How to Get a Free Hotel Night in the Scottish Highlands!

We were traveling through Europe doing some different ministry when we headed up to the Highlands of Scotland on our way to their Outer Isles for our wedding anniversary during a short window of time we had available.

You just have no idea how interesting something is going to be when you stop to take a look, which is what happened when we decided to go to Stirling Castle on the way. What was planned as a quick stop for a couple of hours turned into the whole day when we discovered how much there was to see there, including the history of King James whose name became synonymous with the King James Bible.

Our extended visit at the castle, along with a quick look at old Nessie on Loch Ness, put us into dire straits when we got deep into the Highlands. It was high summer when the sun way up north there only dips a bit around the horizon and never really goes dark. Losing track of time in these conditions is really easy, which we did and found ourselves in the middle of nowhere late at night—though you couldn’t tell it was night—with that sinking feeling all hitting our stomachs. "Man we haven’t eaten anything all day!" Caught up in the activities and adventures we just forgot to eat.

Things were not looking good as we were hours up into the wilderness with nothing around and time was slipping away. The hopes of coming across anything that might be open in these remote parts to grab a bite seemed extremely dim.

Praying for something to alleviate our growling stomachs didn’t seem to bring much relief; no manna flakes appeared on our windshield so we drove on heading north towards our destination. Right before the road was about to take a steeper hike into even higher mountainous country I noticed a little dwelling we passed on the side of the road. There was no sign or anything so I didn’t have any idea even what the place was—it just looked like an old home or building--but the Holy Spirit impressed me to turn around and go back to it.

I had no idea what to expect. If anything, it could be empty. It turned out however to be an old B & B that had formerly closed, but just had been bought by a young woman and her husband that very week who were renovating it and had just happened to have put up a couple tables for eating.

We asked if they were open for dinner but we were out of luck. But then the woman there remembered that she had made some soup and happened to just have a few bowls left of it if we were interested. Anything tastes great when starved so I don’t know if it was some of the best split pea soup we ever have had or that we were just so famished that it seemed like it. Whatever the case, we filled ourselves with as much soup and bread as we could and then God opened up a door as the young lady sat down and talked with us. The Lord gave us a great opportunity to interact and share Christ with her for some time in a pretty relaxed atmosphere. God had obviously had more in mind for us than only food and we rejoiced at His hand displayed in the situation.

When we shared where we were headed she gasped and said, “You best be moving on. You have a lot of territory to cover to make it that far while it is still today.”

We rejoiced for a while at what the Lord had just done while we drove and drove towards Ullapool, Scotland where we had a room booked for the night. But then rejoicing turned into yawns after a while when extreme road weariness set in.

We arrived after 11:00pm looking forward to a good night’s sleep but no one would respond to our knocking on the door of the hotel and the door was locked. Nor could we get an answer when we tried calling the clerk’s personal number that had been emailed to us with the reservation.

We kept trying for quite some time to no avail. We decided to get out of the cold and huddled in the car but it didn’t take long to realize we’d be dealing with hypothermia in these northern conditions (we were near almost artic territory) if we slept in the car.

I got out and started walking around in the parking lot praying in tongues hoping to get warm and get some kind of answer from on high.

After I walked around for a while I sensed the Lord leading me around to the back of the hotel where I found a back door slightly ajar. I pulled at it and it opened and next thing I knew I was inside the hotel. I walked up to the front desk and there lying on the counter was a paper with our names on it, and a key to the room we’d booked, but no clerk.

I called Mercedes and Patrick in and we decided to just head to the room since we had prepaid anyway. We actually got a good night's sleep in spite of the weird conditions of no desk clerk anywhere to be seen.

The next morning we ran into the chagrinned desk clerk who asked if we were the Marleaux’s. “Yes” I said, and then I asked “and so where were you last night?” He profusely apologized and then confessed that he had drank a bit to much beer and fell asleep while stepping out for a moment over at a friend's, basically totally left his work post, he explained, as his face turned as red as a boiled lobster.

He then asked quizzically, “But how did you get in the room?” “Well, that was a God thing,” I told him as I explained what happened while witnessing to him.

He looked quite amazed and didn't know how to respond really and then just said “Listen, everything is free for you: Your stay--we'll refund the whole thing--go eat all the food you want. Just sit down and order breakfast—eat all you want; it’s all on the house.”

Those Scottish breakfasts aren't cheap and are more like a dinner with more food than you can imagine: Eggs, sausage, potatoes, vegetables, beans, bread, juice, coffee and on and on. We ate our fill and rejoiced in how the Lord had turned two tough situations into major blessings: meeting our needs at the renovating B&B and now giving us a free room and food there in that hotel in the Highlands of Scotland—Highlands can also mean high-priced so a little divine comp on food and stay here and there is certainly welcome. The Lord met our needs and turned everything around for good and then some, while opening the opportunity to witness about His grace as well.

Glory to God !!!

Soul Surfer:The Movie and Reflections on Kauai

Some scenes and spring surf from Kauai and Oahu

I just recently saw a screening of Soul Surfer, a new movie that will be premiering tonight April 8 about Bethany Hamilton’s story. Hamilton went from rising surf star to shark attack victim. She had her arm bitten completely off by a tiger shark while surfing on Kauai’s North Shore and had to endure an intense recovery from such a traumatic event. Learning to surf again with one arm, as well as going through the trying process of understanding how bad things can eventually be conquered and overcoming severe adversity, it is inspiring to see someone overcome such a serious trial in their life.

On another level the movie stirred a lot of reflections for me since Soul Surfer was actually shot on the island of Kauai itself, where my own uncle lived and where I was first introduced to surfing and gave it a try. It brought on some vivid memories of days there in Kauai:

I was just a little guy around our son’s age when I was eating lunch with my family at The Waiohai, a resort on the South Shore, and noticed some kid out there ripping up some waves. He looked about my same height and age of about ten years, so it caught my eye. My aunt said: “You could learn if you gave it a try. I think your uncle has an extra board in the backyard somewhere.”

My uncle was a surfer but had gotten more into windsurfing over the years so the board had been abandoned in some bushes in the backyard. I dug around and found the board and cleaned it up. It felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, so my dad had to help me carry it down to the beach.

I’d heard you needed wax for surfboards so we got some out of my uncle’s garage, but then I was perplexed: “Where does it go? Probably on the bottom like skis.” I said. As I waxed the bottom of the board some guys coming down the beach yelled out: “Hey haole, you waxing the bottom, what you a potato-head from Idaho, you some kind of kook ehh.” Well, those sure were some encouraging words, but it did lead us to the conclusion that the wax goes on the deck, not on the bottom.

I tried paddling out but didn’t get far trying to go through the soup with that heavy barge. So back to the beach, where we found a little cove with some micro waves that seemed more fit for a first try. A few paddles and pushes from Dad and I was up and riding some six to ten inchers on the islands.

Stoked from just those little waves, I got my first board shortly after getting back to the mainland and persevered through freezing water and harsh conditions, wearing only a beaver tail wetsuit, enduring endless wipeouts, crashes, and dings to the head and body, to actually finally learn to surf.

The transition from warm water Kauai to freezing water in California, and from a 10-foot log to a 5’10’ shortboard, slowed the progress a bit, but somehow I pushed through and kept going.

This was the time before the plethora of today’s surf schools and soft boards when “we did walk in the snow both ways uphill to school.” Back then you literally froze if you wanted to surf in California--wetsuits were just not that warm in those days--and learning was up to you and wasn’t always encouraged by other “local” surfers. We only had the regular hard boards in those days so when you fell, which is a regular occurrence while learning, and the board hit you, it was often a painful experience with actual blood oozing.

I spent time on Kauai on numerous surf trips over the years, hanging out at my uncle’s and surfing pretty much most of the spots the island has to offer.

The thought of the shark attack Bethany Hamilton experienced couldn’t help but stay in the back of my mind while surfing the very same spot on Kauai’s North Shore on a recent trip. It was a windy day so I was out there all by myself, which always adds to that eerie feeling. It was enough trying to avoid the long hold downs by some macking sets, but while I was paddling up a big wave face I was bumped hard by something large from behind. I nearly jumped out of my skin and didn’t really want to turn around and face what it was. Once outside I turned back and was relieved to see only a huge sea turtle—I could wipe the sweat off my brow, even while wet in the ocean, after that one. That definitely got my blood pumping.

Her story, as heavy as it may be, and its connection with surfing, has opened up numerous opportunities for Bethany to share her faith and be a bridge to others about Christ’s love.

God has also used surfing in our lives not only as a sport to stay healthy but to speak into our own lives as well as using it as a bridge to reach out to others:

After getting out of the surf on Kauai one day we went to grab some hamburgers. We happened to start talking to the girl taking orders at the burger stand and one thing led to another and we ended up sharing Christ with her. She told us that others had been talking to her a lot about “this kind of stuff.” Well, God had us there to explain a little more about what others had been trying to share with her. After talking a while and explaining the gospel to her, we asked if she would like to pray with us to receive Christ as her savior. Well she agreed it was time for a change in her life and we prayed right at the burger stand and a new believer was born again into God’s kingdom—Hallelujah!!

It turned out that one of those who had been sharing with her before us was headed off to Surfing The Nations that day—the same place we had just come from ministering a couple days before—wow, God really has a way of making things intersect!

The film Soul Surfer can be used as a tool for outreach. Hamilton, with God’s grace, has come back from one of the most traumatic and intense accidents a person could suffer. Recovering from injuries, accidents, serious illness, traumatic events, and the like can be a daunting task, pushing you beyond any resolve you may have on your own. Through my share of a long string of injuries, I have learned that drawing deep into God is the only way to move forward. Even though we may not understand all the why’s at that particular moment of some personal tragedy, it is still possible to let God minister to us and work in and through us. God worked in Bethany’s life through all the difficulty of recovery and readjustment, and can do the same for anyone who will open the door to His grace.

Last time I was on Kauai I was getting out from surfing some double to triple overhead surf at Hanalei Bay. I happened to walk right into Bethany Hamilton while heading to the car, meeting her briefly and talking with her a bit. It hit me while driving away that the challenge of surfing those large waves that day was enough in itself, and yet she was out there, going for it and charging those big waves, with only one arm. That’s something truly impressive.

Ministering with Surfing The Nations in Oahu

Pray for Egypt

The protests in Egypt are something that the Christian community should be keeping in prayer.

We were in Egypt some years back and experienced some different aspects to the place. Though it is not an open society, we did find the people easy to talk to and even found occasion to share the Gospel at times—though you gotta be careful. We also noticed how nominal it was—nobody even flinched when the call to prayers would come through the day much less go and pray; they’d just go on with their things completely ignoring it. We also saw firsthand the grinding and abject poverty. I was prepared for that sort of thing in other places like India, but in Egypt it caught me off guard in a land that once ruled the world as one of the great empires of ancient civilization— here was another example of a formerly great empire in the Middle East that had turned completely backwards. The contrast after traveling in affluent Israel, it’s next-door neighbor, couldn’t be more stark.

An example of how dire the social situation is came on a visit to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Egypt created a special division of police called the “Tourist Police” specifically to protect tourists from being harassed by those seeking money, handouts, and bribes, all day long, everywhere they go. Quite literally, one can find himself being followed all day by those seeking handouts if the tourist police don’t intervene. A law exists that tourists cannot be followed more than 100 meters by those wanting handouts, a law that is of course routinely ignored.

While at the museum, I was taking interest in an exhibit of a king who is mentioned in the Bible for battling with Israel: Shishak. A tourist police officer close by noticed my interest and asked, “You want picture?” “Sure, why not,” I replied. He suddenly cleared the room and made everyone leave and then locked the door. “Take picture,” he demanded. I was going, “What?? Man I guess I better take a picture the way this crazy nut is acting.” So I took a couple and he said, “No, no, take more, take more.” I took some more while he stood blocking the door from me leaving or anyone coming in, and then he demanded I take even more. I finally said, “You know, I think I have enough now.” I had every angle of Shishak you could want! While he continued blocking the door he said, “Now bahkeesh!” I was going, “What’s bahkeesh?” “A tip, you pay, you pay for pictures!” he demanded. I pulled out some bills and of course no matter what I offered it wasn’t enough. “How am I going to get away from this crazy nut? He is the police after all.” I finally had to show him that my wallet had no more bills in it and hey, my camera is full now too by the way—I got a mass of pictures of mostly Shishak from my visit to the famed Egyptian museum with all its different antiquities. I don’t mind giving some money to those in need but that was just weird. “Wait a minute,” I thought “that was the tourist police, they’re supposed to prevent this sort of harassment.”

The reality that most in Egypt live on less than two dollars a day gives some explanation about the desperation and the systemic corruption on every level there.

Christians should be praying that one of the main centers of the Early Church—Alexandria was amongst five key cities of the Early Church—could have the Gospel spreading through it once again. The Coptic Church still exists but is marginalized and persecuted within Egyptian society. The current situation could turn a number of ways, some bad, some good. If the wrong people take over it could be very bad. There are other possibilities though: It is important for us to pray that the door opens for a more open society that allows the Good News of Christ to spread within it freely once again. God knows they need it!

Obey ye the promptings of the Holy Spirit! ------- Making the Zwingli Video

Our recent video on the Swiss Reformation will give you a good overview of the Reformation and its spread into Switzerland as well as Ulrich Zwingli, Heinrich Bullinger, William Farrel and the Anabaptist movement. Seminaries charge you a good $1000 per class to learn this stuff, then just barely touch on the subjects, with the proviso that you need to do the hard work yourself to really learn something (why am I paying all this money then? was my question to those professors.) Well, we've done the hard work for you, on many essential historical and theological topics that are insightful and essential to understanding the development of the Christian Faith. Many more of our programs on Historical Christian figures as well as missions, miracles, divine appointments and a whole lot more are available for free by clicking here.

This video actually came to be through a divine appointment: We were in Biarritz, France, after ministering in Spain, when I was taking a walk up the beach along the Anglet shore. As I was checking out the surf, I noticed a guy sitting with his board up the beach and using his board to block the onshore winds while resting behind a little sand bluff. The Holy Spirit prompted me to go talk to him, so I took a step of faith and went over.

He turned out to be an Aussie living in Switzerland taking a surf holiday in France, quite the interesting combination, and a Christian on top of it all, something rarely encountered in this area of France—well, you could say that for any area of France, just even more so for the South Coastal regions.

It was not much of a day for surf due to the onshore wind conditions, so we spent some time talking and hanging out and eventually exchanged information.

Later on, I contacted him on the way to Switzerland and, after talking for a bit, he ended up having us stay for a bit in his flat. It seemed so strange to think we were staying for free here in the expensive city of Zurich, Switzerland, all through a divine appointment while checking out the surf in France. Even more interesting is that we ended up ministering later on in Switzerland as well.

While in the city, we noticed what striking scenery it had. And, also remembering all of its rich Reformation history, we grabbed the camera and threw together some videos, doing our best to avoid what we could of the seeming constant construction noise everywhere, prosperity is all a good and fine thing, but it gets a little annoying while filming.

Well, we did our thing there in Zurich for a bit and then figured it was time to pack up and head out to some ministry we had planned elsewhere. We went out the night before to book some train tickets when something went horribly wrong with our calculations and we were now almost completely out of cash, not a hard thing to do in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I was pretty frustrated and concerned the whole way back to our friend's flat, and spent most of the night not sleeping but mulling over how did we come up so short.

Coming up short of cash happens easily while traveling in Europe, especially in Switzerland--travel books tell tales of American tourists jumping back on the train shortly after they got off and scrambling out of the place as quick as possible when they see the prices.

We had never said a word to our Aussie/Swiss host about our financial situation but when we were headed out the door the next morning he casually handed us an envelope without saying a word to either of us. I opened it up a little later down the road and was surprised to find not a card or letter but a good amount of Swiss francs, which met our needs and then some for that time, this from a guy we just met on the beach in France.

I then remembered that, in the middle of that last night, I had been semi-praying while half asleep in a state of semi-comatose-sleep-waking frustation: “Oh Lord, how much money and gold is stored in these vaults underneath this city…Please Lord, break open a vault and bring us some supply right away.” It was a half-conscious prayer that was born of desperation and frustration, but God knows what we need even before we ask, even if not making some "positive confession" of faith.

Well, Swiss Francs and coins have a very unique look to them and when I thought about it and the generous amount he had given us, it did look like someone had broken open a vault to give us some immediate supply.

We got to stay in Zurich for free in what is well-known as a prohibitively-expensive city, filmed some important videos of the Reformation, and got our financial needs met supernaturally, all through one step of obedience to the prompting of the Holy Spirit when on the beach in France.

When thinking how God supplied our financial needs it also struck me that God sure has a way of answering what was a strange prayer in a most surprising way! Even though he knows our needs before we ask (Matt. 6:8.) He often waits and brings us to that point of having us cry out to Him in prayer first so He can demonstrate that He is responding to our prayers.

Glory!!!!

Remembering 9/11—My Sheep Hear My Voice…Even In The Midst of Chaos

Newspaper interview in the south of Sweden after 9/11/01

about a crusade we did there and the fact that we were

some of the few Americans traveling at that time

Nine years ago, I awoke to my brother, a pilot for a major airline, yelling on the phone: "Wake up….! Listen man, two jets were just hijacked and slammed into the World Trade Center and another just hit the Pentagon! They've grounded me and my crew in the middle of nowhere, along with all the other pilots; we’re stuck. You’re flying to Paris in 2 days but everything is shut down...it feels like the world is exploding…!!!"

That we actually made it to Paris later in the week through the worst clogged airport and most awful flight experience ever is nothing short of a demonstration of God's grace to us in the midst of such chaos.

After turning on the TV and radio that morning it was all too real: the images of the burning World Trade Center - the very building we had visited just one year before, where we had stood taking a picture right in front of it and prophesying that one day it would be leveled in the balance of God's economy (I thought 100 years in the future when Armageddon takes place, not just one year later.) Glued to the TV, we now watched it falling to the ground on top of itself as people ran frantically down the street trying to escape the furious dust storm created in the wake of its collapse.

All mayhem seemed to ensue for a short while, and it seemed like we definitely were going to be stuck, not flying anywhere anytime soon. We began to pray as to what God's will might be in this situation, since we were scheduled to minister in Lyon, France later that week and everything was pretty much set. The biggest monkey wrench one could ever imagine had just been thrown into our plans. "Lord what do we do?" Every natural thought and every friend and family member said, "Cancel," and yet that still small voice said something I really didn't want to hear: "Persevere and go on to what I've called you to do."

With that still small voice confirmed, we slugged forward, days on the phone re-arranging tickets, resetting travel itineraries, all against the advice and remonstrations of concerned friends and family. Finally, later in the week we had everything arranged, so we thought, and showed up at the chaotic airport to realize we'd only just begun the battle.

We struggled to get through the miles of people strewn around all over the airport, many just camping out, seemingly dazed and confused. After hours of traipsing through the chaos, we finally checked in and were close to boarding, when a certain check-in clerk began to manifest on us. This guy called us over and just began to go off, attacking us on things that had nothing to do with us and complaining about the word mission in the name on our ticket, upset that “how could we be going on a mission at this time when people are being killed and stranded?” (we had ministry-discounted tickets). Ranting and raving, probably from the stress of the last few days, he freaked out and demanded that we pay him an additional $500 dollars for really nothing. It was totally unjustified and uncalled for, and not right, but he held all the cards and said he wasn't letting us on the plane unless we paid. I had to bite my tongue very hard and step aside and pray for a few moments to know what to do. That enemy was coming against us with all guns blazing was clear, and it was making me pretty upset, but the Holy Spirit impressed me with "just pay it and it will be dealt with later."

I reluctantly paid the extortion fee to the mission-hating dude and got on the plane—fit to be tied—and went on to have a terrible flight with lots of turbulence and nightmares of being flown into a building by a terrorist every time I closed my eyes to get some rest, that phone call from my brother reverberating in my memory for some time. The airports were a mess all over the world and we had to slug it out through Charles de Gaulle on the other side of the Atlantic, which held the same chaos for our landing, and then struggling on through all of it all the way to Lyon.

When we finally got to Lyon it was like walking on to a calm shore after being caught at sea in a long, drawn out storm. God just moved so powerfully the whole time we preached and ministered, which gave us great confirmation that we had done the right thing. After France, we went on to awesome ministry in many other places like Spain and Sweden and actually had many things work in our favor due to the low amount of tourists and travelers due to the recent events. We walked right into museums that normally would have long lines and actually got some of the best uncrowded waves, in between ministering, at some of the best spots on the continent since all the contests were cancelled.

Remarkably, we actually ended up being interviewed and having our picture run in a decent-sized newspaper in the south of Sweden about a crusade we were doing there, since they were so intrigued that Americans like us would be traveling at that time. God actually worked it all for good at the end of the day and we even got our $500 dollars back from the airlines at the end of it all as well.

It is so important to listen to what the Lord is saying to us rather than what the world is trying to tell us to do. Jesus said: "My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me." (John 10:27) As His followers it is so vitally important to learn to listen to that still small voice if we want to be found fulfilling His will in our lives.

Follow the Wind

John 3:8: The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

We just returned from the Santa Barbara area once again, where we experienced another wild outpouring of the Spirit, much like the one we experienced just a little bit ago!

If you had a chance to read one of our recent previous blogs here you may remember that we had gone there a few months ago through a last-minute phone call of a friend which turned into a major divine appointment (read below). This particular time however, we went up right after attending a wedding in the area feeling the Spirit was leading us to just go by there with no real plans set up for anything other than just stopping by. And we ended up experiencing another outpouring of God's power much like we did a couple months back.

We showed up to one of their meetings this last weekend and gave a spontaneous word right at the very end of one of their services, this was after spending the majority of that meeting out in the street in the middle of a divine appointment that took place right when we showed up, where we were leading a guy to Christ out in the front of their place while the service went on, and then just coming in at the last moment for the remainder of the meeting and giving a word that God put on my heart all of a sudden, which led to the Spirit being poured out at the end of their meeting in a very powerful way.

That move of the Spirit continued on throughout that evening as we prayed with others, in fact we had quite the move of holy laughter late that same night as God moved powerfully on a guy who was new to all this and got radically touched by God in a major way as he got filled and broke out in the joy of the Lord. That infectious joy of the Spirit spread to many others including myself, and we were deeply refreshed, and then the next day the Holy Spirit was poured out throughout the whole day as well.

In fact, the next morning, after staying the night, we woke up to a group of guys who had forgotten their Bible there at the house church where we were staying. As they came in and we started talking with them, one of them had a word that he felt he needed to pray over us. We got blasted first thing in the morning; what a cool way to wake up, and then the blasting continued as others began to spontaneously show up at the house. We then began to pray for them and had another all-day outpouring of the Spirit that went on from morning until way late in the day.

The Holy Spirit was moving so deeply and powerfully over so many lives in such a significant way. It was truly amazing to experience and see God move, touch, and fill one person after another after another, the presence of God spreading like wildfire the whole time to where we just felt like we were living in the glory.

In the middle of it all we had to suddenly rush back for a funeral of a friend who just passed away, and so it was back to the reality of the freeway once we got going, but along the way we stopped by an out-of-the-way surf spot I felt led to check out and even though the onshore winds were howling and every place was trashed and blown out to where it was looking like "victory at sea," this one particular spot was completely glassy, clean, and surprisingly unaffected by the wind, but even more amazing was the fact that we surfed it completely by ourselves. It felt like a surreal scene out of the 1950's, not the overcrowded, overpopulated lineups of the 21st century. Praise God! Such blessings flow when we follow the wind of his Spirit.

As we finished our surf I thought of how the weekend had begun while eating dinner with some friends right before we left to go up north. We were saying a quick prayer in the parking lot as we were leaving, asking God to give us divine appointments that weekend as we headed our separate ways. As the words came out of my mouth, the Holy Spirit spoke: "One is right in front of you." I waited a moment and then I looked over at a young guy walking across the parking lot. The Holy Spirit was pulling at me to go talk to him but I asked for some kind of confirmation. I then noticed he was wearing a shirt with a big picture of Christ on it, that's when the Lord spoke in my heart, "Is that enough confirmation?" I ran over after that and asked him if he had a relationship with Christ whom he wore on his shirt, he said he didn't, but as we talked with him he confessed that many had been witnessing to him and in his own words, "God was chasing after him." The chase was over as we led him to Christ right there in the parking lot as we prayed with him. I knew God had a wild weekend in store when things started like that but the blessings go beyond our expectations when we follow the wind of the Spirit!!!

Divine Israeli Surf Appointment

Well it's summer, so time for a Holy Ghost Surf Story. This one took place while traveling into Israel from Europe while in desperate need of some refreshing after many planes, trains, and automobiles. We were blessed to get this divine appointment published in a recent book. This book, called True Stories of Heaven Invading Earth in Julia Loren's Divine Intervention Series, has some other cool stories too by people like John Paul Jackson as well as a forward written by Bill Johnson of Bethel Fellowship in Redding. Some time later, we had another radical divine appointment in Spain that was connected to this one, which you can check out in the video and I'll tell more about in a later posting. For now, read below about how God can blow our mind with the way he can answer even the simplest of prayers and meet our needs in such a wild way:

My wife Mercedes and I had been ministering and traveling in Europe for two months already and were leaving the next day to Israel, our next stop on a round-the-world trip, where we had a very unique and powerful divine appointment take place as we came into the Holy Land.

We were departing out of Athens, Greece and traveling to Tel Aviv, Israel when we were notified of a sudden flight change. Our original departure time of 8:00 a.m. was moved earlier to 4:00 a.m. that same morning (El Al Airlines often does this kind of thing to keep terrorists off track with their flights). We had to suddenly leave our hotel and spend the whole night at the airport, all the fun of a root canal without the drilling!

But God had a plan in it all, even the miserable flight delay where we were stuck in the barren Athens airport all night long with nothing to do.

That barren Athens airport posted two rules very clearly on signs all over: “No Smoking” and “No sleeping on the floor.” After hours of sitting around on hard plastic chairs that were designed just right as to make sleep impossible—some cruel, sadistic chair designer must have stayed up late nights designing and testing these awful sweat-producing beasts—a cement floor had never looked so good. It was like a cruel hoax, you can’t sleep in these horrid torture chairs and you’re not allowed to sleep on the floor, aagh!

After sitting for hours exhausted I couldn’t take it anymore and took a look around and went down on the floor for some rest. I was almost asleep, when I felt a kick on my side. I looked up, and saw a soldier with a machine gun towering over me (Athens has long been notorious as a terrorists transit point and thus soldiers are constantly patrolling it). He apparently was there to enforce “some” of the rules as he puffed away on a cigarette and pointed at the sign about sleeping on the floor. “Doesn’t that sign say something about smoking too?” I was about to blurt out in my agitated, just pulled back from the brink of sleep, state. But a good rule of travel is not to argue with a soldier with a machine gun in a foreign country, so I buttoned my lip and got up.

After some more hours of sweating and waiting around it was finally time to check in for our flight. We went over to the counter to now be abused by El Al Airlines, who must have taken interrogation lessons from the Mossad: You are guilty until proven innocent and must be exonerated before you can board their flight. They prod into every aspect of your life and what you are doing until they know more about you than you do! We had it coming hard at us, as we had been traveling for over two months already, all over every part of Europe, which set off red flags with them and they really gave us the third degree. Every part of our stuff was disassembled, every past ticket and place we’d been was checked

out to see if it was true, question after question, it went on for almost two hours. They even went so far as to read Mercedes’ diary and then test her on it to see if it wasn’t just some fabricated fantasy made up by a terrorist who could finally get on board and blow up the plane.

We were extremely exhausted, dazed, and a little rattled once we were finally cleared of being international terrorists and allowed to board our plane. I dropped like a rock down into my seat, and in my state of exhaustion and jangled nerves I prayed the craziest of prayers: “Lord I am so worn out I need to do something fun.It would be so great to go surfing in Israel.”

It was a crazy prayer because I didn’t even have a surfboard with me and the surf conditions in Israel, being that it is on the Mediterranean Sea, rarely get over one foot. But God is greater than our circumstances.

We needed a battery recharge with some recreation involved after too many trains, planes and automobiles during our travels the past two months, and this night in the torture chamber of the Athens airport and the El Al grilling was the straw breaking the camel's back. God knew our weariness and was about to answer in a miraculous way.

After landing in Israel we disembarked, glad to be done with flying and airports for the moment, and began to make our way through the terminal when Mercedes noticed something very strange: the theme song to the famous surf movie “Endless Summer” was playing over the terminal loudspeakers. We both looked at each other and laughed and thought how strange, to hear that in Israel of all places, especially in the airport over the loudspeaker. I’ve never even heard that song on the radio in the States. In spite of the jet lag that was fogging my brain, it suddenly dawned on me: “I believe this is a sign from God; I prayed on the plane to go surfing while we are in Israel and I think God is going to answer that prayer somehow.”

We rented a car and were on our way out of the airport parking lot about to head straight toward Jerusalem to check into our youth hostel—the only thing in Jerusalem that would fit our missionary budget—and then go see some of the city, when, sensing an impression from the Holy Spirit, I suddenly pulled over and told Mercedes: “Listen, I believe the Holy Spirit is prompting us to go straight to the beach at Tel Aviv right now instead of going to Jerusalem.” It seemed kind of wild but she agreed we should step out on faith in what the Holy Spirit was leading. After that sign from God in the airport with the Endless Summer song it seemed like we should go for it and completely change our plans at the last moment, though we had no idea what, if anything, might be in store. We made our way toward Tel Aviv with the destination of Hilton Beach in mind, the one surf spot I had heard of in Israel.

When we pulled up to Hilton Beach I was blown away by what I saw: peeling, 4- to 6-foot waves breaking right in front of my eyes in Israel! The flight delay had caused us to arrive in perfect time with a swell that had blown in from a storm in the Mediterranean Sea the night before. This was something miraculous in an of itself, as Israel rarely ever gets good surf, rarely even getting surf over one foot as previously mentioned.

The only thing I needed now was a surfboard! I went around to a few surf shops in the area to see about renting a board but they wouldn’t rent surfboards. “You have to buy one for 800 dollars” was their answer “That’s twice as much as in the U.S. No thanks!” was my response, since there was no way I could afford that much money at that moment.

We headed back to the Hilton Beach parking lot and I stood there watching the surf, a bit bummed out thinking, “I have to stand here and I only get to watch these waves now.”

I stood there lamenting my plight, now feeling tortured and disappointed; there’s nothing worse for a surfer than to see good waves right in front of him and not to be able to ride them, it’s like a dog on a chain who can’t reach far enough to eat a bowl of food in front of him. As I stood there salivating over the waves, but becoming increasingly bummed out that I wasn’t riding them, I noticed a small black Nissan Sentra with a young Israeli surfer guy in it pulling up next to me to check out the surf. As I began talking with him, I found out that he had just come back from a surf trip to California and had visited Huntington Beach, which is only 5 miles from where we lived. This was an amazing set of circumstances to meet an Israeli who had just come back from a town right next to ours in California; it caused us to hit it off immediately and we spent some time talking.

About twenty minutes into the conversation I noticed something: “Hey, you’ve got two surfboards in your car here!” I exclaimed. He responded with an incredible statement: “Yes, and it is very strange. I never bring two surfboards with me to the beach, but for some reason today I put my board in the car and I don’t know why but I went into the house and grabbed my other board and put it in the car too.” “Wow!” I responded. “You know I was just standing here looking at these waves without a board and praying that I could surf here today somehow. How about you let me use your extra board and we go surfing together?”

He paused a moment and said that he normally doesn’t loan out his equipment, but then stated that he would make an exception today as he felt these were unique circumstances and that he could trust me. “Praise God!

This is an answer to the prayer I was just praying.”

How miraculous it all was: This guy bringing an extra board like this when he never brings an extra one to the beach, then meeting him after being led right here by the Holy Spirit down to this beach in Tel Aviv, the fact that he had just returned from Huntington Beach, California, the music at the airport, the prayer on the plane, the change of the departure time by El Al Airlines that made us be right on time this morning for this divine appointment, and for the swell that just now hit, and it was all happening here in the Holy Land!

We surfed a couple hours and had a blast in those unusual Israeli-Mediterranean waves. As I was paddling back out from a wave I thanked God that I was getting to surf in Israel and reflected on how incredibly God had answered my prayer. At that point the Holy Spirit spoke into my heart once again: “Invite him to lunch to thank him for loaning you the board.” To which I responded with a vigorous “Yes, Lord!”

After we were done surfing we went out to a really cool and very authentic Israeli restaurant. As we were sitting there enjoying our Israeli meal, I felt led to share the Gospel with him.

He had the most flabbergasted response: “You are a normal person, you are a surfer, AND you are religious?” I explained that I wasn’t really religious, but that I just had a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Living in Israel his whole life he associated religion with fanaticism and dour servitude to religious rituals, and thus was unprepared to meet someone who had an authentic relationship with God, yet still was normal and did fun things like going surfing and enjoying the beach. It was very apparent that surfing, and eating, and just hanging out with him and then naturally sharing the Gospel had had a major impact on him regarding the reality of who and what Jesus Christ and the Gospel are all about.

We were able to spend time there that day with this young surfer guy and share the good news of Christ with him. This is a person who in no way would have ever listened to a presentation of the Gospel in any other format whatsoever for he was a committed atheistic Jew who hated religion—not unlike so many in Israel, which a lot of American Christians are surprised to find when they visit the Holy Land on tours.

The leading of the Holy Spirit had brought forth a divine appointment that helped us to recharge our batteries. I got to surf incredible waves in Israel of all places, while Mercedes got to enjoy the warm Mediterranean sun on the beach. More importantly however, was the fact that the seeds of the Gospel were effectively planted in the life of a closed-off, hard-hearted, religion-hating Jew who never, ever, would have listened to a thing anyone said about Christianity and salvation had I not first connected with him on a friendship level with surfing and having fun. He was so impressed he invited us to come to stay at his home if we came back through his area, something he said he doesn’t normally do.

It was incredible to reflect at the end of it all how God used our airline change to bring me to exhaustion and cause me to pray to go surfing in Israel. That along with it causing us to come into Israel at just the right time when there was an unusual swell—swells in the Mediterranean are rare and only last one day because they’re so localized—which meant we came at just the exact right moment.

To think how the music from Endless Summer played in the Airport terminal right as we walked through and then the Holy Spirit led us down to the beach in Tel Aviv where we had this incredible divine appointment with this young Israeli who just returned from California and “just happened” to bring two surfboards to the beach—something he never does. Then we got to surf together in some great Israeli waves, another miracle in itself. Then as we ate our Israeli lunch we had the glorious opportunity to effectively share the Gospel with him in a powerful way that touched his heart to the point where he was significantly impacted by the reality of the message. Not only were our own batteries recharged but our faith was incredibly buoyed by the miraculous outstretched hand of God in all these circumstances!

It was an incredible divine appointment where God showed that not only does He work everything for good, but He also knows our hearts’ desires and prayers, and answers them in ways that work together to bless us and glorify Him and His name as we follow the leading of His powerful Holy Spirit. To God be the Glory!!!