For the Parker family and the little one we are adopting (rescuing)! July 25 is the RSVP date! Go ahead and get your tickets now and reserve your seat for the Parkers Adoption Fundraising Banquet in the Tallahassee area at the Golden Eagle Country Club. Invites are being sent out now, but if you haven’t got an invite, don’t be shy. We would love to host you for dinner, share our vision and drop some very exciting developments to you!
Stephanie and I will be speaking that night as well as few others. Please join us!
We will be serving a catered full course dinner at our Adoption Banquet and will be selling tickets to cover the cost of the dinner and raise money for our adoption.
You can RSVP and buy your tickets using the Paypal link below or by emailing me at adamparker@ihop.org.
You can choose at what level you’d like to partner with us in this adoption by purchasing one of the following tickets (tickets are per person to cover the cost of the dinner in addition to helping raise money):
To RSVP and buy your tickets by debit/credit click here:
You may or may not know this, but Stephanie and I recently brought 3 kids into our home. This has been such a roller coaster journey through the grand canyon and back, but well worth it. My wife is a champion Mom. She amazes me at how she is able to manage, encourage, and raise up 5 kids as well as teaching at the Daniel Academy AND homeschooling David and Manuel. She wrote a little about the last 6 weeks and I wanted to share that with you here.
Manuel, 6, Gerardo, 4 and Dana 2 came into our home 6 weeks ago. The beginning of their time here was very challenging. They weren’t used to structure or discipline or bedtime and those three things are huge parts of our family life. So, needless to say, the first couple of weeks held a lot of battle of wills. Overtime though the kids grew to not only obey our house rules, most of the time, but to actually enjoy the rules and the structure we have in place. They thrive on living within a schedule and we have seen much progress.
Manuel came to us very behind in school, but I have been homeschooling and he is making steady strides to catch up. He is also opening up and receiving our love more readily. Gerardo came to us hungry for attention and when we showered it upon he turned into this amazing outgoing little boy who is the life of the party, A.K.A our house. Dana was prone to many tempers in a day, but now her attitude is much more obedient and she is starting to really let her personality shine. She loves to be girly and often has a half dozen hair clips in her hair and gets very upset if she isn’t wearing her favorite shoes and dress. Unfortunately, the 4 boys have their G.I.Joe’s attack her doll house, so her girliness is often thwarted by the boys. David is loving being the oldest. He is trying hard to be an example and all the kids are lucky to have him for a big brother. Noah, who has always been super social, has taken it to another level with these kids. He is loving the interaction with all his brothers and sister. Life to him is one big play date. Not everything is perfect and easy taking in 3 kids and going to a family of 5 overnight, but the positive far outweigh the negative and we love having these children in our home!
One of the ministries here (Exodus Cry) at the IHOP-KC missions base is and has been in production of a full-length documentary on Human Trafficking from a perspective that has not yet been seen. Many of us have seen the Human Trafficking movie that aired on television as well as the Feature Film Taken that brought the issue to even more audiences, although a little glamorized and a little hollywood flare added for dramatic affect. However, most have not seen the slavery that is going on in the world as this documentary will unveil.
I was able to experience first hand the injustice that is happening in Southeast Asia on a missions trip to Thailand and Cambodia last summer. This film will bring into the light the many injustices that have been in the darkness for so long. Check it out.
Christmas has passed, our annual Onething conference is over and 2009 has finally come to an end. It’s hard to believe but the new year has started whether I was ready for it or not. Life on the missions base here in Kansas City is getting back to semi-normal; that is if we can get through all of this snow and negative degree temperatures that have been plaguing this city for the past few weeks.
Our awakening services have began again and we are continuing to see God move on the hearts of people. I love this stuff. I love hearing the testimonies of people who were bound by addictions, wrong mindsets and so many other things testifying of the power of God on their lives in setting them free.
Even at our Onething conference, which drew over 20,000 people this year, we saw so many set free from wrong mindsets, self-hatred, a spirit of fear, religious spirits, depression, suicide, and anxiety bringing joy and freedom, a greater love for the Word, and a passion for Jesus and souls. In addition, in the last 2 months or so we have had more than 900 salvations and baptisms.
God is on the move. He is up to something. We have also seen the convergence and greater partnership between Toronto Vineyard, Bethel Church, YWAM, Urbana and the Call2All with IHOP-KC in the last 2 months. My soul is stirred with a greater passion for the Word, a desire to intercede for others to make wrong things right and give myself to doing His works of justice for those who are oppressed.
I know many of you joined with us at the Onething conference online as we had more than 25,000 viewers over the web. I want to encourage you to continue to join us for the awakening services every Wed – Sat at ihop.org or on GodTV. But more so, that you would press deeper into the Word and intercession for others; that you would carve out more time in each day to pray, to be in the Word and to give yourself to works of justice.
“Therefore… I beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (Ephesians 4:1)
Once you have started your prayer meeting and you have a few weeks, months or even a year under your belt, how do you sustain it? How do you keep your prayer meeting going week after week? How do you fuel people to keep the fire burning? You must have vision, and your vision must be fueled by the message.
Most people will try anything once, but there must be a vision for something greater than yourself, greater than your meeting in order to sustain your prayer meeting over years. Your vision must transcend your own ability to accomplish goals, yet also be clear enough for people to wrap their mind around and get behind.
Your vision must also be founded up on the message. Here at IHOP-KC we have determined 4 primary pillars that fuel everything that we do. These 4 pillars are intimacy with Jesus, intercession, end-times, and justice. The messages that come out of IHOP-KC will fall into one of these categories and the direction that we are headed is filtered through these as well.
I have found even in my personal life that setting these 4 areas as a foundation for personal devotion, bible study and setting up an action plan for the Word has catapulted my time with God. My encouragement to you is to make your vision personal. Give yourself, your time and your energy to your vision in a personal way, not just for “your ministry.” Let the vision God has given you be your guide regardless of if you “have a ministry” that is leading others. Once you have a vision, get an action plan for the Word based on your vision and begin to unpack the layers of that vision. You can’t sell others on your vision if you are not sold yourself.
The Holy Spirit is visiting His people with power, but at the same time there is a crisis that is happening in our nation in regards to the stranglehold abortion has on this country and the sexual immorality of both heterosexuality and homosexuality, the question we at IHOP-KC are asking is “what is the Spirit saying to the Church?” We want to put our ears to the ground and really begin to seek the Lord for an answer.
It is time to encounter God and take action!
I just got an email from Lou Engle and Mike Bickle that was sent to all IHOP-KC staff and wanted to share it with you:
Dear friends,
We stand at a critical juncture in our nation’s history. It is time to encounter God and to take action. The Holy Spirit is visiting His people with power. At the same time, the powers of darkness are raging against the moral fabric of our nation. The light is getting brighter as the darkness gets darker.
Many of you will have heard of the spiritual awakening at our Bible school. On Wednesday, November 11, the Spirit fell on a class for more than 15 hours. The word spread quickly and over 2,000 people spontaneously gathered in the auditorium from all over Kansas City, as deliverance and physical healings continued to increase. We canceled our classes for the next week so that each one of our 1,000 students and interns could receive from the Spirit in an extended way.
We decided to meet nightly from 6:00pm to midnight because His manifest presence continues to increase. Visitors are pouring in from many places across America to partake of this spiritual awakening.
We will continue these evening meetings until our onething conference, December 28–31, 2009, when we are expecting 20,000 young adults to gather for worship, teaching, and to participate in the supernatural ministry of the Spirit.
Last year, over 16,000 young adults attended this conference. We are still hearing testimonies of lives that were changed. This year, we are expecting to receive even more from the Spirit. We believe that this will be a historic and important conference, and encourage you to attend.
The theme for onething’09 is “What is the Spirit saying to the Church?” Our team will proclaim what we believe the Spirit is prophetically speaking to the Church in this hour. We will also share practical ways in which we can “adopt” high schools and colleges across our nation as we envision young people to impact each sphere of society with works of justice and acts of compassion. At the conference, we will have extended ministry times to receive healing, renewal, and impartation from the Spirit. We believe that the Spirit will release His power at this conference, as evidenced by what He is currently doing in our evening meetings.
Mark Anderson, a senior international leader in YWAM who also works closely with Campus Crusade for Christ, will host forums for leaders to discuss how we can systematically evangelize entire cities and campuses in partnership with the houses of prayer in their area. Mark has remarkable insight that comes from his 30 years of successful ministry in evangelism. The Lord has given him some bold new strategies for this hour.
The crisis in our nation is real. The serpentine stranglehold of abortion continues to squeeze the life out of over 4,000 wombs daily. Sexual immorality, both heterosexual and homosexual, are reaching epic heights of perversity. The number of women and children being trafficked into the dark underbelly of the sex industry in our cities is growing at an alarming rate. Entire school systems are giving way to darkness. The sanctity of marriage is under siege, threatening to destroy the moral foundations of our nation.
We will also address the growing crisis that is emerging in many churches across America. A new wave of confusion is systematically seducing many young adults into deception. Sincere young people whose hearts were once ablaze for Jesus are being allured into compromise on foundational biblical truths and practices, while at the same time they are increasing in works of compassion and justice. No amount of increased ministry activity can “balance out” their profound spiritual compromises. In the name of tolerance, they are settling for a humanistic and “politically correct” theology that trivializes the glory of Jesus. Many young adult ministries are falling prey to this as they are seeking “relevance” that dulls the razor’s edge of truth for the sake of man’s approval. It is not enough to mention Jesus’ name if they deny foundational truths about Him. Our works of justice must flow from deep allegiance to Jesus and the Scripture.
Our nation has never stood on such a precarious footing as today. The onslaught of spiritual darkness is increasing in our classrooms, boardrooms, courtrooms, and bedrooms. We must confront the confusion that is pouring forth from many pulpits as well as from the halls of Washington. It is time to draw a line in the sand. We must hear what the Spirit is saying and we must act on it. The Spirit will confirm the truth with demonstrations of power.
It is darkest before the dawn. Our hearts are full of faith. We know another historic “Great Awakening” is soon to sweep across our nation. We look with confidence to God’s promise: “In the last days . . . I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh (Acts 2:17-21). All nations will receive the witness of kingdom with power (Mt. 24:14; Rev. 7:9). What a privilege to live in this awesome hour of history.
At this very hour, Jesus is raising up young adults who are being mobilized to cry out in night and day prayer, win the lost, heal the sick, and do works of compassion and justice as they impact the very fabric of our society.
Please join us in Kansas City from December 28–31. The onething’09 conference is FREE. You can register at http://IHOP.org
Those who know me know that a few weeks ago I returned from 3 weeks in Thailand and Cambodia. We spent time there in ministry in the red light districts of Bangkok and Pattaya, Thailand as well as visiting an amazing organization in Poipet, Cambodia. We talked with girls in the bars of Nana, Patpong and Walking Street as well as did video interviews with people from all over the world from the Netherlands to the UAE to Australia.
My hope is that this will fuel your fire for intercession, provide greater insight to the problem of human trafficking and cause you to rejoice in the fruit of your prayers and all of you who supported me on this journey.
I recently came back from a mission trip to Bangkok and Pattaya Thailand where we were doing ministry in the red light districts of those cities regarding the issue of human trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and children. While we were there we saw so much brokenness both in the women who were selling their bodies for a mere $4 or $5 per hour as well as in the western men who were looking to fulfill longings that they had obviously cultivated for many years before reaching the point of entering into this growing global trade of sexually exploiting women.
I had a chance to interview many of the guys who were coming in and out of these sex bars. Most were very open and glad to talk about being there at the bars, and about how this was just a great way to have fun and to be entertained. The girls in Thailand would ask “Are you Christian? Christians are our best customers, they are so nice and polite.” This longing and this desire for sexual pleasure has obviously been cultivated in the secret places in the west. They were not there by accident, they had to get a passport, buy a ticket and get on a plane to come to Bangkok or Pattaya. They were driven by desire for pleasure, to fill a void inside of them.
It’s not enough to be moral or to even declare our belief in Jesus and call ourselves Christian. We must be ones who set our gaze on Jesus every day and look to Him to fulfill the God-given longing for fascination. We must seek to encounter the superior pleasures of gospel in the place of communion with the man Christ Jesus and not settle for being entertained with the inferior pleasures of this world.
The God of all Creation longs to reveal Himself to us. There is no greater pleasure than when God reveals God to the human heart. We must set our gaze upon Jesus and give ourselves to the place of encountering Him. Only then will we find true fulfillment and be ultimately satisfied.
Many people I have talked to find it hard to believe that human trafficking is an issue in America. However, the State department has said “It is estimated that 14,500 to 17,500 people, primarily women and children, are trafficked to the U.S. annually.”
Just last week federal prosecutors in Kansas City charged 12 people with luring illegal immigrants to the U.S. to work as what they called “modern-day slaves” in 14 states.
We cannot be fooled into thinking our country, because of our advanced culture, is immune to entering into this kind of depravity. Condoleeza Rice has said “Trafficking in persons is a modern-day form of slavery, a new type of global slave trade. Perpetrators prey on the most weak among us, primarily women and children, for profit and gain. They lure victims into involuntary servitude and sexual slavery.”
Download the TIP Report
You can get a clearer picture by downloading and reading the “Trafficking in Persons” (TIP) Report put out by the State Department in 2007. You can download that here.
America does however enforce its laws against trafficking, so its not out in the open as in countries like Thailand or Cambodia. But do not be fooled by thinking its only in the underground scenes in megatropolises. It’s happening in those places for sure, but also in suburban homes and in small towns where most people won’t think to look… so they won’t get caught.
Reports of Trafficking
I just heard from a friend that they are finding that the Panama City, FL port security is lax and they are finding traffickers know this information and are using it.
Just a few days ago I saw a news report about 3 traffickers that promised a 15 year old girl from Mexico an opportunity to work at a restaurant in Houston, TX. The girl saw hope in helping her ailing mother with being able to send money back to her. But the game changed once she reached Houston. “They forced her into prostitution once she got over here, telling her that her family would be injured or harmed if she did not comply,” said Harris County Asst. District Attorney Donna Hawkins. And when she failed to meet her nightly quota they would begin to beat her.
Here is the video of that story:
In Los Angeles, CA, according to a News America Media Report, Human Trafficking has Escalated as Economy Plunges. The Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking estimates that at least 10,000 women are being held in clandestine brothels in Los Angeles alone. They also say that the State Departments numbers are way low, and actually estimate about 50,000 people are brought into the United States each year to be modern day slaves.
Let’s not be fooled. Let’s pray and get involved. Visit exoduscry.com to find out more, or read some of these related articles below.
“There really is nothing like the death in the eyes of these children inside these brothels who are just being serially raped. But when someone shows up to intervene on their behalf, I’ve seen life return to those same eyes.” – Gary Haugen, President, International Justice Mission
In preparation for my missions trip to Thailand as well as in this journey of adoption that God is taking us on, I have been doing research on orphans and human trafficking. I have been reading a book called “The Natashas” which has really opened my eyes up to the atrocities that are going on around the world as well as in our backyard.
One of the most appalling things that I have come across in my journey so far is the targeting of orphans for sex-slavery. In March 2003 the U.S. State Department reported a “pattern of trafficking” involving orphans in Russia. According to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, the girls at risk are those who “must leave orphanages when they graduate,” usually at sixteen or seventeen.
According to data from the Health and Social Development Ministry, more than 730,000 children in Russia either have no parents or have been abandoned by their parents. Of this number about 200,000 of them live in orphanages and internats.
More than 160,000 children are waiting to be adopted according to the state database. International adoptions have been hampered by recent legislation. As of March 2007, only 20 organizations had received accreditation from the government to oversee international adoptions. In 2007, 9,000 Russian children were adopted by foreign families. More than 4,000 of these went to the United States.
Statistics sited from the article “Russian Orphans” By Svetlana Osadchuk in the May 19, 2008 edition of the Moscow Times.
The horrifying thing is that traffickers often know precisely when these girls are to be turned out of the institutions (“some orphanage directors sold information… to traffickers”) and are waiting for them, job offers in hand. The State Department also notes that throughout Russia, there are “reports of children being kidnapped or purchased from . . . orphanages for sexual abuse and child pornography” and that child prostitution is “widespread” in orphanages in Ukraine. And in Romania, “many orphanages are complicit in letting girls fall victim to trafficking networks.”
What if Christians began adopting at-risk children from countries where they were being targeted?
For the Parker family and the little one we are adopting (rescuing)! July 25 is the RSVP date!
Manuel, 6, Gerardo, 4 and Dana 2 came into our home 6 weeks ago. The beginning of their time here was very challenging. They weren’t used to structure or discipline or bedtime and those three things are huge parts of our family life. So, needless to say, the first couple of weeks held a lot of battle of wills. Overtime though the kids grew to not only obey our house rules, most of the time, but to actually enjoy the rules and the structure we have in place. They thrive on living within a schedule and we have seen much progress.
Many people I have talked to find it hard to believe that human trafficking is an issue in America. However, the State department has said “It is estimated that 14,500 to 17,500 people, primarily women and children, are trafficked to the U.S. annually.”
In preparation for my missions trip to Thailand as well as in this journey of adoption that God is taking us on, I have been doing research on orphans and human trafficking. I have been reading a book called “The Natashas” which has really opened my eyes up to the atrocities that are going on around the world as well as in our backyard.
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