Day 4- Government Officials

I've been talking a lot about prophecy, and I feel like it would be a good idea to clarify what I mean when I say that we prophesy over people. No, we don't prophesy in King James English bellowing, "Thus saith the Lord...!" We don't shout at people and we don't prophesy earthquakes or years of famine over the land. It's not divination and it's not fortune telling. Prophecy is in the Bible, and in
1 Corinthians 14, the Apostle Paul tells us to "Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially the gift of prophecy...[for] the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort...[and] the one who prophesies edifies the church". It's as simple as asking God for the gift of prophecy, asking Holy Spirit what He sees in someone, and sharing it with them so that they may be strengthened, encouraged, and comforted.
We don't make it up, and we don't always get it completely right. But that's why we are encouraged to test the words we receive. 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21 says, "Do not quench the Spirit; do not despise prophetic utterances. But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good." Sometimes words come in the form of a picture, sometimes a word or phrase, sometimes it's an intuition. Hopefully that will clear some things up for some of you. Okay, back to Day 4:
Day 4 began with all of us waking up bright and early and dressing up in our nicest dresses and suits. We had an important meeting with a very important government official (I'm sure by now you can guess who I'm referring to). Honey had wrapped the gifts we had prepared for him in beautiful wrapping paper and we piled onto the bus and drove to the Statehouse. We each turned in all of our electronic devices, and were ushered into the conference room where, I'm sure, many important meetings take place. This was not to be where we'd hold the meeting, but since we were asked to wait, we decided to spend our time worshiping, blessing the room and praying over the building. It was overwhelming to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit as the African sang with us in singing We exalt Thee, we exalt Thee, we exalt thee, Oh Lord.
We were then ushered into his office and because of the position of the official I will use discretion and summarize by saying he received many prophetic words and it was easy to see that he is a man of God, characterized by integrity and unwilling to compromise his values. Elections are coming up this year, and I am confident that he will be re-elected. It was a humbling moment to realize that God trusted us with the honor of meeting and encouraging such an amazing and influential man. I will never forget it.
From there, we had the privilege of an invitation to meet with another government official. I liked him immediately. I've never witnessed a government official who was so down-to-earth. "Just call me Frank," he said. We took turns prophesying over him and it was encouraging to me that after I prophesied over him, he looked at me and said, "That is so true." It never ceases to amaze me when God speaks to me about someone else. It was such a joy to bless him and his office staff. I have a great deal of respect for them.
After we finished, we headed to Andre's office a few blocks away, where he graciously let us use his building to change into more comfortable clothes. We went to lunch at a place called Crown Bakery. Ken and Ryan told us that the pizza was really good, so I shared a pizza that had chicken, sausage, ham, onions, mushrooms, sweet corn and pineapple. Let me just say that pizza is my favorite food, so I fancy myself a bit of a connoiseur when it comes to pizza. This was definitely top notch.
After lunch we headed to Dominic's work. Dominic lived in England until recently when his job asked him to relocate to Sierra Leone. He works for a company that manufactures rutile. Rutile is a mineral composed primarily of titanium dioxide. The main uses for rutile are the manufacture of refractory ceramic, as a pigment, and for the production of titanium metal. If you didn't know any of that, don't worry...I had to go to Wikipedia to copy and paste it.
We prophesied over his boss, John, and his coworkers, and finally over Dominic. I really felt like the Lord was giving me a word for Dominic, but I didn't want to share it in front of everyone, so I pulled Ann-Lis aside and shared the word with her since they are family. The word had to do with future business prospects for him. Ann-Lis told me that my word was confirmation about what the Lord had been speaking to her as well.
We went back to the hotel and ate dinner and a small group of us stayed up to prophesy and bless one another. I don't remember all of the words I got, but two people both saw me playing with clouds. One saw me forming them into shapes, and she thought it meant that I was creating with God. It was like He was giving me freedom to try things out and move things around, which meant a lot to me, because I feel like God has been empowering me to step out in creativity and to dream with Him.