How has my life changed in the past few weeks since coming to RBI, in 300 words? When I first heard the assignment I figured it would be easy. That turned out to be wrong. The problem with the question is that as I reflected on the past three weeks I didn’t feel anything extraordinary had taken place. Actually, after being here for the last three weeks I began to doubt whether or not I was right for RBI. I sat in the church watching people fall under the power of the Holy Ghost, yet I felt nothing. Despite prayer and hands from the Pastor, I lacked the “fire” that so many others seemed to automatically have.

My journey to RBI started on a hospital bed after a half month battle with a dangerous infection. I was awaken from a medicated sleep to find my TV on channel 2. Two things were unusual about my awakening. One, it was 1:30 A.M. when my monitor’s alarm woke me. However, there was no reason for my monitor to go off. Second and more importantly, I fell asleep praying, asking God to lead me to a place where I could grow.

Without going into my complete testimony, my whole journey to this point has been amazing but the past few weeks have been challenging. It hasn’t been very long but I feel like I’ve lost something again and when I see everyone at RBI so anointed I began to wonder if I had sinned and lost my way. It wasn’t till tonight that I remembered that faith is a beautiful thing. The hardest thing about faith is that when we want the answers the quickest it seems to be the time that God is expecting us to press in and believe.

I realized that in the last few weeks that I have gone under construction. Sometimes when you’re building the foundation you don’t know how awesome the structure is going to look when it’s done; only that it’s going to be awesome. If I had to summarize what I’ve experienced in the last few weeks then it would be, that during construction sometimes a moment of pause helps you realize that God is working all of the time….

When we were asked to write about what God has been doing in us since we got here for school, I have to say I was a bit at a loss. Not because God hasn’t been doing things in me, they just haven’t become concrete yet. I know for sure that this season is a season of demarcation in my life. From when God first called me out of California and the apathetic, backslidden life I had allowed myself to degenerate into, to this day, I can, in fact, see the fruit of this decision. Tonight Pastor Eric was giving an alter call and a sentence he spoke summed up my life in California exactly.

Drinking, smoking pot, living in sensuality, and yet yearning constantly for God to change me. I knew all of those things were empty and futile, but I felt alone, had no community, no body of believers or even friends to spur me on to what was right. At every turn people were encouraging me down that road of self fulfillment, of instant gratification. Thanks be to God that He spoke clearly enough for me to hear Him in the state I was in to FLEE California. There were many acts of supernatural provision made by Him just to get me here. I had no idea, at all, what was in store for me. I had never even heard of Pastor Rodney Howard Brown or any of this ministry before my mom started watching in the early spring.

I saw the transformation in her life, and she planted the seed in my head to come here. From the first service I have heard confirmed words that He spoke to me, while I was yet a far off, words like that by the end of summer I won’t recognize myself, and that all of these trials are just preparation for some future circumstance when I’ll need to look back and see the wondrous things He has done and gotten me through, and that I need to start asking for the big things of God and not begging for survival from the Creator of the universe.

The all-consuming fire of the Holy Spirit is burning away the fear and trepidation I have about speaking in front of people, about being seen by people, about being myself. As for my life-long battle with lack, He told me last Thursday that lack is no more in my life! I believe Him not only for my needs for right now, but for His big, big plans for me! In each case where my flesh rises up and I continue in obedience in spite of it, like my first time soul winning or working on the phones, He blesses me abundantly right after in my spirit. There are layers and layers of freedom being unwrapped as I continue to cry out to Him.

Even in the pain of crucifying my flesh daily there is new oil, new wine, new joy of the Lord to sustain me! I have no where to run away to. There is nothing else. I told Him the first week of revival that if He didn’t give me boldness, if He didn’t BURN inside of me, then I might as well die. It sounds dramatic, but I don’t want anything else, and if I don’t really get this right now, I’m finished. I’m so marked by this school, even just so far as this is the beginning, that I will never be able to settle for mediocre or complacent again, in Jesus name…..

Since I have been here at Bible College the Lord has been providing for me financially and a place to live. I have not stretched my faith in such a way like I have since I came down to Bible College. God has healed my broken heart and taken away grief from losing my Mother last year.

God has rekindled the flame that once had burned bright but through hardships in life went very dim. Growing up in church I knew God but I ran from my calling and God had his hand on my life in a powerful way. When Pastor Rodney came to my Grandfather’s church I was a young girl and when he laid his hands on me I never experienced the Holy Ghost like I did that night.

When I was 16 I lived in Tampa with my Father and I remember sitting in the service seeing people with joy and thinking that it was crazy….little did I know I was going to get it a short time after, it was like the scripture talking about a strong and mighty wind and before I knew it I was on the floor laughing uncontrollably……that lasted from 10:30 pm until 2:00 am!!!! I had never experienced the joy until that night. I had got a touch from God but I didn’t have a change that needed to happen.

Now being back and also going to Bible College has changed my life completely; I have been getting smacked with the fire from crying uncontrollably to laughing uncontrollably!! I have been out soul winning leading people to the Lord. I have a Holy boldness like never before and I love it. I thank God for using Pastor Rodney and Pastor Adonica to be lead by the Spirit…..Amber S.

The layers are being peeled off one at a time! It is quite painful at times. The Lord is showing me a picture of myself, my heart, and is going deep within and delivering and restoring me.  He is revealing what must go and be replaced with more of Him. The transition from Center Island to being here at RBI has been an act of amazing grace.  My Lord has heard my cry for more, for more of Him!!!

But now, I have come, yes I have come to a place of refuge and of strength, and that strength is being instilled in me by the Holy Spirit.  I am receiving and I grow stronger each and every day and with the continual filling and boldness of the Holy Ghost standing up within me.  I am flying with His anointing to save the lost!  I thank God that I am well fed here at RBI to overflowing so that I may pour out of what has been given to me to others.  I consider it an honor to be able to work and be trained in the ministries here at “The River Church”.  Thank you so very much for the generous gifts you have given me to come to school at RBI…..Cheryl R.

Isaiah chapter 49 and I’ll read verses 14 and 15. Isaiah is in the Old Testament. Isaiah chapter 49 verses 14 and 15.

I am totally different. I cannot fully describe in detail the changes that have taken place, but in one simple phrase, “I feel brand new.”

The best way that I can describe what has happened over the last three weeks is that I have been marinating in the Word and the anointing. Like a good marinade, the combination is breaking me down to the person God had in mind. So many things have bubbled up to the surface. My flesh has been crucified and then burnt with the fire. The fire of God is going deeper, down to the inner core, touching the “small” things that must change.

Since I have been here, I now understand that a pure heart is the starting point. When I first arrived, the fire made my heart tender again. God is renewing my mind to not care about the temporal things, but to focus on eternity. I can feel the weights and sin falling off. Now, I not only know that I am free based on the Word, but I feel free. Freedom lives on the inside.

The first time I noticed the difference was in praise and worship. I could jump, wave my hands, and shout without holding back. I felt lighter. I know it’s not all about feelings, but I am different. I have been made free. I have a new song! I am freer to do what God has called me to do. My thoughts are changing; the song in my heart is sweeter; life is sweeter. My old life is gone! It’s like I’ve started over and this is how I have always lived. I am in the right place at the right time, in the perfect will of God, and there is no other place I would rather be…Danielle W.

talking about the images in our minds, of our eyes, and we’re going to focus on this deep concept called “mother love”.

I was truly shocked when I was given the scholarship to RBI, when we were told that we would be tested I was not ready for the level that I was to be test, I was test financially from day one.

However I have learned to trust the LORD more.

My experience at RBI has thus far been a positive one, I had only led one person to the Lord prior to coming to RBI, however sense being here I have had the pleasure of leading at least one each week to the LORD.

The Lord did tell me that the money I am needing for fuel will be there as I need it.

And he also said he will not let me fail.

Even thou I am just truly beginning in the ministry even thou I was called in 1993, it has been far easier than I had anticipated to lead someone to the LORD.

I have been lifted up far more than I had anticipated before coming to RBI.

This is a good thing because I had not had any ministers really talk loving and plain to me as I have in the short time I have been here.

Although I have not received a touch like some one else may have from the holy spirit, and I am not comparing myself with anyone else, I do know that the power will be there when he and the power is needed.

If the LORD has touched me in any other way it will take time to know in what way I have been touched.

I will simply have to take it one day at a time to find out what more he has for me.

I know what he has promised just not the timing.

Rodney Howard Browne: I’m going “Oh no!” and I’m about in tears, so I’m walking and I happen to sit down by my mom on the front row and my mom leaned over to me and she said something that only a mother could say.

I came back to Tampa 3 weeks ago expecting God to do great things this year. I have decided to make this the year of breakthrough and surrendering everything I have to God. He has done an amazing work in me since I’ve been here and He has taken me to a new level. I have grabbed a hold of the principle of sowing and reaping and it has become a major part of my everyday life. The great commission is not and event but an everyday life style to me.

God is a God of love and mercy and He reveals His goodness to me daily in different ways. God is there to comfort you in times of need and He promised to give you the desires of your heart. He will provide in all of our needs and He will take us from glory to glory. He wants to see us prosper and wants to open the flood gates of heaven for us. God has provided me with everything I needed and He is still providing. We just have to ask Him and remind Him. Have the faith to believe that you have already received it and then wait for the manifestation….Zante P.

She whispered to my ears these words, “Your voice sounded real good”. I said, “Mom, thanks a lot. I’ve blown the Lord’s Prayer.-

My wife and came here from Finland to spend a second year at RBI. During the first year we didn’t have much. We shared an apartment with two other students and we usually walked to school. That was four years ago. This time God has blessed us more than enough!!!

Before we came from Finland, we agreed to switch cars with two Finnish River members, who went to Finland to minister for 9 months. Then a friend of ours received us to her home until we can find a permanent solution. After one week I got a part-time position at the IT department of RMI, which made it possible for us to live in our own apartment this time! We are so grateful for that! Then when we talked with some friends of ours, they told us that they are starting a traveling ministry and that they are selling all their furniture! So now we’ve got all the furniture we need also! God is so good 🙂

We are so thankful to God that we can be part of a church that is full of the fire of God and whose focus is souls! There are not many that kind of churches in Finland at the moment. Here we can both receive from God and serve Him, and be part of the Great Awakening! This is really an oasis for us!! We feel that God called us here to get refreshed, get full of the word and the fire of God and then be launched to our destiny…..Heimo T.

I was thinking during my prayer, “Hey, this is pretty easy. No problem here”. –

I am seeing something with the Great Awakening that I have only dreamed of but had given up hope it would ever happen.  It is the first glimpse of unity in the body of Christ.  Ministries are coming together under the banner of the church to serve the heard of the church, the Lord Jesus, in fulfilling His great commission to go into all the world and preach the gospel.  Finally it is no longer about one man.  It’s about Jesus and His body doing what we were created and designed to do.  Go into all the world and preach the gospel.

I heard a minister recently explain that the world spoken of in the context of the great commission is not the earth.  It is the world system.  He called it the Babylonian system that hates Jesus.  It’s for all of those in that system that He died.  The minister said we go into that system with the wealth of the Kingdom of God to seek and save that which is lost.

Many men and women over the centuries have made significant impacts on this world system for the glory of God, but now we are seeing something entirely different.  Every member of the body of Christ is stepping up to the plate.  They are coming to Tampa from everywhere to receive the fire of God and then go back to their home towns and proclaim the good news.  -Mary F

I had my prayer laminated right here in my Bible and I walk up and threw it on the pulpit and I grabbed the pulpit like this and I began to pray this high priestly prayer and folks, everything was going great.

Another amazing week is over. Another week of saved souls, healings and also touched people. I am so happy to see what God is doing to people.

First when I was in the call center this week to minister to people that was amazing to see how hungry they are. It is not just about them wanting to be saved or just get a prayer for the need that they have. It is about acknowledging who is the One Who God and ruler in heaven and on earth. There was one guy who is so hungry for the things of God that he is desperate and discouraged by his church who don’t want to do anything else as only to have an hour long meeting and that’s it. But after the prayer he was so encouraged to go out on the streets and change people lives.

There was another lady who had an issue with her back. As I understood she was suffering for years from really difficult issue in her body. She have to go to make X-ray next week to see how has that progressed. After we prayed for healing she said that pain is gone. Now she actually wants to make X-ray to make sure that everything is gone and to show everybody that Jesus is the healer!

Today I went out on the streets to soul-win and I have done this for a while now buy I’m still amazed how power of God can humble down even most overconfident guys. There was one guy from Jamaica who wanted to talk me out of soul-wining. What I did was took his hand to just pray for him. And guess what? Few moments later, the gentlemen was praying the prayer of salvation and barely holding himself together not to start to weeping. God is doing amazing! -Edijs L.

And that’s what I did. I was sitting there in those giant throne chairs you know, the solo ended, and the organ, so I walked up there. –