Adventures in Second Year School of Ministry

Hello Friends,
We hope you all are doing amazingly well. We are great- excited about the Lord and this next season of our lives!!! We thought we’d send out a letter letting you all know how our summer was and our upcoming plans for the year… As we’ve said before, we really want to work at being better communicators about our lives and what God is doing- and we are STILL working at getting better at this. It seems that life can get so full at times and before we know it, it’s been a few months without sending out any kind of news…

Our summer:
**Aaron did some carpentry work at the same place he’s been working throughout the year

**Crystal pursued her jewelry business and we did some big shows in Washington, Oregon and California. It has been a great experience and things are going well. We are seeing that indeed this could be a way to support ourselves (at least partially) while doing missions by doing shows in the summer (if we are back in the US).

--> Crystal showing off our booth at Creation Fest last summer <--

**We went on a ministry trip with Chris (outreach and evangelism director) to the coast in August. We saw people saved, healed and encouraged. Normally our pastors take teams of 5-15 people to minister with them, but since this was a smaller church, WE were the ministry team. It was a great (and stretching) experience. We got to fly there in a 4-seater plane. Pretty sweet!
-->Crystal, Aaron, pilot Ben, and Chris O on a Ministry Trip to Garberville<--

**We got to see both of our families! Cool happenings in our families include Aaron’s youngest brother, Jesse coming back to the Lord and Crystal’s sister in law graduating from PA (physician’s assistant) school top of her class- Very cool!
At our booth (Creationfest) Crystal, Aaron, Ben (pilot) and Chris

This year:
**We are back at the school of ministry for 2nd year. So far, it has been amazing. The focus of second year is leadership training and giving students practical opportunities to step out in their giftings and get ministry experience

**We are: overseeing a ministry called “Adopt-a-Block” (relational ministry in different neighborhoods), leading small groups, helping in the church kitchen preparing meals for the underprivileged, and going on more ministry trips with different pastors and leaders

**We are going to be meeting at the missions director’s (Eric’s) house every month with other “missions minded” people to build relationships and talk about missions’ stuff. We are in close communication with Eric about next year (more on this in the next section…)

**We are planning on going to Mozambique for our 2 week school missions trip in April, 2008

After this year:
**We are excited about the possibility of joining Tracy Evans (Bethel missionary) in central Mozambique sometime after we are finished with 2nd year. She spoke at our school last year and we were amazed by her heart and her life experiences. We connected with her recently and had a great time with her and were excited about how similar our hearts and philosophy of ministry are. It seems like it could be a great fit!!! The main need they have there is for “teaching and discipleship” which we are both passionate about! She really wants to see solid believers and leaders raised up. She has a team of international and national missionaries that are running a ministry school and have planted several churches. They minister in the prisons and work with the rich and the poor!!! They are going to start free English and leadership classes for government officials, believing that if the leaders of a nation either get saved or start leading with Biblical Principles, the whole nation will be affected.

**Green card Saga- originally, we were thinking of working next summer and then going to join Tracy in the fall (2008) and staying for up to a year. We then realized if we were to do that Crystal’s green card would expire during that time and we have to be in the States to go through the “renewal” process in December, 2008. Without getting into the boring details, we need wisdom as in when to go… if we go in 2008, we will not be able to stay as long since we have to be back by December… but if we wait until 2009 after Crystal’s green card is renewed we would be able to go for longer. In any case we are planning on going to Mozambique in April for a few weeks to check things out and make sure we would want to move there… so your prayers are appreciated as we seek out God’s timing and confirmed direction for our lives.

We love you guys and would love to hear what’s up with all of you! Our info is the same as before, so stay in touch! Big hugs,

Aaron and Crystal Stevens

crystalstevensis@gmail.com (541) 515-1167
aaronstevensis@gmail.com (541) 913-5223
18848 Country Hills Dr.
Cottonwood, CA, 96022

Report on Japan and Redding Missions Trips - (A Little Late)

April 2007 - Unexpected Turn of Events
Hi everyone! Missions week has now come and gone and we are excited to share some cool stories of what God did. Some of you know the events that “transpired” the month before we left. Because we were in the process of getting Crystal’s Green card, she was not supposed to leave the country without either her Green card (which we weren’t sure when it was coming) or a “travel document” which we had applied for last year and should have already arrived a couple of months before our trip. A month before, it had still not arrived so we requested that it be expedited. Finally, a week before the trip we received a call in which they notified us that the travel document had been denied- since on the application form we had checked off one box incorrectly!!! The lady recommended that we set up an appointment at the immigration office is Sacramento and she said “she couldn’t see why they wouldn’t be able to do something for us” as we were scheduled to leave in several days. Unfortunately the immigration officer’s response was not what we had hoped and they said that unless this trip was a “situation of life and death” they couldn’t help us (which Aaron tried to convince her that it was since we have not been apart since being married!). So…Aaron journeyed on to Japan while Crystal joined “Team Redding”. As a side note- Crystal’s Green card came in the mail just several days after Aaron left to Japan… somewhat frustrating timing but we are excited to be able to travel freely from here on out!!!


Japan (Aaron)

-->Sushi with my host parents Kazuya & Mayumi!<--

WOW, THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH for your prayers and support for this trip and while I was gone! Japan was an awesome time for our team, and the Lord was so faithful to move and bless out time there with tons of great fruit! It was a little bittersweet for me, having to be away from my AMAZING wife Crystal for the first time ever (and hopefully the last!), but it was also pretty great to be a part of some real pioneering work in a country where the Gospel has had a hard time in the past, but now is on the brink of a mighty move of God! Japanese people are VERY HUNGRY for the Kingdom, believers and pre-believers! Everyday our team of 12 broke up in 2 to 4 teams and did meetings in churches and schools all over the Osaka region (2 to 3 meetings per day, sometimes traveling up to 4 hours away) in which we did a lot of really practical teaching and impartation on the Kingdom, healing, prophecy, evangelism, and parenting. The Lord really showed up and moved in every church we went to with many people getting miracles of healing, and amazing prophetic words from God, and best of all, it was really cool to see the excitement when we had them pray for each other and people would get healed!! A couple of our team went in to the hospital with a pastor and prayed for a paralyzed lady who had a stroke and had not walked in four months. After they prayed and she started moving different body parts and eventually stood up and walked, the pastor and others who witnessed it were so excited and surprised at how simple healing is! The pastor gave the testimony to his church that night (It was a large Baptist church) and shared how he was really inspired to have healing teams at their church!! Hallelujah!! We taught at a YWAM staff conference and also hosted a 2 day “Take It To The Streets Conference” where we did some practical training and then split up the people into a bunch of teams and sent them out into downtown Osaka to do Treasure Hunts (like a scavenger hunt for people where we pray for the Lord to give us clues to Where and Who our treasure is, Descriptions of the person, any Random clues, and Problems or Needs in their life that we can pray for. Then we go were our clues take us and find the person, tell them that they are TREASURE, and pray for their problem, and they get healed and suddenly really open to Jesus!). I got to see the Japanese people on my team step out in faith and see the Lord heal several people through their hands and really be used to touch people’s lives on the streets! All the other teams had tons of great testimonies too, and the people there were so excited that we found out the week after we got back that they had already started doing treasure hunts on their own and God was totally doing miracles! Looks like the seeds we planted are growing already!! The Lord is so FAITHFUL and HE IS ON THE MOVE!!

Redding (Crystal)
At the beginning of the week I felt like Philippians 2 would be a significant passage for me during Redding Missions week. It talks about Jesus (although being God) coming to earth as a servant. I love how Jesus was all-powerful… healing the sick, raising the dead, preaching and teaching with power and authority, yet he was not “above” washing his disciples dirty feet!!! We had a lot of opportunities to serve our community in practical ways. Teams went to different businesses to help with whatever they needed help with, we had barbeques and kids activities in neighborhoods where students visit weekly and on the last day we painted a low income apartment building. While we were painting, a group of students took the kids from that building out to eat and then to Old Navy to buy them new clothes. It was so fun to see them come back and show off their new clothes. We even had a few of them help with some of the painting (a little sketchy but you could tell they felt very important so we let them be!) We finished the day off with a barbeque, worship, piñatas and face painting for the residents.
As well as “practical service” we were able to minister at a few different churches and even hold several “crusades” in which people were touched by God, healed and most importantly saved! At one service, we went forward and called people out of the crowd to share encouraging prophetic words for them. This was the first time I have done this publicly so it was a bit of a stretch but very encouraging as God put things on my heart for a couple different people. Afterwards I prayed for a lady who had intense pain in her elbow and she was healed!!

A Few Other Exciting Stories
One of the highlights of the week after missions is that all the teams come back and we spend a good chunk of time sharing testimonies of the AMAZING things God did. Our Pastor, Bill Johnson, said that there were more salvations and healings in this one mission’s week than all the years combined up till now! Here are a few stories:

**LOTS of salvation on all the trips! The team that went to South Africa was invited to speak at a school and around 1000 kids gave their lives to Jesus!

**One of the students got the chance to go into a hospital room in Mozambique and pray for the sick. ALL 8 of the people in the room were healed (including deaf ears opening up)

**13 Blind people received sight in South Africa bringing the total for all the trips to almost 30!!

** There was a “creative miracle” in Australia in which a student laid her hand on a ladies ankle and the Lord created a bone that she was missing!

**Food was multiplied in Mozambique… they just kept scooping beans out of the pot and the level did not lower until the end when all were fed!

**There was a team in Mexico that taught about the kingdom of God at a local church. A week later one of the ladies from the church shared that her husband had died and was dead for 3 hours, and when she prayed, God raised him from the dead! COME ON!!

Sounds like the book of Acts, huh?

Thanks
We just want to say a BIG thank you for all who prayed for us and supported us financially. We so appreciate you. Almost all of the money that was raised for Crystal’s portion of the trip has been put back in our Bethel account for future missions trips so we are thankful for that and excited about where that may be! Love you all!
Aaron & Crystal

PS: Please pray for us that we finish strong and get everything done as the school year is ending on May 20th, and also for good job situations this summer so we can make tons of money for school next year! BLESS YOU!

More, Lord!

In the last post, I mentioned a few people we've been getting to know through our "adopt a block" outreach. Well, yesterday we had an AMAZING time with Carrie. She was having a rough time and Aaron and I were talking and praying for her when Chris Overstreet (the director of outreach at Bethel) walked up to us. We introduced her to Carrie and moments later he said, "I feel like God's giving me some impressions about you. Can I share?" Then, he began to speak things about her past and things she was going through in the present and things that God was wanting to do in her life. She was totally crying and touched by God. It was awesome! We prayed through a lot of things with her including unforgiveness of others and herself and prayed for the filling of the Spirit. She might be coming to church with us this Sunday which would be cool. She really needs Christian community and encouragement to really walk with the Lord again. Keep praying!

Aaron and I walked away from this whole situation totally blessed at what God did but also realizing that we want and need more!!! Like Chris, we want to be able to walk into situations where we don't know a person and be sensitive to what the spirit is saying... revealing things that we couldn't possibly know that will open them up to God! We've experienced "a measure" of this but we know there's so much more. The funny thing about yesterday was that we had already spoken some of the same things that Chris did to Carrie but when Chris said them there was an authority that went with the words. If we look at the life of Jesus we see that people were amazed not just at his teaching (words) but at his authority!!! We believe that this same authority is available to us and we want to walk in it in increasing measure!

Back to School...

After a wonderful 2 week break for Christmas with family and friends we are back at school. It's great to be home! A few highlights since being back:

Outreach- we are in an outreach group called "adopt a block" where we go and visit a neighborhood every Thursday afternoon. We've been developing relationships with the people in that community over the past months. At first it was a little weird knocking on doors and starting up conversation with strangers but we are at the place now where we can say that quite a few of them are friends. There are a few families that are really receptive to hanging out with us and some of them are quite open to God. One lady, Kerri, said to us when we walked up to her house yesterday, "I was hoping you wouldn't pass by without stopping in and praying for me." She has been to church before but doesn't seem to be walking very closely to the Lord right now. She is so open though! The first time we met her we knew it was a total "God encounter" as we prayed with her and through tears she told us she knew God sent us to her. Pray for Christina and Magdaleno (a really cool Mexican family and their kids). They're religious background is catholic but we're not sure how much of an understanding of "relationship with God" they have. They have been SO sweet to us and even had us into their house the other day for burritos! Lastly, please pray for Colby, his girlfriend Kristen and her daughter Celeste. Colby has recently left the "party scene", drinking, etc. and is in the place where he's wondering what to replace it with. He doesn't have many friends that are a positive influence and he's been really warm towards us - so we are trying to hang out with him more. We really just want the whole neighborhood to be blessed and that the people we've been getting to know would enter into a relationship with Jesus... that their lives and families would be transformed!

Class has been amazing this week. The past two days we've had a special speaker called "Steve Backlund". His teaching has been rocking our worlds... he's taught on the renewing of our mind and the importance of having an accurate, God centered view of ourselves... A lot of his teaching comes from the verse that says that "as a man thinks, so he is!". God's been challenging us both to speak God's truth and his promises over our lives and laugh at the lies that the enemy constantly throws in our direction.

We also started a new "elective" this week (churchplanting). Paul Manwarring, our teacher, is AMAZING! God has used him in powerful ways in the prison system in England (where he's from) and we are so excited to get to know him better and glean from his wisdom and life experience. We are constantly blown away by the quality of leaders here... we are so blessed!

Christmas Newsletter/ Update......

(Note: MOST OF YOU GOT THIS UPDATE EITHER BY SNAIL OR E-MAIL, BUT IN CASE YOU DIDN'T HERE IT IS!)

Married & Moved
Hi! We thought we’d send an “update” since we haven’t talked to most of you in a while. Our wedding was more than we could have asked for and our honeymoon in Hawaii was equally amazing. WE LOVE MARRIAGE!! A week after returning, we moved to Redding, California. Many have asked, “Why Redding?!” Well, we wanted to move somewhere away from our comfort zones for our first year of marriage to focus on one another and on seeking the Lord about our future. The reason we chose Redding was that there is a great church there called “Bethel” that is experiencing a mighty move of God, and daily seeing genuine signs of REVIVAL! We had visited before and loved it, and without a doubt we both knew the Lord was calling us there, knowing that this is a movement that we could totally partner with to do missions.

School of Ministry
A week after moving to Redding we began to pray about the possibility of going to the school of ministry at Bethel. We prayed that God would confirm it financially if we were to go. A few days later a family friend called us saying that we had been on her heart and she asked us if we needed money for anything. Long story short, she sent us a generous donation that paid for our deposit and a good chunk of our tuition. So, we are now both first year students and it is amazing! The teaching is incredible and we are blessed to be part of a school that highly values both the fruit of the spirit and the gifts of the spirit. We have deep respect for our teachers, pastors, and peers as we are seeing their wisdom, character and power. Weekly we hear unbelievable testimonies and see with our own eyes people being healed and saved. As we’ve reached out to people, prayed for them and shared the truth of Jesus with them we have been reminded that “the harvest is plentiful” and people are more open to the Lord than sometimes we realize. We are living in exciting times for sure!

When we moved here we didn’t know how long we would stay, but as we have prayed – God has put a desire in our hearts to stay here for at least another year so that we can complete the 2nd year of school. Although we both have degrees and have been to Bible School, we totally feel like what this school has to impart and teach us is absolutely vital for our preparation to minister and demonstrate the Lord’s Love and Power. We have also decided to begin the process of becoming “Bethel missionaries”. Their missions program has an incredibly large vision and we are so excited to be part of it. We are open to serving in whatever way is needed over these next couple years until we are “sent out” to the nations. We are interested in knowing if and how you would be interested in partnering with us now and in the future, so if you could take a minute to fill out the enclosed card, we would totally appreciate it!

Missions Trip to Japan, Work, & Other Random Stuff….
Part of our school is a 2 week mission’s trip in March. We will be going Japan. On the back of this sheet we’ve included more details. Other than school, Aaron is working part time building gazebos and custom cottages. Crystal is still waiting for her “work permit” but has been keeping busy cooking, cleaning and making jewelry (and looking for ways to sell some of it!). We’re starting to make some good friends and overall we are SO BLESSED by the Lord to be where we are, doing what we’re doing!!! To check on what we’re up to you can go to our blogspot: aaronandcrystal.blogspot.com (which we are going to try and update at least once or twice a month). We’d love to hear how you all are, so let us know what you are up to! WE LOVE YOU ALL!!

MAY YOU OVERFLOW with HIS AMAZING LOVE and JOY TODAY!!
Aaron & Crystal

Japan Trip Details and Support Info

Taking God’s Love & Power to Japan!!!

Dear Friends & Family,

We hope you are all super blessed. We are doing AMAZING! Daily, we’re BLOWN AWAY at God’s goodness towards us and excited about all the things he is doing in the world! As mentioned in our update, we are going on a mission’s trip to Japan in March. There were several trip options and all students selected their 1st, 2nd and 3rd choices. Our first choice was Japan, which only had 10 spots, and with over 100 students that also put down Japan as their first choice we feel blessed and honored to have been chosen to be part of this team. There were 3 things that “highlighted” this trip to us above the others. First, Japan is a very unreached nation. Our heart is to go where many have not heard about the love and power of Jesus. Secondly, our focus will be on spending time with small groups of people or one on one. Although we love ministry that focuses on the multitudes, we were excited about having more personal, intimate contact with people. Our third reason for selecting the Japan trip is that it is being led by Eric Johnson, the mission’s director at Bethel. We are excited for the opportunity to develop a closer relationship with Eric as our hope is to partner more closely and long term with Bethel missions in the future. The following paragraph is a description of some of what we will be doing in Japan:

“Bethel Church has been building a relationship with Japan for the last 18 months. This trip will deepen this relationship. Our goal is to empower, teach and activate the local church. There will be opportunities for us to do street ministry where we will be praying for the sick and will do prophetic ministry. Japan is known as a place “where ministry is really hard”. We believe that God wants to display his power. So our team is getting ready to go and release the supernatural power of God into a nation that he loves.”

Our trip will be from March 10-20, 2007. We really would value your prayers that God would be honored and that people’s lives would be transformed. We are excited that there is a team of long term missionaries there that will be able to follow up with people and water seeds that are planted. The cost of our trip (for both of us) will be $2800-$3600 US depending on airfare prices. If you would like to partner with us financially, the details are below.

We love you all. Please stay in touch. Our new emails are:
crystalstevensis@gmail.com or aaronstevensis@gmail.com

Aaron and Crystal

**Financial gifts or letters of encouragement may be sent to: Aaron & Crystal Stevens, 18848 Country Hills Dr., Cottonwood, CA 96022. In order to receive a tax-deductible receipt, please make the check payable to “Bethel Church” and leave the memo area of the check blank. Include with the check a separate slip of paper that includes our full name and our specific trip location. This will ensure your gift is designated to us. This gift is non-refundable, and if for any reason a team member or team does not go, the money will support another mission trip sponsored by Bethel Church.
**Payment deadlines: Our first and largest payment (approx. $1,800) for our airfare is due on January 10, 2007 and our final payment is due on February 16, 2007.
**As a side note: if any of you would like to give towards our school of ministry tuition at any point, you may follow the same instructions above, only attach a note saying it is for our tuition. We will be graduating from first year in May, 2006 and also attending second year (Sept 2007-May 2008). Tuition is $3000 each.

Please feel free to call us if you have any questions! Aaron’s Cell (541) 913-5223, and Crystal’s is (541) 515-1167