“My life has been an adventure that keeps unfolding. I have decided to begin travelling again and living by faith one day at a time. I am grateful for my gifts of boldness, fearlessness, adventure and risk taking. In the past, I travelled into over 25 countries, for over 15 years or more without financial resources, by exercising my faith in God’s providence. The Lord supplied all my needs through dear supportive friends I made along the way together with other miraculous interventions. Yes, I believe in the working of miracles.” (Patricia Erlandsen).
Hi there,
As a child, I recall I did have a genuine connection with God but as I matured I buried it. Then, in 1972, at age 28, I experienced a dramatic life change for the better. One of my first recollections of how this change came about is that I initially challenged the Christian God to save my son.
You see, my son Mark and I lived in Hong Kong. There, I worked at the Miramar Hotel Kingsland (first floor) and Kingsgarden restaurants and nightclubs with the Ken Jeakle Dancers as a showgirl. The Australian Les Girls were also at the Kingsland (Basement). The costume designer’s name was Joe. He came over to HK with the drag queens Jackie and Michelle. Joe and I especially made friends and hung out together. But that’s another story.
My son and I rented a room in the guest house, Chungking Mansions, on the 16th floor, situated in Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon. One day, around 2 pm in the afternoon, I returned home from rehearsals to find smoke pouring out of the building and fire trucks and hundreds of people milling around on the sidewalk.
Everyone was barred from going in or out, until the fire services located the source of the thick smoke that enveloped the seventeen stories tall of five blocks, housing 4000 people. This shutdown went on for 3 hours. Thinking that Mark may have come downstairs by the Mamasan that looked after him, I spent most of that time searching for him. Finally, in sheer desperation, I came to a stop, and cried out loud as I stood in the middle of the human tide of distressed people, “God, if you’ll save my son, I’ll go to church”.
Soon after, the firemen in charge were allowing people to come out. I got permission from one to go into the building with him. As we climbed, he left me on the fifth floor to help someone there, calling out for help. I continued to go up, pushing my way against the thousands of people coming down the fire escape stairwell.
I finally arrived at the door of the flat I lived in and when I burst through the door, Mark was sitting on a couch in the reception area. He had a wet kerchief wrapped around his mouth and nose. His eyes round as saucers he said, “Mum I knew you would come for me”. We got out safely and found a hotel floor next door where they allowed us to sleep that night. After that friends put us up, till we could return. I also fulfilled my vow: I went to church – but, at that time, only the once.
The reason that I kept my word was due to a Filipino friend, a Christian, as it turned out, who said, “You’d better do what you said you’d do, else a worse thing might come upon you”. Other dynamics were also at work in my life at that time, to bring me to my self, but they are too lengthy to go into here (my ‘testimony’ can be accessed through my web rwvm.online).
Finally, on return to Australia, my sister, Joy, told me I was so loved by God, that God sent his Son, Jesus, to earth – to die for me. I didn’t understand at the time why this act of kindness and concern was imperative to my salvation, but I decided to ‘give it a try’. She said I could get a new life. I needed it.
In what can only be said as putting out another challenge, after being led in a prayer to Jesus to ‘come into my life and save me, I ended the prayer by once again, daring the Christian God in heaven to “give me a new life and I’ll give you three weeks’.
I figured if this was God my challenge could be delivered and if not, I’d prove God wrong. In three days I knew that it was true. I received the witness in my mind, that God loved me. I am here to say that I’ll stake my life on it. Anyone who is willing to throw out a challenge like that is going to see results.
Since then, I have spent 50 years of my 78 years, in no way perfectly, (as you’d know, without me saying), walking the talk and talking the walk. That is to say I’ve had many ups and downs, and many crises of faith, and plenty of persecution mainly from within the church.
Yes, I went to church. Not that was what God was asking. God wants us to Give over our life. I also read the Bible through in one year being taught by the author, Henrietta Mears, from her wonderful book, ‘What the Bible is All About”. From there I began to research the bible and the rest is history!
Jn 17: 7 Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.
Of course, as we all understand, even if we don’t quite know how to put it into words, reading and research are only one of several sources of ‘knowing’. Once started on my new life’s journey, my intuition immediately came into play. I decided I would again put God to the test. I wanted to find out if what is said in the bible about faith and how it works and test mine to see what would happen. I began to reason. What is faith? Does it work? How does it work? How are people born again? Why do some reject the message of the Good News?
Jesus said: “If you do my doctrine (teachings) you will know it”.
Once I embarked on my journey there was no turning back. I am still experimenting and experiencing every day in new ways how to walk by faith and not by sight. To learn about the invisible things of the Kingdom of God, we are taught to look at the visible creation all around us: God’s abundant world where, in that world, there is no lack. By putting my faith, that is, what I believed, into action, brought on discovering the authenticity of what I was reading in the Scriptures.
However, this is also where I came undone. I discovered some church pastors, church members, bible interpreters and commentators of the Scriptures were bigots, and in particular what they believed about the gender hierarchy invented to keep women in their place, that is ‘in subjection to the man’ and they claimed this was God’s will. This also includes similar prejudices concerning women, people other than white, not to mention, divorcees, gay people, unmarried women, etc.
These deviations on gender hierarchy were perpetrated in the patristic era when the church fathers wrote with poison pens about the shortcomings of women. We are still reaping that harvest. These sentiments, though veiled, have never changed. Due to the patriarchal mindsets of men, they have skewed the interpretation of the original languages to work against, firstly Eve the first women in Genesis and all the daughters of Eve, since then. As a result, they have robbed ordinary believers of their rightful inheritance.
“From the time of John the Baptizer until now, Heaven’s Realm is being used or even robbed by people who have no legal right to it. This stops those who do have a legal right to it from enjoying their own property.” Dr Ann Nyland, The Source New Testament.
You might say these false interpreters were ignorant; but I say, they were and are, anti Christ. Their twisted words have created dissent. They affect ordinary people like me and you. I believe we ordinary people have a responsibility to call them out on it. They need to understand that, yes, we have a chip on our shoulder. Its hewn off that old block of ‘fair and just’. Just try to knock it off, if you dare. [1] But be warned …
Acts 5: 39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these people; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”
My logic told me that the strength of the translators and commentators were weak in as much as they were biased against everyone but themselves: elitist educated men that made up the ruling system of their day. This meant that the system upon which I had begun to build my life thus far was seriously flawed. But God. … I was saved by being ‘led’ to find a new source of logical knowledge.
I began reasoning in a new way; I pursued my studies following this thread of new scholarship. I decided to build upon my knowledge and attended University. This introduced me to more of the same: modern scholar’s work. I began to write seriously in 1992.
I am grateful to say I stand today upon the shoulders of such forward thinkers as Melody and the late Keith Green (1980), Sandra Payne (1985), Catherine Bushnell (1986), Catherine Clark Kroeger (1987), Christians for Biblical Equality (1987), and many others (dates are when I came in contact with their materials). I
Since then I have arrived at my own empirical knowledge, based on demonstrable life’s experiences of walking by faith on a day by day basis of ‘give me this day my daily bread’. In so doing, it has led me to objective facts, to engage in the original languages, of learning from others of like mind. These practices led to a satisfying bank of knowledge I had built up over the years. My findings were fair and satisfied me.
Once I moved on into higher education, I learned where I could access the work of respected scholar’s modern critical analysis of early texts. This also helped me greatly to arrive at where I am today.
I studied so as to integrate Ancient Near East archaeology, anthropology and included Greco Roman women’s history and culture as well as ancient Babylonian and Ancient Near Eastern history and culture that as far as possible reflected the daily lives of the women of these cultures In these, I was always gleaning for information on the world of women.
I also studied the early beginnings of the world’s five major religions (BA: UNE NSW Australia). I discovered there are no original writings of the men whose names and words these five major religions are built upon. These early movements were all political in their motivations to save themselves at a crucial time in history.
My main goal was always to glean for historical knowledge that would assist me in my search on the women’s daily lives from these disciplines and embed the findings when I wrote. I found from this research that there is much hidden knowledge that men have kept from women and the church. I have recorded these inaccuracies in my books.
I then began to change the way in which I approached reading and interpreting the scriptures. In particular, I researched the biblical characters of the Old Testament and the New Testament, the women, and the men. I wanted to uncover the biased way in which they were presented by, in the main, misogynist male writers, preachers, and teachers.
These followed as they still do, a well-worn path, that claims that the women are, either, sick, sad, bad, sorry, passive and sinful. They play down the failings of the male characters. In contrast to this myopic view the men are heroes and leaders, courageous and full of faith.
My papers on the women of the bible published here, rwvm.online, show the real characters, their actual deeds and words, combined with what’s embedded in the text drawn from the abovementioned sources, obvious when read along with the footnotes, and I don’t mind to say, with a predisposition, not to air brushing them, but to raising them up out of the moral accusations heaped upon them by biased translators, many of whom have changed the original languages to suit their prejudices.
Finally, I arrived at the conclusion that from its beginnings, the early chapters of the Book of Genesis and Israel’s Matriarchs and Patriarchs that followed, together with the overall history of Israel, is built upon the foundations of a matriarchal society. But this society and the characters in it, have been interpreted in a patriarchal way. All of the teachings I present on my website are written from this perspective. This has been my journey that has brought me to this point in time.
1 Tim 4: 16. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.
My life has been an adventure that keeps unfolding. I have decided to begin travelling again and living by faith one day at a time. I am grateful for my gifts of boldness, fearlessness, adventure and risk taking. In the past, I travelled into over 25 countries, over 15 years or more, without financial resources, by exercising my faith in God’s providence. The Lord supplied all my needs through dear supportive friends I made along the way together with other miraculous interventions. Yes, I believe in the working of miracles.
Like other called itinerant ministers ( I do not mean Gospel Tourists) I’ve supported the body of Christ by teaching in churches, conferences, retreats, and youth camps. I’ve preached in big and small churches in war zones, in remote places and cities and villages, in underground churches.
Once I preached in a boxing ring in S Ireland, I’ve met with Fijian believers in a cane field under an awning made with tin, with huge toads just out of the shimmer of the light, in playing field in a remote Kenyan High school in the lunch hour, in hired halls, in scantily furnished, but welcoming, grass and mud huts. I’ve showered in the dark under palm trees, preached in the lounge rooms of ostentatious, and not so, private homes.
I visited dangerous gangsters and political prisoners in a high-security prison in Belfast during the troubles. I’ve stood talking and praying for, and ministering to military men, armed to the teeth for war in the Phillippines. Once a group I recall especially were taking time out from a reconnaissance investigation, by sitting outside the hall where I was preaching, intently listening to my message. I’ve accompanied a woman who decided to stay in a war zone when all other missionaries left.
She and I, together with a team of locals, crossed rivers, streams, and mountains to arrive where people were waiting a day or more, having walked miles and miles to get there. They slept on dirt floors and ate plain rice waiting to hear the uplifting news of peace and hope the Gospel delivers. Like any minister of the Gospel, I’ve had the privilege of being called to attend vigils at the bedsides in homes and hospitals of the sick and dying, vigils alongside broken hearted families, in hospitals and homes.
I’ve itinerated and ministered where new young Christians in small gatherings were ready and hungry to be confirmed in their gifts, to continue the work, and to go on to experience accelerated growth. I with my son, Mark, housed and fed and clothed disenfranchised street people we met on the street and invited home for meal and bed and a fresh change of clothes and to stay if they wanted.
I’ve conducted schools of ministry and invited the participants to accompany me when I’ve travelled and preached, training them in the ministry. I’ve trained others wherever I travelled to do the work of evangelism, to recognise and put to work their gifts given them by the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands. I received a beautiful anointing myself to carry out this work of the Gospel. I believe the anointing accompanies those that will leave all to obey the Great Commission. It is reserved for the goers, not for the stayers.
Mt 28:18-20 ‘ The Jesus came to them and said, “ All authority in heaven and earth has been given unto me, Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
I’ve known criminals and gamblers, womanisers and conmen and women. I got mixed up with crooked people in high places in my work as an evangelist. I’ve worked alongside evangelists reformed from a past life of drug addiction, as well as former bank robbers, wife bashers, men and women brothel owners, predators who controlled young women and men, treated them like prey, taken captive at their will and against their will. I have forgotten so many things of my life in my travels, but I thank God for the gift of the Grace of God bestowed upon me. I can testify I came through many perils unscathed.
Rom 16: 27 ‘to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.’
I hope to meet you and hear your testimony. Feel free to write especially if we met during one of my journeys. Recently someone sent me a text. I haven’t had contact with him for thirty years. Here is what Bill wrote: “you have been a significant character along our journey. God bless you… how I remember RWVM. We need it now more than ever”
God bless
Patricia Px
END
[1] Chip off the old block: where was it originally used and what is its meaning? In British shipyards, in the first half of the eighteenth century, shipwrights were allowed to take home “offcuts” of timber for their own use, but only if it was not useful for the ships, and so long as they could carry it. The ruling from 1737 was “Shipwrights to be allowed to bring [chips] on their shoulders near to the dock gates, there to be inspected by officers”. In 1753, it was changed to “Chips which can be carried under one arm” a lot less than one could carry on a shoulder. It’s recorded in court history (at the time of a shipbuilding strike and several court cases based on that) that one shipwright was stopped, but Immediately the main body pushed on with their chips on their shoulders.” https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-chip-in-the-phrase-a-chip-on-your-shoulder
Patricia Erlandsen
Owner/Director: Run With The Vision Ministries
SCHOOL OF MINISTRIES:
READING, TEACHING & PREACHING THE BIBLE AS A WOMAN
Face2face and Online – Personal Spiritual Coaching:
Christian Ministry; Mentor / Facilitator; Team Work related.
Itinerant Minister: Published Author
Church Growth Consultant Evangelism Teaching & Training
BA Ancient History & 5 Major World Religions DISC Advanced Trainer: Individuals, Couples, Teams, Leadership,
PO Box 345 Chevron Island, 4217 QLD
M + 44 (0) 410 318 388 WhatsApp Messenger
E patricia@rwvm.online
ABN 86110213525
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T r a I n L e a r n D e v e l o p G r o w
‘we go the second mile’