After my life-changing encounter with God, I returned from Haiti to Chicago with a new sense of purpose and drive to believe God to fulfill every word that He had spoken to me. The Holy Spirit began to build my faith by fulfilling several miracles in preparation for my move to Haiti. He miraculously provided the finances to pay off the remainder of my student loans, allowed someone to purchase my car, and provided the additional money that I requested of Him for the mission in Haiti. I was walking on Cloud Nine, and my faith was soaring high. The unchanging hand of God became more visible to me than ever before. All of this was in preparation for answering God’s call and the assignment in Haiti that was before me. 
Finally, I boarded the plane and flew to Haiti, this time not just to visit but to move into my new home. I arrived before the annual conference for pastors and church congregations from all over Haiti. Part-time missionaries from all over streamed in at the same time. It was the busiest time at the mission. Little did I know, but I was about to experience another Divine appointment that would change my destiny.
Some of the missionaries were staying in an extension house outside of the mission compound, whereas I stayed inside the compound with other missionaries. I began to hear an excited buzzing as people were talking about a prophet who was staying in the extension and holding prayer every night. They were speaking of none other than my mother, Apostle Vera Paul. Later, she told me that she heard me in the church praying and had asked Mother Workman, “Who is that?” Mother Workman explained that I was a missionary who would be staying full time. Lightheartedly, yet prophetically none-the-less, Apostle Paul asked Mother Workman, “Can I have her?” To which, Mother Workman responded with an absolute and resounding, “No!” She also inquired of God concerning me, and He instructed her not to approach me where I was praying or engage in too much conversation with me, but to wait, because He would send her back to Haiti to meet with me at His set time.
As Apostle Paul prepared to leave for the airport, she told me that God said that she would return to take me to a deeper depth of prayer. I held onto her words and prayed them daily asking God to send her back to Haiti to fulfill His promise because I earnestly desired and needed to grow in the call to prayer and intercession. By the leading of Holy Spirit, I returned to the mission office in Florida in order to seek God through a twenty-one-day water fast in preparation for my prayer assignment in Haiti. Finally, I returned to Haiti alone and began my assignment there.
My focus was prayer and working with the youngest group of children. The assignment was harder and more challenging than I could have ever imagined. Every day I prayed calling forth Apostle Paul’s return to Haiti. Within a few months, she returned for Thanksgiving and conducted daily prayer in the mission church. She also met with me individually, praying and speaking prophetically over me. I experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit and received my prayer language, which brought me into a realm in the Spirit that I had never experienced before. God had fulfilled His promise and increased the depth of my prayer life beyond my greatest expectations. Although I had already learned to hear the voice of God, my ability to hear God’s voice increased more than ever before. 
A pivotal moment occurred when Apostle Paul asked me to pray for her. Then she commented that what I had prayed was exactly the words she had prayed before she left home. I asked her what part exactly because I had prayed many things. She replied, “Ask God.” So, I began to pray in the Spirit, and God responded with the answer, which Prophetess Paul confirmed was accurate. I was amazed to know that I could converse with God like this, asking Him questions and holding conversations with Him just like a flesh and blood person. So, I began to pull away and enquire of the Lord in a new way. Amazingly, my conversations with God continued, and my ability to hear His voice and prophetically speak His words increased tremendously. God connected Apostle Vera Paul’s spirit with mine in an indescribable way, and He spoke to me extensively concerning this connection. He also spoke and confirmed things through me to Apostle Paul that God had ministered to her. Many questions remained because I did not understand how we would be connected as long as I remained a missionary in Haiti. All things would be revealed in due time.
Through time, I learned that although God is speaking, we are the ones who often fail to recognize that He is speaking to us. This is one of the absolute greatest lessons that God has taught me in life. Jesus taught that His sheep know His voice, and a stranger’s voice they will not follow (John 10). Yet, we learn to hear and differentiate God’s voice through time spent with Him, intentionally listening to hear what He is saying to us. Haiti was my training ground for growing in my relationship with God through conversational prayer, where I not only poured out my heart to Him, but I also learned to hear His voice speaking and revealing His heart to me. It is my earnest prayer that you, too, will receive and grow in the wonderful gift of listening and hearing God’s voice speak to you. I pray that not only will your eyes be opened to see God’s unchanging hand in your life, but that your ears will also be opened to hear His voice speaking to you to the greatest measure possible.
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