Michelle Foster – Pardubice, Czechia:

I have been reading the book Word Spirit Power by R.T.Kendall, Charles Carrin and Jack Taylor. Reading this book has been very inspiring. I haven’t finished it yet but R.T.Kendall talks about the fact that when Word, Spirit and Power come together, God does something supernatural that is beyond our strength or comprehension. I kind of feel He did that with me during my recent time when I spoke at our school assembly.

On Tuesday 24th of October I got a phone call from a colleague, asking if I could share a testimony at our christian school assembly. I declined initially – I said that I didn’t think that I could as I am a teacher in the school and that a testimony is very personal etc. I came up with lots of excuses, mostly due to fear.

That same night we were at the Relational Mission Call Conference in the UK and whilst there, God spoke to me. Right at the beginning of the conference He gave me a vision of me running like a little girl to Him and He scooped me up and turned me around like you do with a child, for fun. He spoke to me of our first love and all the fears that I have been recently carrying shattered and disappeared. When the conferenced finished on Saturday, He reminded me of that phone call, so I talked to my husband and asked him for his opinion. He encouraged me to do it and I messaged my colleague on Sunday morning saying that if she still needs me, I am willing to do the assembly. I honestly thought she would have someone else by then, as I was meant to give an answer by the previous Wednesday! She answered me, “You are the answer to my prayers. Brilliant!” Later she phoned and asked me if I could do a short talk on the theme of God Speaks.

I am not the kind of person who feels confident in speaking to more than 22 kids in a classroom so I asked a lot of people to pray for me for guidance, wisdom and His direction. All I can say is that when I stood there on that Wednesday morning and my friend had prayed for me, all the nervous feelings left me and it felt like someone had lit a match inside of me.

I had been asked to speak for about ten minutes, to over 100 kids aged 11-15 years old. I asked the kids to listen out for God, and that if He spoke anything, that they should be ready to share it at the end. I spoke about the truth that God is the God of the living and not the dead (Mt 22:32) and that he speaks to us in different ways. I shared how God first spoke to me and how he speaks to me today. I spoke about how God is light and how sin separates us from him but that relationship with God can be restored and experienced through Jesus. And then finally, I shared about the Holy Spirit and his work in our life and the fruit that he produces in us.

At the end, I asked if anyone had something to share about what God was saying to them; one teacher did and then I also had a word about hurtful things that had been spoken over someone and how God wanted to bring freedom from this. Around thirty or so people stood up, the first of whom was my non-Christian colleague!

Then I asked people to stand up if they wanted to have a relationship with Jesus and hardly anyone was left sitting! I asked people to pray with me and to specifically repent of their sin and to forgive individuals who had hurt them. Then our band came back and my colleague, who was leading the assembly, encouraged everyone who had stood to tell a Christian parent, friend or teacher about what God had been doing in their life that morning.

I probably took longer to speak than the ten minutes that I was given and I can’t say that beforehand I was really expecting kids to respond as they did; but I had faith in God that He could do something, and He did!

The next day, I heard from someone who had been saved during the assembly. She said to me, “I prayed it all! I asked for forgiveness for specific sins and I named people who had hurt me. I told my parents who were pleased. I must tell you Michelle, I feel so relieved!”

In the days following, more stories were shared with me:
“I stood up because I want to have freedom and a loving life with God!”
“My whole class stood up to respond,” said a teacher of the youngest children.
“Did you see that the boisterous teenage boys from the older grade stood to respond?“ said another colleague.

My husband Pete and I have been talking about what happened that morning and we can both see how Christian teachers in our school have been praying weekly and actively sowing seeds since 2011. What happened in this assembly is all part of this.

Before the assembly, I was simply asking God for two things: that he would help me to speak and that I wouldn’t get nervous and stutter…but I also told him that I wanted to see children and colleagues saved and set free…and I saw some of this.