Ministry Update: June 2016

We just ministered in Medford, Oregon and had a very powerful outpouring of the Holy Spirit as we preached and prayed for the people there. It was at a church in Oregon led by some friends from way back who we lost contact with over the years and who we just reconnected with recently. They were deeply touched when we ministered at another church of theirs many years ago and wanted to get in touch to have us minister with them again. They ran into a mutual friend who reconnected us and so we made the trip up to Oregon. The Holy Spirit met us in great power and touched most everyone in their congregation. We received many testimonies afterwards of lives touched and transformed by the power of God poured out that day!

We just had two radical divine appointments: One happened while having car trouble in the desert. We felt we should pull over to a hotel when experiencing a bad leak in the transmission. God met us in power as we went into the room and ministered His grace to us in the midst of the stress. The next morning we got into a conversation with a worker at the hotel during breakfast and after a long conversation about God’s grace she opened her heart to pray with us to receive Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior! Hallelujah! She'd been in the Catholic Church in her youth but never heard the Gospel there! God indeed works everything for good as His word says; we wouldn't have stayed at that hotel except for the car trouble! (We have a blog with more details on this so link here).

Shortly after this we were at dinner with some friends telling them what just happened in the desert. As we walked out of the restaurant I ended up in a conversation with the hostess of the restaurant who also just happening to be walking out. We ended up sharing the Lord with her and right in the middle, right in front of the restaurant, the Holy Spirit fell on her and she began to cry profusely. We prayed with her and our friends Jeff and Jeanette and myself and Mercedes laid hands on her as she re-surrendered her life to the Lord. The Holy Spirit touched and filled her in a powerful way as she rededicated herself to Christ after some time drifting away in her life! Glory!!

We’ve also been ministering recently down near the border where the Holy Spirit has met us in power.

We were having a special service on a Sunday recently where we set it up to have our son Patrick and his friend from Sweden, Petrus, each share a bit of the service we were ministering at and tell a little of how God has worked in their own lives.

While referencing how we are instructed to “ask and we shall receive” Patrick shared a couple stories of answers to prayers that came in unusual ways as well as how he was powerfully filled with the Holy Spirit unexpectedly on a certain occasion (we wrote a short blog on this.) Petrus also shared about the filling of the Holy Spirit and how it is the Lord’s will and desire to have us fan into flame that fire of the Spirit. He also shared his desire to take that fire back into Europe and Sweden specifically, which is something on our hearts as well.

John Wesley talked about the importance of preparing the next generation. It was a blessed time to see these youngsters—wow, feels weird using that word—challenged to step out and testify about Christ’s goodness. They learned that God is with them and helps them even when they are a little bit nervous and that He will glorify Himself through us when we step out to serve Him!

Thanks for your prayers and support. We deeply appreciate it, especially as we step back out to take the fire ourselves as we travel back to Europe once again this summer. It only takes a glance at the headlines these days to see the dire shape the place is in and how it needs a return to the Gospel. The Philistines are shaking up the place like in the days of Israel so join us in prayer and support as we reach out to turn hearts back to Christ and His saving power!

Much love and blessings!

Bryan, Mercedes, and Patrick Marleaux

Harald Bredesen, Charismatic Renewal pioneer talks about Grace World Mission in this video:
Direct link: https://youtu.be/TYtTLR5K_pY

Divine Appointments on the Central Coast

We’ve been blessed to spend some time ministering in some different locales on the coast and around the larger Monterey area of Central California over the years. From ministering in churches and prayer meetings to evangelistic outreaches, one at a local college, along the way we've been blessed to experience some powerful divine appointments as well.

We ended up having a series of powerful divine appointments one evening in particular:

We had ministered at a Presbyterian youth meeting a few days before and then were doing some home meetings. One night we ended up at the last minute ministering at a Foursquare church. The Lord brought forth a considerable outpouring on the youth group that we spoke to.

We were driving back from the Foursquare youth meeting to our friend Dave’s house in Salinas, rejoicing in what the Lord had done, when Dave and then myself suddenly felt we should pull over. Dave, in fact, spoke out rather loudly to do so; I told him I had just been feeling the same thing.

We happened to have stopped right in front of a local college. We all got out, and sensing the leading of the Spirit, we began to walk onto the campus parking lot.

We walked around praying as we went, praying in the Spirit—praying in tongues—a good prayer for when you have no idea what you're doing. We just kept seeking what the Lord wanted us to do, and after walking and praying a bit, I noticed a lady just getting to her car and felt I should talk to her.

We began to share about Christ with her and then Dave had a word for her. As he shared the word, she opened up that she was a backslidden believer. As we continued to share with her she began to weep. We ended up praying with her as she surrendered and rededicated her life back to the Lord, right there in the college parking lot in Salinas!

We thought, Wow, it has been an eventful night! Let's grab some food. Lo and behold we ended up having another divine appointment at the pizza place. We prayed for a woman who was going through some things in her life that worked at the pizza place who was hungry for a touch from the Lord and God touched and blessed her life too!

It had been one wild thing after another, but God wasn't done!

We had been wanting to do some filming and we were leaving the next day, so we thought, Let’s go back and do some filming tonight before we leave town tomorrow morning.

We were filming about Dave getting filled with the Holy Spirit in Hawaii: While we were in Hawaii teaching at Surfing the Nations some time back, during a ministry time I felt led to pray over the group there and I was led to lay hands on Dave. He ended up getting powerfully filled with the Holy Spirit for the first time in his life! It was a powerful life-changing experience. He shared later that he’d been going to church his whole life, in fact going to a Calvary Chapel since being a little child, yet he had not experienced the filling of the Holy Spirit.

As he was in the middle of telling this testimony on video, out the corner of my eye I noticed Patrick was over on the couch with his hands in the air, shaking, breathing heavy, crying and laughing at the same time, as the Holy Spirit was sovereignly filling him in a most radical and powerful way.

No one was praying for him and he was just hanging on the couch by himself listening to the testimony being taped when the power of God just fell on him.

The power of God kept pouring over him for a good half hour, he was getting so filled it was amazing! We eventually joined in and laid hands on him rejoicing in what the Lord was doing!

I was thinking, What a powerful night: the youth group had been powerfully touched, a woman at the college had rededicated her life to Christ through a divine appointment as well as another woman being touched in the pizza place, and now Patrick was getting powerfully filled with the Holy Spirit!

We of course experienced some spiritual warfare following all that. The Bible is clear that our battle is not against flesh and blood. We don't put our focus on the warfare though, even if it takes a bit of processing and prayer sometimes to move past it, we rejoice in and focus on all the awesome stuff the Lord did and does!

That trip sure had a lot to focus on and plenty to rejoice in, the Lord did so much more than we expected that it blew our minds! Hallelujah!

Check out Bryan and Patrick getting a few waves in this area of the Central Coast of California in this new surf/music video we did:

Here’s a link to the video of Dave’s testimony that we were taping when the Holy Spirit sovereignly fell on Patrick:https://youtu.be/cN9jNLKCbVA