Beltway Testimonies

Corky Dement testifies to how God can use healthy community:

After playing on one of the Beltway Softball teams, I thought we were reaching out to the community. Little did I know that that was part of what happened. What I have gained is new found friendships from within the church body. There is not a Sunday, or Wednesday that I do not run into one of the Guys or their family members. The new found friendships have encouraged me to strengthen my beliefs, increased my prayer life, and walk what I believe. Even helped my self esteem and self worth, who would have thought a few week commitment to 10 other guys could do that!.

Thank you Beltway for sponsoring this ministry! I hope that you will continue to bless us members.

Melissa Wilson, shares a story of God speaking through her when pastor David was visiting in Israel:

At congregation, pastor David encouraged all Israelis who felt tired or weary to stand up and for the foreigners to pray for them.  My husband and I live in Israel, but we are foreigners, not citizens.  Plus, I don’t feel tired.  So I opted to pray.  I was going to walk quickly across the room to a lady I knew and pray for her in Hebrew just for fun.  As I was about to leave my aisle, a friend of mine, also an Israeli was standing up.  I thought, “Well, I guess I don’t have to go very far.  Look, my friend is tired and needs to be ministered to.”  So, I hugged her.  As soon as we embraced, I began weeping immediately.  I prayed for her as the Lord lead for the “joy of the Lord to be her strength” in this time.  Unexpectedly, she in turn prayed for me and my family.  Later, I had the opportunity to tell her that when we hugged, when I started weeping immediately that it was not my tears but hers.  She told me “I have been beaten up.  I have been shedding a lot of tears lately.”  She started tearing up again.  I sensed the Lord urging me to tell her, “He cries with you”, and so I did.  She was very encouraged by those words and we talked about getting together later.  God is so fun!

Another healing testimony from Brett Stewart:

Today, Tuesday May 6, 2008 at U-nite I was worshipping God in music.  I turned around and saw a college girl and immediately noticed her wrapped wrist before anything else.  I felt right there, “I’m praying over that and God is going to pour out.”

Well I went back to my seat while Brandon Hawk (the speaker) gave a few words of encouragement and joy.  As I was walking back to where the girl was, I decided to ask my good friend Thomas Wilson if he wanted to have some fun with me praying healing over this girl that I didn’t know and wasn’t for sure if she was injured.  He agreed and we made our way over to the college girl.

I asked her if her wrist was hurt and she said that she had strained it yesterday while moving out of her dorm.  She couldn’t move it much and it was giving her pain.  I laid my hands on her wrist and Thomas and I began to call upon the Spirit.  After a while we stopped and asked how she was.  She said it didn’t hurt as much and she could move it more, but that there was still some pain in it.  I told her this time to unwrap it and we were going to pray over it again.  I once again laid my hands on her wrist and Thomas and I began to pour out the Spirit.  Heat was moving, muscles were tensing, and everything was shaking.  We stopped and I asked her how it felt, she just kind of looked into thin space for a second while moving her wrist around and I thought she was going to tell us that she still felt some pain.  But on the contrary, she said that it was gone and that there was no more pain.  Thomas and I asked, “Seriously? There is no pain whatsoever left?” and she said “No!”  I told her that I wanted her to move it every single way it could and to bend it up and down, side to side, and all around.  NO PAIN AT ALL!!!  Instantly healed, GLORY BE TO GOD!  I told her to share it with those that she knew and I thanked her for her faith to let us pray over her and to have faith in receiving God’s healing power.

When you have faith and believe that things not only CAN happen but WILL, it opens the doors for God to come and rock your world!  The glories of Heaven are pouring onto this earth and revival and a revolution is coming!  Do you believe?

From Webb Murphy:

For about 2 years some friends have encouraged me to get involved with Kairos prison ministry. I’ve wanted to, but for whatever reason I never did. Well, I finally decided to sign up & go to a meeting, & 2 weeks ago I helped work Kairos #27 at the Robertson unit. It was awesome. I have recieved blessing after blessing by being a part of this. It’s wonderful to be a part of the body of Christ, & witness how acts of love completely transform lives. I was talking to a new friend from Beltway the other day about how in Matthew, Jesus tells us to feed the hungery, clothe the naked, visit the sick and those in prison, & when we do this we do it to Him. Also, Jesus himself was held as a prisoner; as were MANY of His followers. I had a great time, & I’m still having it. I strongly encourage people to get involved, & watch the body of Christ grow!

Another awesome testimony from Brett Stewart:

I have a friend who had strained her ligaments in her ankle earlier this week, practicing for track. She has a meet on Saturday in which she runs multiple relays and is the anchor leg for one of them as well. Well, her parents, being the amazing, loving, and faithful parents they are, had told me a few times that they wanted me to pray over her. Yesterday, Wednesday 4/23, myself, her parents, and two other amazing adult leaders in our church prayed over her. As I held onto her ankle praying for healing, the others pour out God’s love and plans for her life. They pray for healing, they spoke things about the future, they spoke things about what God wants to do now, and they spoke about how the enemy is trying to prevent blessings and strengths in her. We prayed for a while as the spirit came in and moved, many receiving words of encouragement, and feeling the awesome power of Yahweh Rapha (the healing God). I had to leave soon to play drums for our Echo Night of Worship, but I was soon to realize what God did do that night. Today, Thursday 4/24, she sent me a text saying that when she got home she had no pain in her ankle at all and she totally believed that God had healed her. She spoke of when we were praying over her and heat came into her ankle and it had begun shaking. She is now able to run her races this Saturday by the grace and power of God! The only little pain she has is when she puts weight on it if she were acting like she was rolling her ankle, that’s it and by the grace and power of God, that will be gone tomorrow in Jesus Christ’s name! She is a runner for Christ and she will continue to press in and run towards Him. There is a new definition for the supernatural and that is “THE NATURAL.” God is at work and is using us to bring His glory and Kingdom.

Testimony Unfolded: April 2008

A Life Group leader witnesses the working power of the voice of God:

One of our Life Group leaders received a call from a concerned father whose 28 year old son had gotten arrested for drunk driving, and was now taking up residence at the Taylor County Jail.  The son had requested a Bible and the LG Leader made the delivery.  He was able to meet the young man, we’ll call Thomas, in a small cinder block cubicle inside the secured area.  Merely receiving a Bible brought Thomas to the point of tears and he began confessing how he had made a mess of his life.  He’d recently given his life to Jesus at Beltway and had even been baptized, but the chain of substance abuse had obviously not yet been broken.  After 3 past admissions to rehabilitation programs, a deep sense of rejection still loomed like a dark cloud.  Our LG Leader was praying as he listened and discerned that there was a particular event early in Thomas’ life which was critical to his restoration.  Thomas was able to identify that at age 8 his step father sent him away to an institution for 99 days.  Thomas felt that his step father didn’t want a child that was not “his own blood” and had thrust him out of the home.

The LG Leader decided to risk acting on an impulse inspired by the Holy Spirit.  “Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you where God was when your step father sent you to the institution” he began.  Thomas got quiet, then began shaking.  “God was right there with me!”  Thomas was surprised.  “How do you know He was there?’’  Thomas responded, “He was sitting right by me.”  The Leader took it another step, “What does He look like?”  Astounded, Thomas reported, “He looks just like Jesus!”  Our LG Leader asks, “Well, what are His feelings for you?”  Thomas is now sobbing profusely and exclaims, “He just really loves me!”  The Holy Spirit was so tangibly present I was sure that no security guard would even be able to enter the cubicle.  It was as if we were safely secured behind a thunderous waterfall of God’s Presence.  Thomas lifted his face which itself was flooding with more than just tears, and said, “I feel SO LIGHT!”  “I’ve never felt this way before.  I can’t explain it.”  God had demonstrated that during Thomas’ darkest hour, He was right there loving him.  Thomas now has consequences to face, but he has a brand new hope that was irrefutably birthed by a shaking encounter with the Living God.  I believe he’s got now what he needed at the very core of his being. 

Testimony Unfolded: January 19, 2008

Thomas Wilson, a guitarist on our worship teams, shares how God miraculously intervened in technology:

This last Saturday night, me, Josh Mcqueen, Blake Holder, and Pascoal Mafuieque did our regular deal out in Albany, leading worship for their youth service “Fearless”. We arrived in that great village a couple of hours early to set up and practice. Everything was going well, we set up, and it sounded ok, but a little way into practice Blake’s bass head stopped working. He dismantled it as the rest of us continued on, but to no avail. He had taken that thing apart and had tried so many different things to get it to work that we knew without help it would never happen. Searching for a solution, we called Brenton Dowdy to see if he could hook one of our friends up with a head from the church so that when he arrived later, though Blake would have to play without having practiced, he would at least get to play. We never really found out what happened with that because we soon found the correct solution to our quandary: Jesus.

As Blake sat trying to figure something out, the rest of us began to be discouraged, realizing the songs would be pretty empty without bass, and a spirit of frustration seemed to have infiltrated our midst. At one point, it was so bad that we stopped practicing, and Josh took the initiative to lead us in prayer. we sat and laid down on the floor, praying that God would take away any barriers that would be in our way of experiencing him and that he would smooth out all of the problems we faced. We begged that he would return to us a spirit of peace and a heart of worship. Soon Josh prayed out loud and after he said “Amen”, we looked up, only to see Blake still working on his head. The only difference was that now, he was putting it all back together. I somehow knew he had prayed over it, but Josh apparently didn’t, so he unassumingly asked “dude, what are you doing?” Blake responded confidently that it was going to work this time. Josh simply asked how he had fixed it, and what he had tried differently to get it io work. Blake replied, “nothing.” So as he plugged everything back in and Josh turned it on for him, I remember thinking “it really is going to work. wow.” And sure enough, without changing a thing, he turned it on, plugged in, and began playing, messing with his EQ to get his bass to sound good as the rest of us sat praising God for his Glorious intervention. God heals. People, animals, electronics, you name it. He heals.

So at the beginning of worship, Josh told this testimony, and a great time of worship ensued for all…..supplemented nicely by a very much needed bass guitar.

A prophetic song that I had been given managed to transcend space. I was leading worship for my church’s regular Wednesday night service in which we were taking communion. It was not the typical format though, in that every person was personally prayed for with an elder or pastor to agree with them on anything they wanted victory or freedom in. This particular format created an opportunity for me and the team to play music and sing over them. During that time as well as many others through out the evening the Lord had guided me to sing a particular song over the people that He had given me about a month previously. There was one specific moment, the first that God had prompted me to sing it, that I introduced it as a song that God completely downloaded to me on the spot during a youth New Year’s Eve worship time.   

Immediately following the service I was approached by a man that is in my small group. He was quite excited to share with me that even though he had just returned to America (after spending six months in Iraq) he was certain that he had heard that song in the desert on his iPod. There wasn’t an ounce of uncertainty in his voice or delivery. I asked him if he was sure he wasn’t confusing it with another song and they answered with a certain, “No.” He then stated that he had heard the song sung in my voice and he knew the words already. He said it had been stuck in his head since he had heard it. We began to think through the timing when the Lord reminded us that just a few weeks before during a small group time of worship hosted by his wife at his house (while he was still in Iraq), we had prayed that those who were not with us in person would still be blessed and encouraged by our coming together. That God would meet them where they were at and bless them as though they were present. Soon after the Lord prompted me to sing that new song again. This man was entirely confident that he had spiritually heard the prophetic song we were singing that night. We asked God to bless him like he was present, and God played him a piece of our worship on his iPod! The chorus, rooted from Psalm 34:10, was this; 

 

“Those who seek the Lord

They lack not one good thing

They lack not one good thing”

Tonight after Wednesday Night service a couple came up to me asking the question, “Were you the guy who talked to us in Arby’s?” My memory was being tested, but I finally recognized them. I responded with a yes and then was able to hear a testimony of God’s gentleness and love.  

A few weeks prior I was eating at Arby’s with a co-worker and God highlighted a young family to me. I didn’t know what for right away, they just had my attention. Eventually I began to wrestle with the fact that God was prompting me to give them an encouraging word. I didn’t know what yet, but as I watched them I realized that they had a recognizable peace about them, as well as a gentleness and love. I then thought, “Man, that is a beautiful family.” That was about when God impressed a gentle, “Well yeah, thats what I want you to tell them.” So we finished up our meal and it was time to leave. My palms were sweaty and I was nervous. So I end up walking out of Arby’s with out saying anything. I got maybe two steps out and couldn’t take another step. I literally couldn’t move until I turned around and went back in. Thank God for his grace. I walked up to them, said hello and introduced myself, and then just said something like “I just wanted you to know I noticed that you were a Beautiful family. There is something really special about you and it blessed me.” They expressed their thanks and I left.    Fast forward a couple weeks and they are visiting our Wednesday Night service. They explained to me that that was their first day in Abilene and it ironically felt hectic and their kids were having a “lets be crazy day.” The words the Lord shared gave them some peace and confirmation that they were in the right place. Then they end up at the same church. Now we are in small group together with the guy I was having lunch with! God prompted another member of our small group to invite them with out knowing who they were. Thank you Sovereign Lord.