Deported from Canada?

Deported From Canada????
By a YWAM worker. August 1, 2009

We were driving up the hill on Saturday morning in Jerusalem back in 1988. There are no public buses on Shabbat (Saturday) so I was hitching a ride to church with two friends. The woman driving the car screamed with laughter. Our other passenger, Carlos had said, "I am the only one who was ever deported for preaching on the street in both Paraguay and Uruguay." The driver one-upped him by saying, "And I was deported from Russia and Israel at the same time, but I am still here. (in Jerusalem)" So I told them, "I was only deported from Canada." The two of them broke up laughing.

Why were we talking about getting deported from countries for doing evangelism, which is YWAM's biggest value? Number one it helped alleviate the shame we had felt at the time. Number two we were all three aware of the current movement among the government of Israel toward restricting visas for Christian workers. It was getting tense to see our friends kicked out so we made jokes and laughed a lot.

The consul in Seattle and I had to work and then wait for 2 and 1/2 months collecting data before I was allowed back in." I got to visit my family in Honolulu during this time, and visited PACU in Kona with my parents during the same time in 1986. We got to attend the Friday night Community meeting. There was this guy named Bob Fitts leading worship and we had been using his song, "Take My Healing to the Nations" on our outreach team. I was seriously happy to hear him live. This guy named Rod Wilson did a one-man drama based on the future where he had to wear a gas mask as there were no more trees left and the air was so polluted. I liked the wonderful Hawaiian ambience where I first met Jesus 7 years earlier.

So I went to the downtown of Kona and thought "I will get a job as a waitress and just stay here." But I felt the Lord tug at my heart strings to go back to Washington and keep working on praying and collecting data that was required to get me back into Canada. So I fasted and prayed while volunteering to clean up the campus of PACU. Today I have been in over 86 countries and have never had a visa denied because of a technical snafu like I had in Canada when I was with Mercy Ships. God proved to me Romans 8:28 works for me personally.