Isaiah 40:28,  “Do you not know?  Have you not heard?  The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He will not grow weary, and his understanding no one can fathom…”

     

MY HISTORY

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    "I grew up in Ukiah, California, the county seat and largest city in Mendocino County.  Ukiah is surrounded by Indian Reservations, North, South, East, and West.  I was raised around the Pomo Indians, and I knew a few, but not well.  My family on my father’s side settled in Mendocino, Butte, and Shasta Counties in the mid-1800s. They were loggers, ranchers, and miners.   I have always loved California, and have appreciated my roots here.

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THE PERSISTENT QUESTION

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     In September of 2006, God called me to be a part of the establishment of East Bay Prayer Furnace in Dublin, California.  He asked me to trust Him as He weaned me off of my full-time occupation and into my new role as a full-time Intercessory Missionary.  From time to time, over the previous 3 years, before the beginning of East Bay Prayer Furnace, I would hear God pose a question to me, "Do you love California?  Will you pray for California?"  "Yes, Lord." would be my reply, but I was not sure where to begin.  

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When the Prayer Room opened, that question became louder and more frequent, "Do you love California?  Will you pray for California from a place of knowledge and understanding?”. I felt the Lord give some revelation to my heart that, as a descendent of some of the first settlers here, He was giving me authority in the place of prayer to pull down certain strongholds, to break ungodly agreements that were made in the past,  and to stand in the gap between what was and what is to come.  It became my cry weekly in the prayer room for God to bring revival to California.  We began doing our "Justice Intercession Sets” in February of 2008.  In these two-hour Intercession Sets, we would pray for God to bring His justice to California.  We knew that if we would “humble ourselves and pray, He would hear our cry in heaven and He would come and heal our land” 2 Chronicles 7:14.  Even after several months of praying for California I could still hear Jesus asking me, “Do you love California?  Will you pray for her from a place of knowledge and understanding?"  

My answer continued to be, “Yes, Lord.”

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There were several times before that I would hear Him ask this of me, and I would jump in and start researching California.  It wouldn't take long until I would get overwhelmed with the information.  Some sources say that Wicca is the fastest-growing religion in California, particularly the Dianic Order which is the most prevalent in Mendocino County.  I started to dig a little deeper into Mendocino County and found that Ukiah is the headquarters for the Green Frog publication which is a major international New Age magazine.  Ukiah is also the headquarters for the All World’s Religion,  which is a cult consisting of High Priests and Priestesses that live and worship primarily in Mendocino County.  The largest Buddhist Temple in the Western Hemisphere, The City of Ten Thousand Buddhas,  is also located in Ukiah.  Satanism and witchcraft flourish in Mendocino, Lake, and Humboldt Counties because of the many forests that act as a canopy for them to do their rituals in secret.  The list goes on and on.  I would get discouraged and overwhelmed.  All I could do was pray.  Time after time I would allow my attention to focus elsewhere, simply because I didn’t know what to do, it felt too big for me and I grew tired. 

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 I learned of the Mexican myth of Queen Califia from which many believe the name California came.  As the story goes, she was a murderer, lesbian, and baby killer.  She hated men and was thirsty for power (not someone you would want your state to be named after). In my research, I also found out about the goddess Minerva whom you will find on every state document and federal building.  She is on the seal of our state.  Minerva is the goddess of warfare and manipulation, or some say “wisdom and war“.  What is going on?  My heart would grow dark with discouragement, "Oh, God, how we need Your mercy".

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THE ENCOUNTER

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 In August of 2008. my husband’s grandmother passed away, and I found myself in her old ranch house looking through her bookshelves.  I found a book called “The Singing Feather: Tribal Remembrances from Round Valley”.  I heard God’s voice the moment my hands touched it, “Will you pray for California from the place of knowledge and understanding?" “Yes, Lord!”  I replied.  

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My heart was saying over and over again, "Why do you keep asking me? My answer is yes!  What do you want me to do?  How do you want me to pray?"

I could feel His presence all around me.  "Will you pray for California from the place of knowledge and understanding?”  

“Yes, Yes, Yes! What does that mean?" 

I felt the weight of His presence as He answered.  “Then it ALL starts with the Native Americans.”

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 I looked down at the book and I knew in that moment that I was trying so hard to obtain knowledge, that I was missing the most important part of His question. Understanding. True understanding only comes from God,  and He was waiting for me to ask Him for HIS understanding.  

 

Isaiah 11:2  "The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him-the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord…”

    

TUNNEL VISION

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 That next week, while in the Prayer Room, I was reading, “The Singing Feather”, and realized that there was so much I didn’t know about Native American history.  I had reduced it down to arrowheads, basket weaving, and old Western movies.  God began to take me on a journey in my heart way back to the beginning before we became a state, before Mexico, before Alta California, and before the Spanish Missionaries.  It was over 500 hundred years ago.  He said to me, "I want you to have tunnel vision, My vision, look past everything you think you know, look past all the dysfunction, hurt, abuse, addiction… sin.  I want you to see these people the way that I see them.  These are My beautiful people and I love them.  They're so beautiful, Cindy, they're so beautiful!” 

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I began to weep under the weight of conviction.  How could I have overlooked them?  “They’re so beautiful!  Oh, Lord, they’re so beautiful.”  I saw the beauty of their dancing, the beauty of their regalia, the beauty of their drumming, singing, their voices.  I could hear many different languages, calling out to the Great Spirit calling out to the God of the moon, the sun, the stars, and the universe.  Thanking their Creator for the moon by night, the sun by day, the grass, the trees, animals, their children, their elders.  They thanked Him every day, by singing and dancing.  They played, they laughed, they hunted, they gathered, they fought their wars and they respected one another’s territories.  They lived, and they worshipped the One whom they knew.  Wave after wave of emotion swept over me, in that moment in the prayer room, God was tenderly giving me an understanding of His emotions toward His “beautiful people”.  During this vision,  I felt Him continue to say to me, “These were my beautiful people. They worshiped Me as their creator, they loved Me, and if someone would have come and shared the story of My Son, they would have loved Him and worshiped Him too.”

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 For days I read “The Singing Feather“, and during this time as I gained knowledge, I could feel the Holy Spirit giving me understanding with it.  My heart broke over and over again.  Page after page, I learned about Round Houses, Grass Games, and Indian Boarding Schools.  I was on a journey with God, and I would never be the same again.

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REPENTANCE

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 A few weeks into it, my day of reckoning came.  I was about to come face to face with my prejudices.  My sin.  Once again, I was in the prayer room and God gave me a vision of when I was a little girl between 7 and 9 years old.  I was in a grocery store with my mom when I came face to face with a Pomo Indian woman.  At that moment I decided in my heart, "I don't like her”.  I didn’t remember that experience until God revealed it to me, and then it all came back to my memory.  I crumbled under the weight of conviction, once again.  God’s spirit was crushing as He allowed me to feel His displeasure in that moment.  I cried out for forgiveness.  I repented of every thought I ever had towards Native Americans that was contrary to His affections towards them, and I asked Him again to fill me with His heart, to give me heavens perspective, and to release spiritual understanding.  “God, show me the truth!”

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 With my heart clean and His love for them released to me, it was time to dig deeper.  It was time for a history lesson.  If I ever wanted to have a vision for the future of California, I had to look into the past. “It all starts with the Native Americans."

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THE INVITATION

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 I invite you to please take a moment and ask God to reveal His heart to you.  To give you an eternal understanding of the indigenous people of California or whichever state or nation you reside in.  Confess and repent of any sin that you may have in your heart regarding the indigenous people around you and ask God to allow you to feel this journey, not just read about it.  I invite you, to not merely look through the window, but to come inside and take the journey with me.  Take the journey with the Father.      ~Cindy