Previous IHOP Trips

Hello again, everyone! 

Thank you for those of you who are now following me!  This entry may seem a bit rushed (and long) but please hold on for the next entry!  I’m starting to write it now and OH MY GOODNESS is God doing a lot here.  I’ve been here just over a week and all He is doing is… phenomenal.  I’m so excited to share with you guys!  

In this entry I’d like to share with you some of the journey I’ve been on that has gotten me to IHOPU.  As I said in my last entry, IHOP began for me during my junior year of high school.  While most folks spend their spring breaks going to vacation hotspots, my youth group (led by Jim Tegelhutter) decided to visit a ministry we had never heard of before then—the International House of Prayer.  So, we prepared for something exciting, packed up two vans full of people, reserved hotel rooms for a few nights, shelled out some cash for gas, made a lot of jokes about pancakes (IHOP.  Get it?  Hahaha) and ventured south.  The first trip stands out to me quite a bit, because that was when it all began. 

Many things happened on the first trip that stand out in my mind.  That initial trip was the first time I ever saw passionate dancing during worship—with flags and lovely gestures and pure movement.  I was stunned by the beauty and sincerity of it all—I haven’t been able to stop drawing dancing worshippers ever since.  God spoke to me clearly through a woman who sat next to me.  She saw my distress when I didn’t want to leave when the rest of my group was and she wrote a note to me quickly, “Take it with you. It (the prayer room) is within you!”  I read it, burst into tears and joined my youth group.  I have not forgotten ever since then that the prayer room truly is within me and that I am never too far from God to pray!  We had some great experiences as a group—we had fun at our hotel, we shared testimonies, we saw people give their hearts to God, we heard amazing speakers (one of which looked like Colonel Sanders from KFC, his name is David Pawson), we rolled down grassy hills and we just dwelled in God’s presence.  We were all amazed by it!

I remember looking at some of the pamphlets at the information center about IHOP University and thinking Wow, that’s neat that they have a school.  But I’m going to Northwestern, I’ll just keep visiting IHOP.  For some reason I grabbed a bunch of the documents and perused them a bit at home before I ultimately threw them away.  I wasn’t interested in attending.  Yet.

As God would have it, a second trip followed in January, 2010.  I don’t remember much about trip two other than that I took the IHOPU documents again, but this time I gave them to a friend after I glanced through them.   I still thought I would be going to Northwestern for four years, yet I kept returning to IHOP and I kept grabbing the pamphlets and booklets about IHOPU and all the IHOP internships…  I poured over them and analyzed them, trying to figure out timelines to see if I could attend an internship after graduation, but that was not according to God’s timing. 

The third trip came early April 2010, when I was just a few weeks away from graduating high school.  It was on this trip that I began seriously considering IHOPU, and I sent countless frantic e-mails to my admissions counselor at Northwestern (NWC).  At the time I was accepted into the NWC honors program, had a huge scholarship and everything was falling perfectly into place.  I didn’t know what to do.  I was baffled by God’s timing and spent quite a while being very confused and stressed out.  I thought about going to IHOP for just the Fall 2010 semester, but then I would lose my scholarship to NWC.  I also realized I didn’t want to go to school for art education anymore (which had been my plan for about two years), which added a lot of stress.  All I wanted to do was study God at IHOP, but there was some reason everything worked out for NWC, I just didn’t know what it was at the time.  So, after much confusion I ended up deciding to attend NWC for at least the Fall 2010 semester (but I really didn’t see myself going to IHOP anytime soon).  The fourth trip to IHOP in July 2010 had some confirmation and yet added some more confusion.

While driving home from the fourth trip, which was just a few weeks before I moved in to Northwestern College, I can so distinctly recall talking to my youth pastor about IHOP and Northwestern…  I was torn.  Remarkably torn.  He said to me something along the lines of, “Staying in hotels so much in Kansas City can be expensive, but that’s okay—when we come down later we’ll just have the girls stay in your dorm.”  I quickly responded, “No, Jim, I’m going to Northwestern…  It all makes sense for me to go there.  Everything has worked.  God answered every fleece I put out and I AM going to Northwestern.”  This was indeed true, because after that trip to IHOP I ended up attending NWC for a whole year.  God had remarkable plans for me while I was there—it’s so obvious to me (in retrospect) why He wanted me at NWC for those months; it’s also very evident how His hand was at work during every trip to IHOP—preparing my heart to make the transition this Fall 2011 to move here.

Like I said, after the fourth trip I went to Northwestern.  I wasn’t sure why I was there, but I knew I had to do something—God brought me there for a reason, after all!  I knew I would be there for at least one semester, but as the months went on I decided to finish my whole year there.  I had an amazing first semester—I met some awesome people, went to a fantastic church and learned an incredible amount of information about art.  The semester ended and I went to IHOP’s Onething Conference during Christmas break 2010.  This was a phenomenal trip and it was there that I began to declare, “I will be attending IHOPU next fall.”  The trip gave me great confidence and affirmation; I went home and told my roommates my plans.  They were very understanding and excited for me.  I, too, began to get more and more excited as I realized I was really going to go! 

Plans began to fall into place.  I was able to chat with my IHOPU advisor a lot over e-mail; God also showed Himself even in my application process—my application for Fall 2010, the year before, was deferred for one entire year.  Even this was a huge affirmation for me, because I was worried about paying a $50 application fee again.  I remember also waiting for a new application to be posted online for me to print—sometimes I checked a few times daily, but never found one.  I was stressed about these things, but God provided when I got an e-mail saying I didn’t have to reapply! 

A few weeks before my year at Northwestern ended I went down to IHOP for my sixth visit—this time I went to meet with my advisor, sit in on a class and visit the campus.  I was fully confident that I was coming down, and this trip multiplied my excitement tenfold.  Soon after this housing fell into place, and I was able to pay off my loans from Northwestern and still have enough to pay tuition at IHOP, which was a huge blessing. 

Leaving NWC was harder than I expected it to be.  I met people who will be, undoubtedly, friends for life, and it was difficult to leave them, but ultimately I followed God!  Also a few weeks before I left NWC I was looking up classes online for the next year at NWC, my mind wandering and thinking about what if I stayed?  I discovered that, at the end of my second semester, I would be only ten credits away from getting an Associates Degree.  I was shocked and fear suddenly filled my heart.  You see, IHOPU is an unaccredited school.  Every class I took at Northwestern, a private, expensive Christian college, would not transfer to IHOP.  This means that I have no piece of paper saying I graduated from a program at Northwestern.  I have nothing to show for my year at NWC, at least according to the world’s standards.  The way I see it, I LEARNED a ridiculous amount of information, I just don’t have a degree to show for it.  I can’t put a degree on a job application, and that worried me… at first.  Realizing that I could have a degree with just one more semester at NWC was scary, because I was confident that God wanted me at IHOPU next semester.

God’s timing is a baffling thing—we may not understand it, but He knows what He is doing.  If I had gone to NWC another semester, I wouldn’t have been able to pay for IHOPU up front; I would have had to wait a lot longer to be here.  I don’t have a degree, but I’m totally okay with that now.  I understand that what I intend to do, ministry, requires first and foremost a passionate heart willing to follow God.  He will not stop providing for me and I have been so blessed because of my obedience to His timing! 

Anyway, the last IHOP trip I took was over the fourth of July with my parents—I had the chance to show them around the campus and take them to the prayer room.  It was very important to me that my parents got to experience IHOP—I wanted to make sure they knew what I was going to be a part of, and I know they were both touched by God while we were there! 

God is so remarkably faithful I can hardly wrap my mind around it.  Two and a half years ago I would never have thought I would be here, yet, here I am.  As I type this I am sitting in the prayer room—I woke up at 5:30 AM so that I could be here by 6:00.  I’m living a one-minute drive behind the prayer room.  Mike Bickle, Wes Hall, Shelly Hundley and Corey Russell have already taught me.  This entire community is dedicated to fasting, prayer and consecration and is willing to keep me accountable to the commitments I’ve made.  I’m here now.  I’m finally here.

For so long it has simply been my goal to come here, and now I’m here.  This is so incredible to me that I have to continually remind myself of the fact.  But now we’re seeing what’s next.  God got me here, but that is not my ultimate goal.  God is going to teach me so much while I’m here, and I’m going to grow so close to Him…  I’m excited to see what comes next, because I’m open to anything God throws at my.  He is faithful. 

This ends my real introduction of IHOPU and how I got to be here.  If you have ANY questions about anything I said, or if you would like me to clarify anything, please don’t hesitate to ask me!  Call, text, message, comment…  please don’t be a afraid to ask! 

The next entry will probably cover orientation and my first week of classes.  I’m waiting on God to speak to me about some things, so I’m not really sure what will be in the next entry, but it will come soon (hopefully within the next two weeks)!

Thank you all for reading and blessing me with your prayers.  Let me know how I can pray for you while I am here (after all, we do a lot of praying here).  :)

Rachel Korhonen

(Right after I publish this my roommates and I are going to IHOPancakes, where we get a 10% discount for having IHOPrayer name badges!  PERKS!  WOOHOOOO!!!)

(Originally posted September 12th on Tumblr)