and back and kicking the enemy's butt because he really just pisses me off! Please email joanmainaworks@gmail.com for more information or postal address.

Blessings & Peace to your house.

Bethel Church: The Real Deal

"Steady Heart" from The Undoing by Steffany Frizzell-Gretzinger

I've been at Bethel over a year now...feels so good to say that! Bill always says, "people come here searching for revival but they stay for the culture." I was back home during the summer and when people asked me about my experience, I was very clear in the fact that this was not heaven! I still went through some very real experiences and encountered some very real people. Not every situation or person was sunshine and roses. That led to the question, "So why would you want to go back?"



Honestly, let me just speak from the heart. First of all, coming here, I did not plan this at all, finding God and family in California has been the word in the deepest part of my heart since I first became a Christian 14 years ago, so being here, it feels to me, it's honestly just like I stepped into a wave God had already created 14 years ago.

Second, the way these leaders love and honor each other. They aren't all besties, but the way they talk about each other makes them seem like they are. There's such a high value for excellence and you can see it through Bethel Music for example and how everything they release is top notch. Even their offices, everything from the logo to the wallpaper to the desk lamps screams excellence and intentionality. Like I said, I've been here over a year, I promise you, there is genuinely no competition among the leaders, everyone is fully free to be who they are and they fully celebrate each other and never compete. Look at this video! Steffany is fully herself and Amanda is fully herself. Nobody has to shrink to maximize the other, nobody has to pretend to be bigger than the other. Everybody has their imperfections, but everybody is quick to clean up their mess - if not, it may just mean, you have to work on your own self -

It translates to students and visitors when you see how once a week 2000 students go out volunteer to help in schools, clinics, elderly people homes, cleaning up parks and weeding in the bush, all with no other agenda but to intentionally show love to the city that has opened up it's arms to us. Forget the organized volunteer spots, the sheer number of people who have no money and no time, give generously to needy people in stores and give an encouraging conversation to a homeless man on the street.

Honestly, I feel like the luckiest person in the world to get to experience this. From the bottom of my heart, Thank You Jesus!

If you want more information, I'd highly encourage you to get Danny Silk's book Culture of Honor which a lot of leaders have found useful in getting an idea of the vision.

TV & Me

One of the memories I have of my dad is one time, him sitting on his chair like he did every night with one leg on the arm of the chair like the cool O.G that he was ;-) and he said to me, "Those people you're watching there have a job and careers and they are getting paid to be there. Don't waste your time watching them, instead of building those things for yourself."

I wouldn't say I was addicted, I was just a lonely kid and TV was my outlet into the world...sad, but true. Anyway, I'm almost all grown up now. I don't have parents waiting in the living room to manage my TV time. It's just me and my laptop...together...all-the-time!

I'm pretty good at recognizing God's voice in the middle of watching a TV show saying, "OK, time to hang out with Me now." Whether I say yes or no is another matter entirely. To be honest, I'm kind of sick of it.

If you're like me & don't have a TV in your house, you know, the lengths you go to to watch shows online is pretty crazy. Ads upon ads, sometimes regular ads, sometimes "What the he--?! Esc key! Esc key! Esc key!" type ads.



Then, there's the shows themselves, it just never ends, there's always going to be a funnier show next season and then they get cancelled and another show comes up and gets cancelled and your mind is filled with all these unresolved story lines. Also, I mean, we shut our minds off to it, but, you guys, it's getting so crazy these days. It's always about sex and whose having sex with who and who killed who and who's cheating on who and the steamy scenes are getting longer and longer and racier and racier. I'm not trying to "holier-than-thou" anything, but, I think it's healthy to take a step back sometimes and evaluate where you're at.

Right now, I'm not at a good spot. My life if beautifully full with great things that can sometimes feel a little overwhelming and TV is a great spot to run away to, but, it doesn't feel right for me right now. I actually wrote this post a few weeks ago, but I chickened out on posting it because of Fall Premiere week - just being real! But I've been getting a bunch of words from people I totally respect - totally unrelated to this topic, but in the back of my mind, I know God meant those conversations for this reason. I have to honor that still small voice. Stuff like one of my dads being like, "You have really beautiful eyes, the eyes of Jesus" and my mind goes to, "Jesus would probably not be using His eyes to watch..." Basically, all the information I get about sex & relationships, apart from now being here at Bethel, is from TV.

The worst thing we can do as Christians is try to add new rules and condemnation to our lives so this isn't a rule. If I wanna watch something tomorrow morning, I can totally do that freely. Jesus said in Matthew 10:17, "I lay down my life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again." Anyway, I don't know what this means for me, for sure, I'm not going to watch the intense drama I loved, but what about comedies that seem pretty decent? I guess, I'm just going to have to work it out with Holy Spirit by myself. God help me!

Jesus is 5-Fold Ministry

We went on Retreat last week and I know I didn't write about that. I just had a lot going on and, this blog is more of an overflow spot, Retreat was mostly just for me, to fill me up for me.

Anyway, from the "overflow", I thought to write this post. Chris Cruz spoke our first night there, we were in Chico, CA at the YWAM Base out there. He said something that stuck with me. He said, sometimes we listen to his stories or people known for their evangelistic passions, like Chris Overstreet or Ben Fitzgerald and we're like, "Oh great testimony, that's just them, that's who they are" We don't think about it, but what we're doing is we're subconsciously excusing our own fears or ineffectiveness by saying, it's just not our "gift".

Jesus was both evangelist and pastor. He could command the attention of thousands and turn around and minister deeply to the heart of one. He was both healer and apostle. He healed everyone He met and He knew His identity and a Son and God as Father. He was a prophet and He revealed the mysteries and secrets of God to man and spoke of what was to come.

I'm not the boldest person in the room. When I'm sitting in a theater watching Son of God next to Ben Fitzgerald and the Spirit of God is in the room, and God tells me, "Hey, Joanne, I'd like you to get up and speak about me." Everything in me will revert to, "God, not me, Ben's the evangelist." Or to bring it closer home, if I'm on the ministry team and a 1st year comes to me for prayer and God tells me what's going on, but there's a 3rd year next to me and I revert to him because my insecurity says he can pray better. Or if I'm encouraging someone and Kris Vallotton or Ben Armstrong or Dave Ward or anyone comes up behind me and I'm scared to say what God put on my heart to say a minute earlier. There's a place for honoring the point - the leader, but I can't allow myself to confuse honor with insecurity because right then I've shown God the value I have for the one line He put in my heart.

Honestly, I've been hurt in the past so I get so offended by evangelist types who are more concerned by the numbers than connecting to the heart of the one; because that's who I am, I'm more "pastoral" by nature. I just realized, evangelists have as much right to be offended by me for not standing in the boldness of the Lion living inside of me and telling the world who He is.

I always hesitate to put the epistles on the chopping block, but Jesus didn't actually make these distinctions, at least, not modeled by His own life. He was all things because He was one thing, a Son, a reflection of God. We are invited to be sons and daughters, reflections of God. I feel like our pastors are doing a great job of modeling that, or maybe God's just doing something new this season, but getting to see the pastoral side of Chris, Kris and Ben F is leading me to ask myself, where's my wild side?

I'm not there yet, so I'm preaching to myself. I can't hide behind the pulpit or whatever the mantle of my ministry looks like and act like everything else is up to everybody else. I need to hear God, it needs to be real. I need to let Him speak to me as Himself not change it to what suits me or looks best like me. Until I get that, I'm not there yet.

What does that look like? It looks like risk and not knowing what to do in the moment apart from listening to Him.

Honor & Inheritance

The message on my heart this week has been on living from inheritance. I read this quote from Andy Mason's book, God With You at Work and at first it didn't sit right with me. Our world is very "self-made millionaires" or "started from the bottom now we're here" attitude driven. This statement could offend a lot of people. But this sentence was really just highlighted to me.

Fast forward to sitting in class the next day and Kris Vallotton begins speaking about how one of the smartest tactics the devil has used has been in creating the generation gap. You see, if the younger generation are isolated from the older, they miss out on every lesson and every process the older went through to get to where they are and essentially, end up starting from rock bottom, re-inventing the wheel instead of building a new floor on their ceiling.


God didn't create us to start over after every generation, He created us to build upon inheritance. This is why laying on of hands, inheritance and impartation was such a big deal. Laying on of hands isn't just for healing, that's only instructed once in the Bible in James. James even recognized that it was the elders that were to impart healing. Elders.

It's actually a physical act to show a transfer of what one person has to another person. In Genesis 27, we see all the lengths Jacob went through to get Isaac to lay hands on him and bless him at his deathbed. Later, we see Joseph asking his dad to bless his sons before they died. The laying on of hands wasn't an exchange of property in the physical sense, but these men recognized it had a value far above material goods in the spirit. If we don't recognize value in the spirit, we end up missing out, like the king who struck the ground 3 times instead of more missed out on Elisha's mantle. (2 Kings 13)
That's a good selah right there. Just stop and think about it.  

Recognize that what is happening in the Spirit has far more value than any material goods.

If it was just about stuff, Isaac would have easily taken it back and given it to Esau, but he couldn't, essentially, he said, "what's done is done, I've already given my all to your brother, I can't take it back." It wasn't about cattle or fields, it was something deeper.

So, Kris ties it in to present day, how we hold no value for those who have gone before us and we "retire" people and call them out of date and useless and we lose out on all that they have fought for, so we end up fighting things we could have avoided.

He used the analogy of track runners. How when you run a relay, the person waiting to be handed the baton has to start moving, show the 1st runner he can get up to speed, he can't just sit there and do nothing. If we're gonna win, we have to honor the run of the person who ran before us.

So I dug this out, an old relay race that Kenya won ;-)

You see, the 2nd runner wasn't just sitting around doing nothing, he was up and rearing to go.

I got the full impact of this today in my Bible class with Mike Tesauro. Mike is my new Bible instructor. I've seen him around and heard his name a few times. So I sat in his class not really expecting anything crazy. It's just a Bible class. Theology, facts, etc. A few minutes into the lesson, Mike and his wife start off telling us their history. How they got saved, how their passion for the Word began, how it brought them together, how they've practically, radically applied the Word, how it's led them through bad times in their 33 years of marriage, their ministry and where they are now. Then he goes back to teaching the lesson plan.

My attitude pre-history and after was 180 degrees different. Now, essentially, I knew what they were building and what I could build upon. I felt it in my heart through their story, them handing me the baton, giving me access to their 2nd floor to start building my own passion for the word and the treasures it holds. Like, you could feel the shift in the room. I felt like, what took them 33 years to build, I don't have to fight that hard, for that long. Do I still have to go through process and build my own history, yes. But, it's going to be different for me. I've seen what can be done, I have their testimony, I know what I can do.

I can't put a price tag on what I'm getting from BSSM. It's hard to explain, it's hard for anyone outside of this to understand, (which is why I get the internet talk/criticism) it sounds crazy, but, what I'm getting is an inheritance from people with the deepest histories. I have access to their history. I have legal precedence to pass through the roads they forged. I've seen them live their lives and seen the impact of who they are and I get to be part of their story. How can you put a price tag on that?

Anyway, I'll end it here. Blog etiquette states that I've gone a little word-overboard, but I'm just so excited about this and I hope you catch that!