The Inside Story – March Edition.

An inside look at the stories of those behind Aglow Australia. 

Our Inside Story takes an inside look at the lives we love, perhaps only heard about, or may not even know at all. Mentors, leaders, valued Kingdom partners, and most of all you, of whom, together, form the wider, magnificent story of Aglow Australia today.  

This month’s interview is with Aglow Board Member, Peter Dunstan and his amazing wife Katie who are two of our guest speakers at Aglow’s August PRESENCE Conference! 

Peter and Katie you are recognised as apostolic and prophetic voices within Australia and globally respectively, we’re so looking forward to hearing more about your conference sessions called Hearts Healed and Restored! This is very aligned with Aglow’s conference theme ARISE, given it focuses on lives arising, spiritually and emotionally by encountering the healing touch of Jesus, and in turn, seeing them released and walking in a new freedom and wholeness.

Q1: How was this aspect of your ministry birthed initially. It powerfully supports your organisation name – Breakfree Australia.

A: The name Breakfree Australia and our ministry in terms of healing hearts was launched about 10 years ago. When Katie and I got married, we had both suffered significant trauma and emotional pain in our early childhood. We had carried that through our adult life by suppressing it, although I didn't do a great job of suppressing it because I went through about a year and a half of deep depression.   

However, we reached a point in our first year of marriage where we were triggering and hurting each other. We quickly realised that we had some issues that we needed to resolve. I went to a counsellor who diagnosed me with dissociative identity disorder and we began to access resources such as Bethel SOZO, Elijah House, El El  Ministries and others, who were working in the inner healing space. At that point, we were not so familiar with inner healing ministry. We hadn't been involved with it in the past and knew little about it.   

As we were reading and learning and allowing the Lord to minister to us, we experienced the healing hand of the Lord in miraculous encounters as the presence of God fell time and time again, as we leaned into Him for deeper wisdom and revelation. With Jesus on our side, we progressively identified and worked on our pain points and came to a place of wholeness and healing. We then realised that there were many, many, people in the body of Christ who had suffered childhood trauma, abuse, rejection and were carrying those wounds into their adult life. As a consequence, we wrote our book Healing Wounded Hearts: Holy Spirit Directed Inner Healing. 

Seeking the Lord’s guidance, Katie had a supernatural encounter with Jesus and was taken into a vision that changed the trajectory of our ministry. In the Spirit, two large arms appeared, I knew they were Father God’s arms. In His hands He was holding a sword. The Lord said to me “This two-edged sword represents you and Peter as one instrument in My hand. I will wield you like a sword to break strongholds and set the captives free.”  Katie knew, by the Spirit of revelation, that the Lord was launching us into an Isaiah 61 and John 17:21-23 inner healing ministry. Shortly after this, doors opened and we began to deliver “Hearts Healed and Destiny Restored” seminars throughout Australia and abroad.  

As we prayed in the new year (10 years ago) the Lord clearly spoke to Katie. He said two words "Nepal, Himalayas." Katie turned to Peter and said "Honey, I think we're going to Nepal." About six months later we received a phone call from a team of International Pastors. They invited us to go to Nepal. We knew this was the hand of the Lord and we responded by giving Him our "Yes." The Lord set us up with a divine connection that led to the whole nation of Nepal opening up to us to minister to Pastors and Leaders across the nation. 

In response to the request from Apostolic leaders, our book was translated into the Nepali language and we travelled throughout Nepal training and equipping pastors and leaders. We witnessed the Lord break strongholds and set the captives free. He is faithful to perform His word. Tens and thousands have been healed from trauma, shame and emotional pain, set free, and equipped to step into their destiny. 

Q2: Can you unpack how this subject is relevant to our world today?  

A: As we've ministered through the body of Christ over the last ten years, we recognise that many, many people are carrying the effects of wounds and trauma and have often not even recognised it.  

In fact, whole communities can be suffering from generational trauma and many people resort to different kinds of self-medicating behaviours such as drinking alcohol, various addictive substances, pornography, etc. to manage their emotional pain. If left untreated, many tragically suicide. And on the outside, it looks like someone's struggling with addiction, but what's actually happening is they're finding ways to manage their emotional pain from wounds.  

The other issue that we find is when people are wounded or suffering trauma, it allows a foothold for the enemy, but it also causes people to separate emotionally because of their wounding. They separate from relationships with others, separate from intimacy with God and develop what we call an orphan heart. God wants to heal the orphan heart and He wants to bring people into mature sonship. The orphan heart keeps people from intimacy with God, and the orphan heart stops people from walking in unity together. It stops people from engaging at an intimate level with God and with each other. You have heard the expression wounded people hurt people, that is what happens.  

So, we would say throughout the body of Christ, more than the majority of people would, at some level, still be suffering the effects of emotional wounding, trauma, rejection, abuse of some form. Whether it be from in the womb wounding, from their early childhood, from a marriage break up or relationship break down, or from some catastrophic event that took place in their life.  

Any number of factors can be contributing factors, but many people in the body of Christ are suffering the impact of emotional wounding and trauma, unable to step into the fullness of their destiny. 

Q3: What can our Conference guests expect through these sessions?  

A: Often Holy Spirit will in many cases identify and heal wounds through these sessions, but the other thing is they'll be equipped with a toolkit to help set them free. We lead people through anointed prayers that break the yoke of bondage and bring healing and restoration. 

The Lord spoke prophetically to Katie and said, "there is an army of reformers rising". We are in a prophetic season at the moment where we're coming into a period of great harvest, but how effective is a "wounded soldier" in an army? Many people are like the walking wounded nursing emotional wounds.  

To be effectively discipled and come to Christ and grow into maturity, there needs to be an army of heart healers who are equipped to heal wounded hearts and set the captives free.  

Q4: We all love a story, can you give us some testimonies?  

A: Many people who have suffered trauma carry secondary injuries. Let me just explain this. We were recently in Western Australia where a young man had fallen off a two-story building and fractured his back.   

He'd been in chronic pain for five years with his fractured back. He'd received prayer but nothing was helping him. He was now in a drug rehab centre because of him trying to manage pain with drug use.  

Katie and I delivered a session on trauma and he recognised that when he fell, not only did he suffer a physical fracture but, he suffered an emotional trauma. So when he came out for prayer I ministered to him regarding the emotional trauma that he'd suffered and then we prayed for his back and his back was instantly healed. Not because we had more faith than anyone else who had prayed for him, but because the emotional trauma that was lodged in his body and holding his back in pain, was released and he was free to be physically healed.  

In another seminar we had an ambulance officer and a police officer who had had many years experience as first responders at emergencies, suicides, car accidents and the like. Neither had received effective debriefing for emotional trauma, and both of them were carrying some significant trauma in their body. The police officer he said I feel like I've got a lump in my guts. When I prayed for him he began dry-reaching and he continued dry-reaching for about 15 minutes.  

At the end of 15 minutes the emotional trauma that he'd been carrying inside him (in his stomach area) was completely released. The police officer got released from trauma, but instead of dry-reaching he just wept for some time until the trauma was released from his body. Both were set free from emotional trauma and they looked different, you could see the transformation in their faces. 

We ministered to a missionary from Cambodia who came back to Australia because she had been diagnosed with a potentially fatal heart disease. As we prayed for her physical heart condition, we felt a block in the spirit. Through a word of knowledge about some emotional pain that she was carrying, we asked if she had suffered any emotional pain in the last 6 to 12 months? She said yes, and we asked her if she had been able to forgive the person involved? She said, I'm trying daily to do that. We then stood with her and lead her through a prayer of forgiveness and then prayed for her physical heart condition. In the Spirit, we felt "it's done." 

We went off to the Philippines to minister for three weeks. On our return we received a message from her saying: "Katie, I'm at the cardiologist and I am completely healed. I know God healed me when you guys prayed for me." She sent us an ECG reading of her heart healed and restored. We recognised when we were praying for her that her physical condition was a manifestation of her emotional condition, and her wounded heart was manifesting physically as a cardiac issue. We have many, many other testimonies of God releasing trauma, healing wounded hearts of emotional pain with physical healing miracles following. Praise Jesus! Jehovah Raphe the Lord God our Healer.