The former pre-primary teacher and Stirling Presbyterian youth pastor, 27, leaves next week for Redding, California where she will enter her second year at the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry (BSSM).
“My passion is for the generation to come and this year has equipped me to fulfil that passion,” says Cait, eyes sparkling. Everyone noticed the new sparkle in Cait’s eyes after her life changing first year at Bethel.
Determined to fulfil her dream to be equipped to one day minister around the world, she made sacrifices to get there last year, selling her car to cover two thirds of the nine month costs of her stay in the US.
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And for the past three months back home she has been imparting all she learnt. For the past month she has also been teaching Grad 00 four and five year olds at a prominent East London School to raise funds for the upcoming year. There have been many blessings in it.
Encounters with God
“I led the children in encounters with God and three quarters ended up giving their lives to the Lord,” says Cait, who told how children would laugh and smile as they encountered the presence of God.
She also spent time the past week with a team from Bethel and Iris Pemba who have been travelling the country showing the new Heidi Baker film, Compelled by Love. They showed the film at two venues. Greenfields Methodist Church and God Adventure, in East London and shared prophetic words with the audiences.
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Cait shared in five different church small groups as well as at an evening service at God Adventure and the GA School of Supernatural Life and at a local high school.
Speaking about all she learnt, Cait said first year focussed on the Father’s love, identity, Christian foundations and service while second year is about leadership and being empowered to take risks and step out in faith.
“We had a choice of advanced ministry training options to follow and I chose to focus on children, hosting God’s presence, prayer and intimacy and divine order.”
“We also learnt a lot about life coaching and core values such as honour. It is something that I want to impart and live out.”
Cait said Africa and South Africa are in the spotlight and eight teams came here in March. One group met Mandla Mandela in Cape Town and prophesied over him and then they visited parliament.
SA students
For the past two years the top student has been South African and this year there were twenty South Africans attending the school. A former Port Elizabeth woman, Hayley Braun, is a pastor on the second year course having completed the three year school.
Costs for the course and living expenses are equivalent to a full time year at a more expensive university in South Africa, about R100 000.
“I had hoped to get a part time job in the US to support myself but I am not allowed to work on a student visa. But God was good and I always had enough.”
Including enough for a 10 day trip to Tijuana, Mexico where the group ministered in various churches seeing many people healed from sicknesses.
The students also served the city of Redding and would hold sidewalk Sunday School where they would minister informally to children who would otherwise not be exposed to church.
Among the many highlights she experienced was being prayed for and receiving impartation from generals of the faith today such as Bill Johnson, the head pastor at Bethel, Heidi Baker from Iris Ministries in Mozambique and Brother Yun who wrote the book, The Heavenly Man, about the persecuted church in China.
“Another highlight for me was networking and connecting with people from other nations as the school is made up of 60 per cent American students and 40 per cent international,’’ said Cait. The foreign students come from 64 different nations around the globe.
Cait is the daughter of educationalists Dave and Janet Bands. Dave is the principal of Arcadia Primary and Janet runs her own pre-primary.
BSSM takes 1 200 students and only half of that number are accepted for second year. Third year involves an internship which can be done anywhere in the world with churches working in association with Bethel.
The bssm.net website states “We owe the world an encounter with God” and the school’s main purpose is to train up revivalists. A revivalist is one who is “focussed, passionate, one who is willing to pay any price to live in community, purity and power because they are loved by God, whose manifest presence transforms lives and cultures”.
For further information you can email Cait at caitbands@yahoo.com
