Where do i start...ok the retreat, we went to Chico on tuesday afternoon. Arrived at this amazing site, it was originally a hotel built in the 1920s, apparently film stars used to go and stay there. They have built little cabins around the hotel which me and lil stayed in. the unmarrieds had to stay in the hotel(girls) and in some shed outside and servants quarters (boys). We had dinner then went to the meeting. The area near the meeting place was smelly cos theres a hot spring near by with sulpher in it, but its wasnt too bad. The water also had a strange sulpher taste!The area was beautiful though with big cliff things around us, and waterfalls a short hike away.

The meeting was really good, they had prophetic artists painting at the front and the speaker was good, some interns were asked to speak what the holy spirit was asking them to, so some spoke, one sang, some danced. and we had a good time of worship. On the way into each meeting the 2nd years had to do a fire tunnel, so to get into our meeting the 1st yrs had to go through it, so the meetings were quite drunken, esp the 2nd years. a few people got healed, back problems etc.
Wednesday, we queued for breakfast, women all went 1st (culture of honour) then men, which was nice because we all talked to new people each meal time.

We then split into revival groups and played an ice breaker, then split into smaller groups and shared about ourselves, our vision and calling, families etc and prayed for each other, after that we all stood in a circle and played prophetic duck duck goose, so someone in the middle and everyone calling out words for them. then the half the class stood facing the other half and we moved round in a cicle and the outside had to prophecy over the inside. only 4 words per person. they called it popcorn prophecy. We got some good words, nothing major, i got peace, beauty, kiwi fruit!?! i really cant remember any of mine or lils really.Lil said a word from God to someone that had been a huge thing over their life, and their name actually meant the word.Lil is learning to hear the voice of God so accuratly!! We then had to switch, and i just couldnt do it. so i told Crystal our group pastor and she got everyone in the middle who found it hard and they all prayed for us. Then we all prayed for crystal because she was preaching that night, and i had a picture God had given me for her. i told her after (whilst crying, always happens dont know why) and she said it was spot on for her, so yey God. I definatly work in pictures NOT words!
We had lunch then went to the pool, and swam and played etc. was fun. Then had dinner and met more lovely people. then the evening meeting!!!

It was a gooooood night, Crystals preach was amazing. about intimacy with God and fire. you cant have the fire without the intimacy or youll burn out. it was about grace, and just resting in his grace, because we cant do it on our own striving. we shouldnt be striving, Jesus died to give us LIFE, his yolk is easy and burden light. Then Crystals interns each gave a word. they called some people up from the 1st yrs who God had highlighted to them, and said they saw amazing futures for them. And for our year group, one intern had the word simplicity. Just keep it simple, keep our eyes on jesus and it will be simple.

After we had a time of worship, then a fire tunnel.
i was feeling quite tired and not really excited. then i went over to sit with my friends, one of them started massaging my and sarahs back, when she was done, i was already feeling whacked(with Holy spirits presence), so we all queued to go through the fire tunnel and i was out of it completely. could hardly walk i was laughing and falling. so FUN. people where on the floor after and my friend was just leaning on a wall with her face squashed up against it, eyes shut, there was so much of God presence there, there was nothing else to do but slouch or lie or laugh.

The band stopped playing, they put dance music on, we cleared away the chairs, turned off the main lights, and just danced for Jesus. everyone was going for it, not worried about what anyone thinks, just dancing in complete freedom. People got healed that night.

So after TRYING to walk sensibly back to the cabin we went up to the lobby of the hotel and lots from our revival group was there, we played games and talked (some still drunk)(and some playing ultiamte ninja) til 1 in the morning.a good night was had by all.

Next morning, out at 8 for breafast, then packing, photos and home.
Good times!!

This evening me and lil went out to our new friends Ben and Sarah, newly weds from sydney AUS. then we all went out for a thai meal which was lovely. They have a pool and hot tub, so we will be making use of that in the near future, and we have been invited to stay with them after school finishes near the beach in australia.:)

This evening lil and ad have gone out to the pray house at the church to pray for an hour, we each do an hour a week at a set time so they will have 24hr prayer going on all over the city.

Tomorrow we are going into school for about 3-4 hours to make a journal, then each person gets prophesied over by 2nd yrs, Josh and Em have gone to retreat now thurs-sat and they had there journal making day on tues, and said their prophesies were amazingly accurate and emotional.so im looking foward to ours!!

love you all. thankyou for reading. xxxxxxxx

Evening UK. its 6pm here in sunny california, and has been a very hot day. 37C/99F.
The weekend started off very well with a party at the lake.It was our revival group party there was about 50 of us up at brandy creek lake. we had a bbq and sat and chatted in the shade. izzy went for a swim with her new friends Dave(from romford,uk) and Heidi(from illinois). it was a great day.
In the evening Ad, lil and izzy went to a mexican which is just up the road as Josh and em were out at their party. It was a really nice place and the staff were friendly, we enjoyed being called amigos. The food hmmm ...we didnt really enjoy it. there was so much melted cheese on everything! and it tasted like it had been microwaved. I dont think we will visiting again for a while.
Today we went to church, had a good time of worship, then Bill johnson spoke. Literally everytime he says something people say 'wow', even though we have heard that bit of the bible before he has new revelations for us.
Today he talked aboutTransformation. But 1st he told us about some healing that have happened. In the healing rooms they have started praying for people over skype, and have seen lots of healings.Also someone from the church bought her grandad to the healing rooms, he had lung cancer. NOT ANYMORE! when he got home he went to the doctors and they are so amazed that they are doing tests to see if from him they can find a cure for lung cancer, because people just dont get better that quick. People were calling out in the meeting, 'i know the cure!!'
Anyway back to transformation,here's a few quotes from his sermon-
he said God thinks different from us,
the renewed mind considers a miracle logical.Beni johnson transformation was the biggest hed ever seen, she went to toronto church a lamb, and came home a lion.
I am dead to sin, and dead people cant sin.
faith in christ, thats what transforms the mind,
handleing problems- in every problem is a seed of breakthrough, it depends on how you handle the problem.
rejoice with trembling, if u want joy, you might have to rejoice to get it.
the moment you prayed a scary prayer, the lord put the seed in motion (eg. i wanna see the dead raised)
when you give to the poor, you lend to God-Proverbs 19v17- God has really good interest rates!
You should all subscribe to ibethel.tv!!or at the very least download the bethel podcasts.

izzy and lil have got an evening in tonight so we are just going to relax and catch up on some reading. we have retreat this week,going to Chico to a YWAM house to hang out and get to know everyone better, so wont update this until we get back, so maybe friday.
Have a blessed week everyone.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

ps. in the pic of lil, he isnt holding anything, its a post behind him.

hi all, we so appreciate you reading this by the way, and love you all. you guys are amazing, Come on! (new americanism church saying, after a good word)

On saturday izzy and emma let the boys do the shopping in walmart, which took a long time, and then came home and cooked for us and lovely meal of sweet and sour chicken with rice, it was even garnished! They all put shirts on aswell. it was so sweet.The juice you see in the above photos was called hawaiian punch, the boys thought they needed to water it down and it ended up being completely undrinkable. yuck!

Today was back to school after the weekend and monday off, and what a day to start with! worship then pastor bill spoke. Awesome, hes like a fountain of facebook status'. After our break Mark Brookes, chief overseer and all round legend, spoke, 'Whos Your Daddy' was the name of his talk, all about love and the fathers heart for us. Then we had a time of soaking and Mark spoke over us and broke off some lies that we've held on to. 'i renounce the lie that i am not good enough....'etc. Picked up a new book today, '30 days to understand the bible'.

We then came home had dinner on the decking, then started on our reading and book reviews.(which seem to be taking forever) its now 10.25pm and we are still struggling on.

Bill quotes of the day:

Your greatest victories in minitsry are won before the situation ever presents itself.
You want a miracle? train your mind on the things of God.
Romans 8, 'Carnal mind can not be subject to the law of God.'

End of day 3 in the BSSM house....

Hi everyone. Or anyone. Whoever is reading. We've now finished our first 3 days of school. 1 more to go and then it's the weekend. School so far has been great, mainly had introduction sessions to what the school stands for and it's core values and things like that. Also had an orientation session for international students on Wednesday morning which was helpful but annoying in that we found out we would all have to take a driving lesson if we intend to drive while we're here. For ages we've been reading the law on driving and thinking of how we can get around it and how our circumstances don't qualify us as residents, but basically we do because we're here for the next 9 months. And even if we do find a little loophole that means that technically we aren't residents, we don't want to take the chance and get pulled over and try and reason with the Highway Patrol. They carry guns here!

Schools been good. Very interesting. In a lot of ways it'll be good when we fully get in the routine and start to pick our own routes but it's been good to hear about the core values of the school which have contributed to the way they do church and have resulted in many of the successes they see. Yesterday (Wednesday) Lil was ill so missed much of the afternoon session. He's feeling better today though and we all had the priviledge of listening to Bill Johnson this afternoon. He came in at 3.15 and only thought he would be with us for a little time but there was nothing scheduled until school ended at 5.30! so we got to listen to him for almost 2 hours. Some of the stuff he was speaking on was absolutely mind blowing. He started talking on giving and then ended on Mark 8, via some revelation on culture and honour and atmosphere and testimony. Some amazing stuff. Enough to last 9 months alone! But that was just one afternoon. They're big on having a culture of honour here, so Lil, Josh and Adam are having to learn quickly to open doors and be courteous!

The afternoon ended with some of the 3rd year interns and Revival Group Leaders standing on the stage and calling out prophesies they felt for certain people they picked out from the crowd. Some of them were so amazing, some big stuff being declared and very exciting. For example, an intern pointed out a young man and said he saw revival plastered over every area of his life. Another one was a young lady who one of the Revival group pastors sang a song about restoration over, which was incredibly powerful.

Anyways, it's still boiling hot here. Like absolutely boiling. It's a good job most indoor places have air conditioning. The heat is sometimes unbearable, especially for Lil's pale English rose skin! But apparently it'll cool down soon as we move towards October. One of the hardest things we're finding is you can't just pop downs the shops or to the high street, everything's so far apart! No wonder Americans drive everywhere.

We've got final school day of the week tomorrow and then a prayer and praise night in the evening, so hopefully that'll be fun. Hope everyone back home is good and God is blessing you guys richly.

Love
Lil and Izzy x

Last night we went to this restaurant called cool hand lukes and our waiter was a Bethel guy called josh, which we found out whilst chatting to him. he said he felt drawn to us and said he felt like we were all quite big players in our home churches and that they will miss us but not to worry about them because Gods got his hand on them, and then after the meal (which was huuuge) josh asked him to pray for us, so we went outside, because the waiters have been asked by the boss not to pray for people in the shop, and josh prayed for each of us individually. What he said over each of us was so accurate, the holy spirit really spoke to him and he really spoke deep into our lives, especially over lil. It was so exciting.

Registration day! we got to Bethel at about 9.30 and there was a massive queue outside, so we joined up and got talking to a few people in the international line. Met some people from the uk and a canadian girl who is in izzy and lils revival group (a group of about 70 1st yrs). We met our revival group leaders and registered, got our name badges and photo taken. we were given a folder with information in and all our notes we need to this year, also our 1st reading book which is called world aflame by rick joyner. I have started reading it and it is already very exciting, and makes me more excited about the upcoming year.

After registration we went to starbucks and sat outside, then we headed home to sort our our folder and look through the work we have got to do this year. after reading each book we have to write a book report about it. we also have to read chapters of the bible each day, so our homework will be a couple of hours a night.

We went for lunch to Chipotle, which sells yummy burritos and tacos. whilst in the queue Ad, Em, and Josh met a man called Jerry who over heard them talking and offered to buy them lunch, they asked what he does and it turned out he was the manager of Jesus Culture, the band that tours the world doing youth conferences. wow. what a job.

We have just sat down for dinner on the decking outside as its so hot inside. someone who we talked to earlier said it doesn't really get cold in the winter and autumn doesn't really happen as it stays warm until beginning of nov, then starts getting cold for winter and by feb its getting warm again which is nice.

Tomorrow we might go and look at a car then school starts at 12.45 so we are looking forward to that. our schedules look exciting, we get taught by Bill Johnson on a tues and Kris Vallotton on a wed and we have worship 3 days a week. outreach stuff starts in about 6-7 weeks. we go on retreat in 2 weeks in our revival groups, not sure where yet, but looking forward to it.

Since arriving we have been generally getting to know the area we live in, last night we went out to a coffee shop opening and had some coffee, and listen to some live music, then we went to see Bethel Church, we drove up at about 10 o clock, theres a conference there this weekend so we didnt go in but the building is huge. its on a hill overlooking the city. We were asked by the school not to go to church this sunday because with the students and the conference on there would be too many thousands of people there, so we will have a sunday off. the only one probably for the next 9 months.
Today we woke up early and headed to Whiskeytown, it has a amazing mountainus national Park with lakes in. We were able to swim in one of the lakes called brandy creek swim lake. It was beautiful. there was a man made beach next to it, so we relaxed and played catch and went for a swim.
We went for lunch at Subway, there was a couple behind us, they asked lil straight away if we were going to school(as in Bethel) they had done the 1st yr last year, and were staying around this year to go to the church i think. Everywhere we go (like at the mall today) people ask 'so u guys at School?' then they say 'we go to Bethel too' haha.
We are home now just reading and relaxing, Lil, Ads and Em have gone to starbucks, which is
about a mile away. i think they will get good business from us while we are here!!

We're here!
Its been very strange. The flight was long but ok. We were slightly delayed because of a problem with a baggage container. Got to San Francisco and managed to get our hire car ok, its massive. A Chrysler Town&Country. Then we stayed in a hotel overnight which was fine, seemed a bit like the type of hotel that people get killed in American Detective shows though. The weather was horrible, very misty, cloudy and gloomy. Not what we thought California weather was!
Next day (Wednesday) we started to drive up towards Redding. Sat nav said it would take 3 and a quarter hours but we thought we'd drive some of the way up the coast to see some more of California, which sat nav said would be about 4 - 4 and a half hours. So we started and it was so gloomy we couldnt see the sea sometimes even though we were right next to it! So we stopped at a place called Bodega Bay for some food at a little Hawaiian themed deli (was terrible) and decided to try head inland to catch the main road up to Redding. Trouble was going inland was really hard. The roads were incredibly bendy and high. The landscape was amazing at times (Bit like how I imagine Canada is) but driving was hard. We eventually reached the main road (The I5) and drove on up. But we started driving at 11 and arrived at our house at 7! It took ages. All in all we wouldn't recommend anything about how we got here or arrived here!
Our house is really nice though. It's got everything we need and more. We've settled in well, not really got jet lag but keep waking up early. Yesterday was a much better day. The weather was nice, about 27 degrees. We went for a walk, but almost got lost so came home. In the afternoon we played volleyball in the garden and then went to starbucks and went food shopping. Was nice. Today we gotta set up an american bank account and do a few other things. Weathers gonna get up to the early 30s this weekend.
Some first impressions:

• everythings big! and square.

• The cars are massive. Its hard to walk anywhere because everything's so spread out.

• people are generally friendly. Everyone asks where we're from, when we tell them they say 'is that near London?'
  

• The house is great. Like a restful place. We're getting on all together and having fun and laughing.

• Tv is terrible. Loads of adverts and we don't have many channels.

• Our street is massive and very hilly. But the views of the mountains are amazing.