Forgiveness

This year I've revisited the basics of my faith; forgiveness being one of the cornerstones of what I find it means to be a christian. I've been forgiven through Christ of the great debt I owe for all of my hate, selfishness, pride that eats away at me like a cancer disfiguring my soul and tainting my perspective... My record of wrongs has been erased and washed clean with his blood as payment for my sin. In exchange for my filth he gives me a promise that he will cause all things to work together for good, he gives me life, love, and hope for a brighter tomorrow. He makes me whole and heals my personality flaws, physical ailments, and the core of who I am. It is almost too much to comprehend. As a result of encountering so much of his goodness, I know that his royal pardon from punishment requires me in turn to forgive others regardless of how great or small their offenses are against me. Like Jesus, I have the ability to pardon others through forgiveness not as a reflection of who others are, but as a reflection of who I am as a daughter of the king. To me, forgiveness is releasing others from punishment and giving them permission to live happily ever after. Forgiveness is the door to life because without it parts of me begin to die while I still live and I cannot walk this road in faith assured of salvation. Without it I open the door to all sorts of havoc to be wrecked in my life. As I forgive others I too am forgiven.

"If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins." Matt 6:14-15

December in Redding

Here are some highlights...

KRCR Christmas Party

Gary's Dodge Ball Championship (KRCR team) Cheer Section

Our beautiful Christmas tree. The string with brown paper bags is a swiss tradition were each of us takes turns opening the bags over 24 days of Christmas. They are filled with fun goodies and surprises.

Kristina and Stephen building the ginger bread house in the kitchen

(Swiss friends visiting for a few weeks-soon to be missionaries in Nigeria)

Gabriel making yummy swiss christmas cookies and Damaris serving us her amazing fried bananas with currie. (They are our wonderful house mates. Hope you get to meet them when you come visit.)

Highlights from School

Yey, Lots of exciting things happening lately. One of the lady's in school we know, had ear ache accompanied by several other complications, after several of us prayed for her, she heard popping in that ear and a release of pressure. The never ending ear ache ended. Woohoo!

There have been some incredible testimonies of healing and provision in school over the last several weeks. Four of the lady's in Jessica's core group, that meets once a week to pray and fellowship, we were contending for financial breakthrough, two of which had less than one hundred dollars to their name. All four lady's received and continue to receive miraculous financial provision. Hundreds of dollars were pledged on a consistent basis to one, 2 others received several unexpected checks in the mail to cover expenses, one who was short on her sales for the month, almost by half, far exceeded her quota on the last day to the amazement of her boss. Praise the Lord!

Speaking of bringing home the bacon, mornings are early for Gary as he continues to work for Redding's local news station KRCR in the morning and and for ibethel.tv. He gets up at 3am almost everyday and doesn't stop till late at night juggling being a camera man, editor, and school of ministry student.

This last week he was given his first editing project for Bethel. He is currently editing the footage from the church's Holiday Feast in which the needy of the city are invited to a steak dinner. Family's from the church sign up to host a table which means decorating it with their fine china. Cloths and toys are given away and a Santa photo op is set in the lobby for the children. Most of the 900 attendees this year were homeless or severly low income, some of which Gary ministers to on his Saturday soup kitchen outreach. Damaris, our housemate, ministers to many as well in the morning breakfast outreach, where she is a server and greeter; often riding on the church bus that provides transportation in the community to and from the church. Bethel will eventually offer the video as a training tool for other churches to have their own Holiday Feast.

Jessica has been working with the supernatural school of ministry for children teaching a puppet AMT. Here are some of the wonderful and animated Jr. High students she works with each week. Yes, Skeeter has temporarily lost an eye, sniff.

For those of you interested in the coolade we've been drinking this year, here's a list of the life changing books we've been reading up until christmas for school. We've been learning a lot about our identity in Christ, kingdom principles, and of course how to operate in the supernatural.

Living Water

Sometimes it is difficult to describe the unique way God chooses to reveal himself, especially when it is through impressions, fleeting images (not so fleeting images), dreams, visions, and still quiet whispers that speak to our hearts. As of late I have been encountering the Lord in new ways and becoming more and more aware that some of the experiences and messages he is giving me are not just for me, but that he wants to repeat them in others and bless them as they are shared. The way he speaks is endlessly creative. Here's one of the ways I experienced him this last month, I was holding my hands out in front of me during worship, when I felt living water pour over them. It was like liquid love. Seeing it made me thirsty and my mouth water. Instinctively I lifted my hands to my face and took a drink. It was so sweet and pure and I felt so much peace. Drinking a little only made me thirsty for more like I had to have all of it, yet knowing at the same time it was an unending supply from an eternal source that would never run dry. -yes, I did get tipsy) After that I saw this picture that this last week I finally sat down to paint after it wouldn't leave my head and and I felt heavy with an urgency to paint it. I hope it blesses you!

"Living Water"-John 4:14

Acrylic on Canvas, 36x24

Living water fill my soul,

Living water make me whole,

Lift and drink what never ends,

and you will never thirst again!

Funner than Fiction

Wow, it was great to see our family and our Living Water's family in Pasadena this last weekend. We made it safely home last night. The performance went well, it turned out we had been booked for the Hollywood film festival Gala Reception. Gary was a handsome centurion battling gladiators on floating island in the middle of the pool. Ironically Jessica scared a reaction out of Zachary Quinto, Hero's ambiguous villain, Sylar, as she suddenly came to life as Roman marble statue. Fun, fun.

School it just amazing. The focus through out this first semester so far is on developing a private history with the Lord. We are being taught the principle that personal revival always precedes corporate revival. It is exciting being apart of a class of students seeking the Lord for his kingdom to be manifest on the earth as we first experience his presence in our prayer closets and go through personal transformation. Momentum is gaining each week as we come together as a body of believers. The energy of excitement is building and becoming electric. Friday, spontaneous praise and worship erupted in class for 45 minutes. There was no worship band or singers, but His presence filled the sanctuary as a thousand plus students stood in unity and experienced a little bit of heaven. Pastor Bill was scheduled to speak, but honored the move of the spirit and stood or knelt in silence at the podium. Someone was healed of a neurological disorder and others of wrist pain, near the end of worship. Pastor Bill ended up with only about five minutes to speak, and spoke about honoring others when they recognize the Holy Spirit moving. We are excited about this coming week and look forward to future updates.

October Update

Hello, family and friends.

We are excited to share with you all that is going on up here, but know it is not possible to fully describe the goodness of God we have been experiencing. To those of you who have suggested that we have blogitis, yes it is true -these last six weeks have been tremendous and a lot to process. Thank you for your patience. We think this blog should have been called AJourneyOfFaith instead of GaryandJessica.

Some highlights from the last six weeks...

-Gary got a part time job at KRCR, the local news station, as a camera man and editor.

-The arrival of our Swiss house mates, Gabriel and Damaris Baldinger. She was selected as one of the worship leaders out of many who auditioned this year. It has been great hosting the worship team and other colorful international guests that find their way to our home. They have really been a delight and a blessing.

-The Jamie Rohrig's wedding-Congradulations!- it was great fun and an honor to share in the event as videographers and friends.

-Gary was offered a part time job with Bethel's I.T. department-running cameras, live streaming, etc. which translates into a work scholarship for him. We had no way of paying for school until the day before school started when he was offered this opportunity. We are making Jessica's tuition payments in installments until Christmas. God is so faithful.

-The starting of school-woo-there are over a thousand first years alone and a large number of married couples and families.

So much is going on it is too much to describe, ... the presence of the Holy Spirit, world renown speakers, impartation, {affirmation-expansion-as well as paradigm shifts in our theology}, really awesome books (we are already on our fourth in addition to reading through the Bible), the starting of AMTs -advanced ministry training, and outreach- we find out this week where we are assigned, home groups, small groups, revival groups, prayer, awesome main sessions, and weekend services.

- Jessica's first gallery showing of her art at the Coffee Gallery on North Lake, in Pasadena. Thanks Dad for doing the installation. The artwork will be up until Oct. 30.

ALOT has been going on- but is has been so good and God is so faithful, we have some pretty crazy stories to tell about God working in ways so outside our box of who we think He is. It would take up too much space to write about them all here, so we guess we'll have to come visit you, or you come visit us (we have a guest room...) We will end this post with the...

THE TOP TEN REASONS

You know you are at a School of Supernatural Ministry if...

-there were so many healings on your revival retreat it is ridiculous.

-At least 35 people get baptized on Sunday night every month (they simply baptize people on stage during worship to save time.)

-The 24-7 prayer house, really is 24-7

-There is a traffic jam in the church parking lot every day

-You try out for the dance team totally drunk in the Holy Spirit.

-You haven't stopped shaking since last week

-You have activities at school that require words of knowledge and prophecy to complete

-You can get out of a lecture session by getting the speaker drunk in class

-When your friends idea of a good time is treasure hunting

-You are overwhelmed by God's goodness on a daily basis, and pre-christians seek you out to ask about your church and God.

Article in Redding's Paper

"Redding among areas most likely to quickly recover from housing bust"
After months of gloomy real estate news in Redding, Forbes.com listed the area in the top 10 in the country most likely to quickly recover from the nationwide housing bust.
The online version of the popular business magazine on Thursday listed Redding as No. 8 behind Denver and Bremerton, Wash.
The No. 1 ranking went to the Miami and Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., area.
Forbes writer Matthew Woolsey noted that sales in the Redding area are up nearly 30 percent over a year ago and about a third of those sales are bank-owned properties. 8/15/09

Pretty cool, who would have ever thought!
http://www.redding.com/news/2009/aug/15/redding-among-areas-most-likely-to-quickly-from/

August Update

Gary's Media Production Company

Gary has started his own media production company and is in the process of securing a name for it. Check out the promos he made for Innovo.

Welcome!!

Welcome to our blog. We hope you enjoy viewing our posts and in the future continue to stop by for up dates. With so many friends and family, it is sometimes difficult to keep in contact on a regular basis when we are so far away. Our hope is that this site will be a blessing to you and an effective way of participating more in our lives. Phone calls are always welcome and visits if you are ever on your way up north. Thank you all for your encouragement and support as we travel down this road called life that has so many twists and turns. Each and every one of you is a blessing and a gift to us. Faithfully yours-the Ostranders