Endless Safari

By Denise Reid

A safari is an animal adventure, into the unknown, to see and experience things you never have. Exploring new places, doing different things, experiencing constant change. An adventure into the unknown, always following a guide. You think you know what is to happen but all the time it changes. You have the ticket, you’ve paid the money you’ve received the plan. Embark with Denise on this endless journey into the unknown, encounter with her glorious experiences, and gain the trophies, of supernatural encounters in new relationships in exotic places. Be empowered to embark with a green light to move on in your own Endless Safari. Awaken your heart to the challenges facing you as you follow the guide.

Reader, are you a dreamer? When we dream, impossibilities become possibilities. When the old is revisited and the prize achieved, relationships deepen and trust in the guide becomes paramount.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris NZ
• Release date: Mar 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781543497014

Denise Reid

Denise Reid is the founder of Four Corners Ministries NZ and cofounder of Four Corners Ministries Inc. USA. She has an international miracle ministry and has seen thousands of people healed and set free from sickness and disease. She and her husband Kevin have pioneered a work across the four corners of the earth. She is the author of two other books, “Heavenly Kaleidoscope” and “Changing Gear.” She has been married to Kevin for over 50 years and has two children and five grandchildren. Taking apostolic teams, she has traveled to over 20 nations for more than 30 years holding conferences, empowering, strengthening, and equipping leaders, encouraging and empowering women to rise to their true identity. Reid is a powerful motivational teacher who equips the churches across the world.

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Copyright © 2021 by Denise Reid.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture taken from the Amplified Bible. Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible. Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Scripture quotations marked TPT are from The Passion Translation®. Copyright © 2017, 2018 by Passion & Fire Ministries, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ThePassionTranslation.com.

Rev. date: 03/04/2021

Xlibris

NZ TFN: 0800 008 756 (Toll Free inside the NZ)

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FOREWORD

I FIRST MET DENISE AT THE beginning of my own endless journey. I had just begun my own walk with Jesus. My new role of motherhood had not been going well. Jesus had miraculously met me and assured me of His love and forgiveness. He brought other followers of Jesus alongside to support and encourage me. Even then, in the days prior to her overseas travel, during her days as a wife and mother in suburbia, knowing Denise was exciting! Denise’s ears and eyes were fixed on Jesus. That meant reading the Bible and knowing that, though the words on the pages were of ink, God would speak His guidance for her, showing her insights through them. Reading the Bible was, for Denise, having a conversation with God. And she shared those conversations with me (and others) as she explored their meanings and implications for her life.

Denise was always an adventurer - always willing to travel through the hard stuff and to trust her beloved Jesus, to achieve the goal. She filled her mind and her heart with songs and words of the love relationship between her and Jesus. As she did so, she opened herself to His infilling of her spirit. And I experienced Jesus through her, through her hugs, her love, her joy of living, her wisdom, her generosity of spirit, her desire for my well-being, her ridiculous largess.

For years now we have met only occasionally. In those times her lifestyle, her journey in Christ, continues to challenge and enthral me, she remains a wonderful friend. But this book, whilst it tells Denise’s stories of an exciting life, of dangerous journeys, of amazing miracles and divine appointments is not about her. Denise’s heart is that you also may know Christ as your beloved. That your heart will be so focused on Him, on His loveliness, His endless love for you, on His abundant goodness and grace, on His trustworthiness, that you will embark on the true freedom to live fully in Christ, and not only you, but those He brings along the way to touch and bless through you.

Bless all those who read this amazing book. The stories will point you to this One, that you may know Him, ‘the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being’ (Hebrews 1:3 NIV), who loves you, yes, you. What a journey!

Sue Anderson

Beloved by the Lord.

Nursing Manager Hospice Aldsworth London

TRIBUTES

T O JESUS AND TO THOSE who, over these years, have shared our safari journeying in discovery of amazing supernatural touches and discovered supernatural events.

To my husband Kevin who has loved and served and traveled painstakingly with me at great sacrifice. He has cherished, followed, facilitated, and empowered me through these years. He has worked, suffering with diligence and endurance. It is with his devotion, prayers, and help that the Lord has empowered me to undertake what together we have accomplished. To my husband Kevin, you are a true trojan and an extraordinary man of prayer. I celebrate you for your sacrifices and embrace you for your love. You have put up with my eight months of writing four books where I have been single minded, focused dedicated day and night to the task.

To my family and my grandchildren who have lived sacrificially to release me to the purpose and plan of God.

To all those who have allowed their stories to be shared.

To my special friends and to the many nameless ones who have shared our lives and journeyed with me or touched my life and our lives for a season. On this my endless safari as we have journeyed with our guide to unknown places to meet unknown friends who were to become friends for life.

To the many in the nations with whom we have worked, loved, and served, those we have watched grow mature and loved, who are family to us.

I want to acknowledge and thank Veruni De Silva for her wonderful work in the cover design of this book.

Denise Reid

INTRODUCTION

O VER THE YEARS, I HAVE been discovering what it means to live and move according to a green light. Most people operate on a red light and wait for the green. As I have travelled on an endless safari, I have seen my life explode to become insatiable, focused, and unstoppable. My life has and is an endless journey. Safaris have challenges and always bring change. They always stretch, develop, and extend you. I have journeyed constantly into the unknown throughout the world, being constantly stretched. This has been a discovery of the importance of carrying no extra baggage. This book tells stories of living naturally in nations where life is much simpler but often considerably more difficult.

There have been times of identification with others who are journeying on their own endless safari. I, along with those I have taken to so many destinations, together, we have hunted for a trophy even for trophies. Unknown and unseen, these trophies have become highly desirable. As we have stalked the prize, we have been astounded by the things that have happened and have been exhibited in the catch. These are stories of exploration, journeying into the unknown with an amazing guide.

Our endless safari on the King’s business explodes us into rediscovery of our previous discoveries. As the guide leads you into new places, you see new things, meet new people, and make new relationships. It’s a new season to face new challenges and revel in different, unexpected developments with outcomes beyond your dreams. Reader, are you a dreamer? When we dream, impossibilities become possibilities. All things become new. When the old is revisited and the prize achieved, relationships deepen, and trust in the guide becomes paramount. Endless Safari calls us to increasing levels of trust, reliance on the guide, reliance on others, extending trust in ourselves and our decision-making. In our certainty in the travel, we experience an explosion of preconceptions that open up new horizons of beauty and grandeur.

Many of the stories shared in this book have been experiences where I have moved in response to faith and operated on a green light. Vision developed, and I focused on that vision, and nothing was permitted to stop me. The Bible, which I read daily, on which I place enormous trust, says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. After I realized I needed to speak his word over my life, I recognized that in hearing my own spoken word, my faith had grown. I want to encourage you to act. Begin now to speak God’s word over your life, to proclaim it into being. When you do this, his word will become living and active in your life. Faith will come. Your life will change!

As you read the stories, begin to speak into being over your life, the dreams you have, and be encouraged to move into new areas. Stop being stuck in the mud, whatever the mud is in your life.

Come on a journey with me as we explore the plans and purposes of God. Accompany me to Miami to hear some well-known speakers made famous by the revivals in Pensacola and Argentina. Close your eyes with me to experience the wonder of the Holy Spirit as he moves in response to going off the beaten track with Jesus.

Come with me and be challenged to move into a new dimension of God you may never have known or experienced before. Divine appointments are so much a part of my life, yet I continue to be amazed at how God unfolds plans and purposes beyond my comprehension. Accompany me as we journey to Seymour, Indiana, an obscure town in the Midwest of America. As the Lord directed us in an incredible way, we witnessed God unfold his plan and change and transform many lives.

Accompany us as we journey to Myanmar to experience the wonder and joy of the love of God being shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. While helping our fellowman, we love them with the love of the Lord. When we go in obedience to the word of the Lord, God changes us.

Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me. We must be careful to listen to the voice of our guide and carefully do what he says.

Since 1989, when I received a call to the four corners of the earth, God has changed and purified my life through the many experiences encountered across the entire needy world. This safari shares challenges and encounters experienced.

Every safari, into Cuba deepened my discovery in God’s classroom; stuck in the mud is only one story, but it does reflect the entire book. A safari can be a learning platform, learning new things, learning of new places, discovering the ways of God. Take the journey with me and learn anew of new things, new places and enter a new relationship with the guide our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Learn to trust and rely on the precious Holy Spirit our guide, our comforter and friend.

If we are stuck in the mud, our natural reaction is to retreat, abandon, escape. Moving into an endless safari enables you to achieve the available blessings for your life.

It is my prayer that the stories shared in Endless Safari will bless, strengthen, encourage, and challenge you to a faith walk with Jesus. In the final section, you will encounter a new relationship with the Lord and find him in a new way as you seek to be more intimate with him. Upon safari with me through this book, you will begin to hunger and thirst for more of the amazing God who made these pages possible. He will come to you and change you as he has changed me and those who have travelled with me through this endless safari.

Denise Reid

LIST OF PICTURES

Schwedagon Pagoda Myanmar

Hallelujah Lady

Brother Ray

Cassettes delivered to Bangkok

Brother Ray and the portions read on the radio

Prayer tor the children

Father Felix and Family

Dorothy the older lady on the left

The Boat We Raced to Catch!

Denise and Kevin

Baptism in the River

Stuck in the Mud

Church Meeting

Mary Repacking Bags at Miami Airport

The Bulgarian Woman I Met in Cuba

Pastor Eli and Fanny, Elisabeth and Rebecca

Bulgarian Parliament

Second-Century Church in Downtown Sofia

Praying for Nilia

Red Square - Jane, Denise, and Rebecca

Kremlin, Czars Palaces, and Churches

Preaching in the Dark

The Woman Who was Only 55 lbs [25 kg] Healed and Restored from Dying

The Crippled Man Healed

The Pastor’s Wife Healed of Pain and Fevers After Denise Hugged Her

Himalayan Team

Transportation Denise and Sonia

Transportation by horse

Kevin Driving the Horse and Cart

Meeting in Cuba

Cuban Celebration

Cuban Celebration with Kevin and Sonia

The Video Camera we Carried

A Visit with Our Son to Bulgaria

Roma Settlement Sofia Bulgaria

Lovebridge Church, Bulgaria, Where we had Amazing Relationships

Roma Children’s School, Lovebridge, Bulgaria

Roma Believers

Outreach Venezuela

Venezuela Barquisimeto Church

Church Windows that were Regularly Broken By Students

Outreach Venezuela What Fun

Judson’s Church

Team in the Himalayas

Dana Enjoying Pizza with Our Friend Marlene

CONTENTS

SECTION 1 WALKING ON THE SAFARI

Whatever God Speaks Just Do It

The Hallelujah Lady

Water Festival

The Bread

Tribal Evangelism

Brother Ray

The Well is Deep

Before E-Mails and Memory Sticks

Authority Over the Elements

The Upper Room

The Price to Follow Jesus

Vietnam

He Sets his Angels Guard Over You

To Everything there is a Season

An Early Start

A New Friend

He Didn’t Tell Me He had a Heart Problem!

The Very Goo . . . d Shop

My Last Assignment

Why Don’t You Have Any Money?

Faith

SECTION 2 TRIUMPHANT SAFARI

Four O’clock in the Morning

An Excellent Prognosis

Prophetic Utterances

Stop the Train

Ink Marks

Every Three Months

Aggressive Physio

Set Free

SECTION 3 CHALLENGES TO CHANGE

Stuck in the Mud

The Fire

God Acts on Our Behalf

Bread and Butter

Dreams

Jesus Never Fails

Revelation on Our Journeys

Nilia

Obedience is the Key

Following the Guide

Listening to the Guide: Yambol, The Place of Holy Women

Our Mouths Were Filled with Laughter

Prayer Changes Things – Changes People

Prayer

Psalm 107:20 ESV

Someone is Waiting on the Other Side of Our Obedience

There is P-O-W-E-R in the Name of Jesus

We Act by Faith, Not on What We Feel - Prayer Changes Things

SECTION 4 NO EXTRA BAGGAGE FOR THE JOURNEY

Reach Out for Your Inheritance

Will God Provide My Every Need?

Tired but Happy

Born Again, Born Anew

You Will Receive Power

In His Time . . . In His Time . . .

The Lord is Good to Those Who Hope in Him

What God Wants

Before You Call, God Will Answer

Celebrate, Cuba, Celebrate!

Great is thy Faithfulness

Vision

Nothing is Impossible

Separated by a Pane of Glass

He Who Sleeps During Harvest is a Disgraceful Son

Time Alone

Pure, Clear Water

Anointed

SECTION 5 SAFARI CHALLENGE

If We Only Do Today What We Did Yesterday . . .

Every Opportunity is a Divine Opportunity

Indiana in the Spring

Beyond the Map

We Have to Go; We are Obligated

Awake America

Time to Move

Call to War

How Beautiful on the Mountains are the Feet

New Beginnings

Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty

No Food but they Were Rich

The Day the Foreigners Came

Not in Myanmar

Changed

The River of God

Simple Obedience

Prophetic Declarations

Is This a Macedonian Call?

Dana’s Story: Now I Am an Evangelist

SECTION 6 DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIP WITH THE GUIDE IN ORDER TO STALK THE PRIZE

Lover of God

An Extravagant Worshipper

How Does the Lover Communicate His Love to Us?

What is this Love?

An Equipped Deliverer

The Call of the Cross - I for Christ

Section 1

WALKING ON

THE SAFARI

WHATEVER GOD SPEAKS JUST

DO IT: NEW EXPERIENCES,

NEW CHALLENGES

I T ALL BEGAN IN 1989 at the close of the summer vacation, during an Armed and Dangerous seminar. The seminar theme was, Whatever God Speaks to You About, Do it.

During the singing of a dull old hymn, God spoke to me and told me to go to Myanmar. My heart leapt within me as a few days earlier, I had read a newsletter from a mission organisation saying, Myanmar is opening to the gospel. The following week I received a phone call from my daughter. Mum, she said, we received a call from . . ., and she named the organisation. They want you to go to Myanmar! They’re going in April!

I said, I can’t go in April, and anyway, I haven’t told your father yet!

I had never been out of New Zealand and did not even have a passport. I called the organisation, and to my surprise, I discovered they were about to send a team. After some discussion, I decided it was time to tell Kevin.

In the car, when we were travelling to the beach, I said to him, At the Armed and Dangerous Seminar, God spoke to me! He told me to go to Myanmar. There is a team going in April, but I can’t go then.

He continued driving and calmly said, "If God told you to go, then you must go . . .

Anyway, why can’t you go?"

I was amazed when he actively encouraged me to go as I had thought it was impossible. Six weeks later, after seeing many miracles of faith and with his encouragement, I was off with fourteen ladies and one man on a trip that was to change my life forever.

I confessed I would go to Myanmar. I held fast to the word of God and praised God that he would fulfill his word. I had faith in God.

Because of that first trip to Asia in obedience to the word of the Lord, we have taken many teams and reached thousands of people. It was there in the temples in Myanmar that I had a revelation of God. I saw there was no other name given under heaven whereby men and women could be saved. It was only at the name of Jesus, through the power of the blood of Jesus, that hope could come to a hopeless world. It’s been and is an endless safari listening to and obeying the Lord. Without Christ, many are in the valley of decision. Who will tell them of Jesus’s love?

It’s harvest time. Right now, the harvest of the earth is ripe. Will you take the sickle and reap? Will you share the good news of the gospel? The harvest is white; the labourers are few. How can they hear without a preacher?

P1010699%20PHOTO%2050.jpg

Schwedagon Pagoda Myanmar

THE HALLELUJAH LADY

B EADS . . . RED BEADS, YELLOW BEADS, green beads, brown beads, multicoloured beads . . . Buy my beads . . . only one hundred baht! Three for three hundred . . . Beads . . . Please buy my beads!

Beads of all colours hung round her neck. She held strings and strings of them in her hands. Everywhere we went, there she was, holding out her beads, beseeching us, pleading, Won’t you buy my beads! Buy my beads! Please buy my beads.

It was a beautiful place. We were on the hills of Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand.

It was a Meo village where they used to grow opium. The whole hillside was covered with flowers. This village had been selected by the king of Thailand for a special project as an alternative to opium production. The villagers were being encouraged to grow flowers, not opium as they had done in the past.

Just one hundred baht, she kept pleading, and ten baht for the photo!

She tried every member of the group! Every person shook their head and said, No! No!

Up the hill and down the hill, we walked, and everywhere we went, there she was to meet us and greet us, always courteous, ever smiling!

Finally, as we were climbing onto the truck that was to take us back to the hotel, there she was, still pleading. Rosie turned to her, almost in exasperation. Okay . . . How much? Here you are, she said and thrust three hundred baht into her hand while grabbing three strings of beads at the same time. Yesu, Yesu, Rosie said to her.

The lady’s face lit up;