The Forest Prayer Meeting

This one might push your envelope a bit, but what I write here is absolutely true.

For obvious reasons, I have no pictures of this time. It was just too holy an experience to bother with that kind of mundane stuff.


After dinner we headed to the prayer mountain. We had been told about this place at the conference. This one was not so high in elevation, but has been richly prepared in the Spirit. We got out of the vans and cars. George and the film crew were with us. We walked a ways along a path, across a rickety bridge, through some woods until we got to an ant hill. This was the stopping point, for the first stop. Here, we were instructed by the Brazilian pastors. No more talking and chit-chat. We stopped and prayed and prepared our hearts, sanctifying ourselves to enter the forest. It was dark, so we could see the stars above – not quite a half moon.

Then after prayer, we walked a little ways, read from Exodus 3 in English and Portuguese. We were instructed that we were to take off our shoes and put them by a tree next to the narrow path because the place we were entering was holy ground. Then, in our socks (or some with bare feet) we walked just to an adjacent clearing and each took our places around the clearing to pray and worship. We were still for a while, then the Brazilian pastors began to cry out to God and then we all prayed and worshipped and after a while, something began to happen.

The presence of the Lord came softly, at least to me. As I was kneeling, holding on to a couple roots or branches, (it was dark and I could not see anything) I noticed a little light right in front of me. Then others began to point out lights all in the bushes. Some picked up leaves and brought them around, and you could see little lights on the leaves. Then it seemed as though the trees across from where I was standing now, and some to my right were taking on phosphorescence. Like something held under a black light.

At first I thought it was the moonlight, but as soon as I thought that, it was like the Lord said, “oh yeah? Watch this!” And then it got brighter right before our eyes. These trees became different than all the other trees that were under the moon, and different than they were just a few seconds before. It was really like they were glowing!! There were lights that would appear like the one in front of me. Some people picked up leaves with the lights on them. J.R. and Lisa and others picked them up and showed them around as they held them in their hands.

The worship of the Lord increased at this time. There was a place where the trees became almost like a glow stick and the frequency of the lights increased. Then the Spirit of God really broke through in our hearts in adoration and praise, crying and laughter. When we saw the forest go back to its former state, it was all the more incredible. There was a sense of such openness and freedom and “lightness.” For myself, I was overwhelmed with the awe and wonder of it. We were all expressing our wonder and adoration to the Lord. It was a wonder that He would share such a thing with us! It was like the Lord was just so happy to come to us. He was delighted to be with His children, and in a holy way, it was almost like He was “showing off” a little for us. The whole group was just filled with joy and laughter. I talked with others afterward, and they said they too felt like it was very open, and “airy” and free.

We spent a while worshipping, laughing, crying, praising and singing. A lot of laughing, mixed with crying our of sheer delight. Then we got into small groups and prayed for each other. After this time of prayer together in small groups, at the instruction of the Brazilian pastors, we all shouted in our own languages – three times – Lord, Thank you for opening Your treasures to us! We got our shoes on, went to the ant hill and again, three times shouted, Lord, Thank you for opening Your treasures to us.

I talked with George afterwards, and he said that there are credible reports of this happening in four to five other locations. Since that time, I have had a totally different understanding of God's love and His delight in us as His children. I have also have a different perspective on how much of the glory of creation was lost in the Fall. Sin has "greyed" everything around us, and we don't even realize it.