“We’re Together Again” – at Ranwadi High School, Pentecost Island. Recorded by Helen Hill:
20 minutes of selections from Banmatmat Bible College and Ranwadi High School on Pentecost Island in Vanuatu:
Interview with Emily Staples (who joined me on a mission trip to Pentecost Island, Vanuatu)
Over 250 Views and over 800 shares (so more views there)
[If anyone can make it horizontal, let me know!]
100 years ago a wife of the highest-ranking Paramount Chief died soon after native missionaries brought the Gospel to Pentecost Island. After her body was wrapped in burial calico the calico began moving. Quickly they unwrapped the body and she sat up. She had seen Jesus and told them all to leave their bad heathen ways and follow the good Christian way. Then she lay down and died again. They did what she said and moved from pagan villages to Christian villages on land offered by a Christian Chief who was the grandfather of Pastor Rolanson, our host.
Some of the signs of revival we saw there included a whole mountain ‘on fire’ (with nothing burned) during revival meetings at their Bible College,witchcraft items revealed then removed and destroyed by prayer teams, everyone prayed for in ‘custom’ villages healed, and angels filling a village church with songs in the night in a small village where the worship had been strong, lasting for many hours. Everyone prayed for in that village was healed and all unbelievers repented during the worship and many were baptized.
I talk about some of these things in this recent podcast:
Part of this account is information from my bookSouth Pacific Revivals(in paperback, ebook, and PDF).
French explorer Bougainville saw and named this 60 kilometres long, narrow island on the Day of Pentecost, 1764. Captain Cook sailed past it in 1774.
Martyr for the Gospel
Tomas Tumtum had been an indentured worker on cane farms in Queensland, Australia. He was converted there and returned around 1901 to his village on South Pentecost Island. He came with his friend, Lulkon, a new young disciple from a neighbouring island. They arrived when the village was taboo because a baby had died a few days earlier, so no one was allowed near the village. Ancient tradition dictated that anyone breaking taboo must be killed, so they were going to kill Tomas, but his friend Lulkon asked Tomas to tell them to kill him instead, so that Tomas could live and evangelize his own people. Just before he was clubbed to death at a sacred Mele palm tree, Lulkon read John 3:16, then closed his eyes and prayed for them.
Tomas became the pioneer of the church in South Pentecost, establishing many Churches of Christ in the villages there, initially along the west coast of South Pentecost.
Law student (now lawyer and pastor) Jerry from Fiji at sacred Mele palm tree, site of martyr’s death which opened the way for the gospel in South Pentecost 100 years ago.
The church on Pentecost Island was strongly evangelical, founded by native leaders converted by the Churches of Christ mission in Queensland. Many of the leaders on Pentecost Island became filled with the Spirit in a series of indigenous revivals from the 1980s.
Revival Background
Pastor Wilson Bebe led many revival meetings in South Pentecost in the 1980s and 1990s. He was a strong evangelist and revival leader. Prayer meetings multiplied during revivals.
Pastor Lewis Wari completed studies at the Bible College at Banmatmat and began preaching at revival meetings in the villages of South Pentecost in the 1980s. Revival spread in 1980-1981 with many people weeping, repenting, being reconciled and some people being healed. Lewis had strong revelations and words of knowledge for people. He also faced opposition from traditional churches, a cautious reaction common to revivals everywhere.
Pastor Lewis spoke at meetings in March 1995 at Panlimsi village on the west coast, near Pangi. The Country Women’s Fellowship (CWF) met there for a week to learn to use sewing machines and Lewis preached at the night crusade meetings. On the Friday night, 31 March 1995, the Spirit of God moved in a very strong way. Many people were crying and repenting and were filled with the Spirit.
Pastor Rolanson had just finished his studies at the Bible College and was the young pastor at Panlimsi (near Pangi) then. He led teams from his church in revival meetings with Pastor Lewis. God moved in a strong way at Ranwas village on the east coast with many people crying and repenting. The teams led revival meetings in many village churches in South Pentecost.
Pastors Rolanson and Owen praying for leaders in Ranwas village church
Revival spark in 2002
Jaynan
Simon
Law School Graduation
Graduation photos here of Jay, Simon, Calvin (with Kata and Samuel), Romulo and Pam – now all strong Christian lawyers and leaders.
Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu, has the Law School of the University of the South Pacific. The Port Vila law students Christian Fellowship experienced a strong move of God from Easter 2002, with many converted and filled with the Spirit.
I hosted a team of 11 of the law students in Brisbane for a month in November 2002. They had their own 5 a.m. prayer meeting each day and then they helped lead the 6 a.m. daily prayer group at Kenmore Baptist Church. They spoke, sang, and did items at many different churches, praying for people personally at each one.
Law students Jerry, Pam & Sala now lawyers and leaders
In May 2003 a team from the University of the South Pacific law school Christian Fellowship (CF) joined me on Pentecost Island in Vanuatu for a weekend of outreach meetings on South Pentecost. The national Vanuatu Churches of Christ Bible College stands near the site of the native Christian martyrdom there.
God opened a wide door on Pentecost Island (1 Corinthians 16:8-9). The weekend with the CF team brought new unity among the competing village churches. The Sunday night service went from 6-11 p.m., although we ‘closed’ it three times after 10 p.m., with a closing prayer, then later a closing song, and then later a closing announcement. People just kept coming for prayer and singing.
Another team of four students from the law school CF returned to South Pentecost in June 2003 for 12 days of meetings in many villages. Again, the Spirit of God moved strongly. Leaders repented publicly of divisions and criticisms. Then youth began repenting of backsliding or unbelief. A great-granddaughter of the pioneer Tomas Tumtum gave her life to God in the village near his grave at the Bible College.
We held evening rallies in four villages of South Pentecost each evening from 6 p.m. for 12 days, with teaching sessions on the Holy Spirit every morning in the main village church for a week. The team experienced a strong leading of the Spirit in the worship, drama, action songs with Pacific dance movements, and preaching and praying for people.
Mathias (in photo), a young man who repented deeply with over 15 minutes of tearful sobbing, became the main worship leader in revival meetings. When he was leading and speaking at a revival meeting at the national Bible College, a huge supernatural fire blazed in the hills directly opposite the Bible College chapel in 2005, but no bush was burned. They told us it was supernatural fire, with no smoke and nothing physical being consumed.
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Pentecost Island Bible College
Pastor Lewis Wari, revival pioneer
By 2004, the Churches of Christ national Bible College on Pentecost Island became a centre for revival teaching. Pastor Lewis Wari and his wife Marilyn hosted these gatherings at the Bible College, and later on Lewis spoke at many island churches as the President of the Churches of Christ. Lewis had been a leader in strong revival movements on South Pentecost as a young pastor from 1988, with many village revivals.
Don and Helen Hill (in photo), friends from Brisbane, participated in some visits. Don repaired the electrical wiring at the Bible College and supplied needed portable generators and lawnmowers. Helen recorded the revival teaching sessions on DVD for international use by our friends in many nations who have also experienced revival.
Leaders’ seminars and youth conventions at the Bible College focused on God and revival. The college hosted regular courses and seminars on revival for a month at a time. Each day began with prayer together from 6 a.m. The early morning prayer meetings began even earlier, from 4.30 a.m., in the youth convention in December 2004, as God’s Spirit moved on the youth leaders in that area.
Morning sessions continued from 8 a.m. to noon, with teaching and ministry. As the Spirit moved on the group, they continued to repent and seek God for further anointing and imparting of the Spirit in their lives. Afternoon sessions featured sharing and testimonies of what God is doing. Each evening became a revival meeting at the Bible College with worship, sharing, preaching, and powerful times of ministry to everyone seeking prayer.
Every weekend the teams from the college led revival meetings in village churches. Many of these village revival meetings went late as the Spirit moved on the people with deep repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness, and prayer for healing and empowering.
Law School Christian Fellowship team
Another law student team from Port Vila, led by Seini Puamau, Vice President of the Christian Fellowship [now a judge in Fiji], had a strong impact at the High School on South Pentecost Island with big responses at all meetings. Almost the whole residential school of 300 responded for prayer at the final service on Sunday night October 17, 2004, after a powerful testimony from Joanna Kenilorea. The High School principal, Silas Buli, has prayed with some of his staff for many years from 4 a.m. each morning, praying for the school and nation. Silas became a Member of Parliament for South Pentecost in 2016.
Christian Fellowship team at Waterfall
The church arranged for more revival teaching at their national Bible College for church leaders. Teams from the college held mission meetings simultaneously in seven different villages. Every village saw strong responses, including a team that held their meeting in the ‘nakamal’, the chief’s meeting house of their village. The first person to respond for prayer in the nakamal was a man from the ‘custom’ traditional village called Bunlap.
Those Bible College sessions seemed like preparation for further revival. Every session led into ministry. Repentance went deep. Prayer began early in the mornings, and went late into the nights.
Village evangelism teams from South Pentecost continue to witness in the villages, and also visit other islands. Six people from these teams came to Brisbane and were then part of 15 from Pentecost Island on mission with me in the Solomon Islands in 2006.
Revival meetings on Pentecost
Grant Shaw joined me on Pentecost Island in Vanuatu in September-October 2006. Grant grew up with missionary parents in China, saw many persecutions and miracles, and had his dad recounting miraculous answers to prayer as a daily routine. They often needed to pray for miracles, and miracles happened often. From 14 years of age Grant participated in mission teams travelling internationally in Asia. Then he attended a youth camp at Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship which has seen revival since 1994. He worked there as an associate youth pastor for 18 months before studying at Bible College in Brisbane and then being a youth pastor in a large Brisbane church. So he is used to revival – all his life! In Vanuatu he had clear words of knowledge, and saw people healed daily in meetings and in the villages. That inspired and challenged everyone.
Raised from the dead
Grant with nurse Leah
In Port Vila the capital, on our way to Pentecost Island in 2006 with Grant Shaw we attended the Sunday service at the Upper Room church. At sharing time in the service, Leah Waqa, a nurse, told how she had been on duty that week when parents brought in their young daughter who had been badly hit in a car accident, and showed no signs of life – the monitor registered zero – no pulse. Leah felt unusual boldness, so commanded the girl to live, and prayed for her for an hour. After an hour the monitor started beeping and the girl recovered.
South Pentecost
Our revival mission trip on South Pentecost Island was based in the village of Panlimsi near Pangi on the southwest coast. Mathias was then the young pastor there. The Spirit moved strongly in all the meetings. Repentance. Reconciliations. Confessions. Anointing. Healings every day. The healings included Pastor Rolanson’s young son Ralph, partially deaf from birth, able to hear clearly after Grant prayed for him. Rolanson leads evangelism teams, and helped to lead this mission.
Land diving with vines
South Pentecost attracts tourists with its land diving – men jumping from high bamboo towers with vines attached to their ankles. Grant prayed for a jumper who had hurt his neck, and the neck crackled back into place. An elderly man no longer needed his walking stick to come up the hill to the meetings. Grant prayed for a son of the paramount chief of South Pentecost from Bunlap, a ‘custom’ village. He was healed from a painful leg and later he invited the team to come to his village to pray for the sick. No white people had been invited there to minister previously.
The revival team, including the two of us from Australia, trekked for a week into mountain villages. We literally obeyed Luke 10 – most going with no extra shirt, no sandals, and no money. The trek began with a five-hour climb across the island mountain range to the village of Ranwas on the eastern side. Mathias led worship, and strong moves of the Spirit touched everyone. We prayed for people many times in each meeting. At one point I spat on the dirt floor, making mud to show what Jesus did once. Marilyn Wari, wife of the President of the Churches of Christ, then jumped up asking for prayer for her eyes, using the mud. Later she testified that the Lord told her to do that, and then she found she could read her small pocket Bible without glasses. So she read to us all. Meetings continued like that each night.
We then trekked through the ‘custom’ heathen village where the paramount chief lived, and prayed for more sick people. Some had pain leave immediately, and people there became more open to the gospel.
The village storekeeper was the first man to ask for prayer there. He wanted us to put a curse on someone who had stolen from him! Instead, I was led to pray that the Lord would convict the culprit. We heard later that the culprit returned the stolen goods.
Then the team trekked for seven hours to Ponra, a remote village further north.
Glory in a remote village
Revival meetings erupted at Ponra. The Spirit just took over. Visions. Revelations. Reconciliations. Healings. People drunk in the Spirit. Many resting on the floor getting blessed in various ways. When they heard about Marilyn’s healing through ‘mud on the eyes’ at Ranwas, some of them wanted mud packs also! Children often slept on the floor in the long revival meetings.
One of the girls in the team had a vision of the village children there paddling in a pure sea, crystal clear. They were like that – so pure. Not polluted by TV, DVDs, videos, movies, magazines, and worldliness. Their lives were so clean and holy. Just pure love for the Lord, especially among the young. Youth often lead in revival.
The sound of angels singing filled the air about 3 a.m. It sounded as though the village church was packed. The harmonies in high descant declared “For You are great and You do wondrous things. You are God alone” and then harmonies, without words until words again for “I will praise You O Lord my God with all my heart, and I will glorify Your name for evermore” with long, long harmonies on “forever more”. Just worship. Pure, awesome and majestic.
The team stayed two extra days there – everyone received prayer, and many people surrendered to the Lord both morning and night. Everyone repented, including us, as the Spirit moved on everyone.
Grant’s legs, cut and sore from the long trek, saved the team from another long trek back across the island. The villagers arranged a boat ride back around the island from the east to the west for the team’s return. Revival meetings continued back at the host village, Panlimsi, led mainly in worship by Mathias, with Pastor Rolanson organising things. Also at two other villages the Spirit moved powerfully as the team ministered, with much reconciliation and dancing in worship.
Pastor Rolanson, in the host village, heard angels singing there also. At first, he too thought it was the church full of people but the harmonies were more wonderful than we can sing. Repentance and healings continued in the meetings and in the villages.
Vanuatu Team visits the Solomon Islands
During November 2006, a team of 22 from South Pentecost flew to Honiara in the Solomon Islands and joined Grant and Jesse Padayache and me there for revival meetings in the city and in the mountain villages where revival was spreading. God miraculously provided accommodation in a Christian hostel. Sporting teams had cancelled their booking, so the whole place was available for us. The team visited many town churches and mountain villages, praying with and for hundreds of people. Many reported healings and anointing by God’s Spirit.
Grant and I had the marvellous opportunity to speak one night at the United Church’s national Christian Youth Convention on Choisel Island in the western Solomons. God poured out his Spirit on about 1,000 youths. Many were healed and filled with the Spirit. Many of them saw revival movements in their own islands when they returned home in their outboard canoes.
Weekend with Anglicans
Most of our mission work has been with the Churches of Christ villages but we also visit ‘custom’ pagan villages and other denominations.
Indigenous painting in the Anglican Church
We made history in 2010 by trekking three to four hours to the Anglican village of Point Cross on the southern tip of Pentecost Island, at their invitation. This was the first combined churches meetings ever held there. I taught on the Holy Spirit and transformation in their beautiful cement church, painted white with a majestic spire, visible for kilometres all around. It contains dramatic paintings of Jesus painted on the walls by a Pentecost Island man (see photo). We also met in the chief’s meeting house. At all meetings there we prayed with large numbers of people, including prayer for healings and to be filled with the Spirit. The helpful Member of Parliament there provided us with a free boat trip in his outboard canoe, back to our base village at Pangi and Panlimsi.
Church life has changed in the years I have been visiting Pentecost Island. Now all the churches we work with, including the Anglican youth, have revival-style meetings with revival choruses and personal prayer for those responding.
One of their revival songs has this chorus:
There’s gonna be a great awakening There’s gonna be a great revival in our land There’s gonna be a great awakening And everyone who calls on Jesus They will be saved.
Adventures with Andrew
Andrew Chee from Hawaii lived to surf. Now he lives to serve God [Photo: Andrew surfing].
21-year-old Andrew came with me on a three-week mission to Vanuatu in June-July 2012, again in July 2014, then in July 2015 with Ben Gray and Noel Missingham, then in June-July 2016 with Noel and my grandson Dante. A great way to escape winter! We saw God’s blessing and many miracles.
Andrew sensed God telling him to go on the trip, and he booked his flights only one week before we left when flights were full because of school holidays. At first he was wait-listed but the next day a seat became available on all my four flights!
His cousin Grant Shaw came with me to Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands in 2006 when he was 22. See photos on the Facebook Album
Grant founded Kingdom Culture Church on the north side of Brisbane. He encouraged Andrew to join me [Photo: Andrew and Grant].
Grant hit the news in 2012 with a front-page article in the Sunday Mail and guest appearances on TV shows because they take keen young people to nearby shopping malls and pray for the sick and for anyone wanting prayer. Grant’s brother Joel, also a pastor, began doing this kind of outreach some years previously. Joel and Grant saw God heal hundreds of people, especially non-Christians. Many of those prayed for are now keen Christians also. Joel and his wife Candice with four others from their church joined us for mission on Pentecost Island in June 2013, also visiting many village churches.
Grant and Joel’s cousin Andrew loves praying for the sick because he sees God constantly taking away pain and healing people. He has strong faith in God’s Word, such as Mark 16:17-18. Jesus said, “these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; … they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
We saw all that in Vanuatu, literally. Daily. Both in 2012 and 2014 with Andrew, as well as in 2006 with Grant and 2013 with his brother Joel and his team from Glory City Church in Brisbane – see Photo Reports listed above.
See photos and maps on the Facebook Album.Huge numbers were healed, and leaders challenged and helped.
Port Vila, the capital
Andrew and I flew into Port Vila late on a Friday night and stayed at the Churches of Christ transit house above the church there. Next morning at 6 a.m. we heard young people worshiping in the church with their beautiful island harmonies, so we joined them. They welcomed us and invited us to speak briefly and pray for anyone sick. Andrew had words of knowledge about people with pain who then came out for prayer. Our praying continued for everyone wanting prayer, after the closing prayer. Nice fast start to a mission trip!
That morning we flew for an hour in a very small plane on the windy trip to Pentecost Island – the bumpiest I have had on my dozen visits there. Fortunately we only had time for one bread roll at the airport before leaving, so did not get sick!
I went to Pentecost Island first in 2003 to see their famous land diving, when men dive from 20-30 meter towers with only vines tied to their ankles. Chief Willie (photo), my host, invited me to return with teams of young people from the Law School Christian Fellowship of the University of the South Pacific. I had met them in 2002 and hosted a month’s mission trip they had with me in Australia in November of that year.
So now I was returning again, with another keen young firebrand for God.
Pentecost Island
Pastor Rolanson met us at the airstrip and we walked 300 meters to the beach to ride for half an hour in the outboard canoe 10k south to Pangi village. There Rolanson’s sons met us to carry our bags along the muddy track half a kilometer inland to their village, Panlimsi.
Host Pastor Rolanson and Andrew
I stayed there many times, including with Grant in the bush house behind Andrew and Rolanson in this photo. Rolanson, pastor and evangelist, keeps asking us to return to encourage revival, pray for people, and help him train leaders.
We had our first meeting there that Saturday night in the village church, partially lit by a couple of old fluorescent lights when the generator was started, usually after everyone has arrived – to save fuel. So most meetings begin in the dark with torchlight or candles.
Early in the worship Andrew again had words of knowledge about people’s pain so worship included praying for the sick. Their pain left. After we both spoke that night, we prayed for many more.
So began weeknight meetings at Panlimsi. During the day we rested, recovered, washed in the nearby river where water taro grew abundantly, and usually walked back to Pangi to swim in the ocean. Every time we went out into the villages people asked for healing prayer.
So, like Jesus sending out the 12 and 70 (Mark 6:7; Luke 10:1) in pairs, we too went through the towns and villages proclaiming the kingdom of God, healing the sick and casting out spirits. Many illnesses there result from curses or witchcraft. Often we had to break curses, bind afflicting spirits and cast them out in Jesus’ name.
The first time I went there, in 2003, my host Chief Willie asked me to throw out an afflicting spirit giving him a headache, literally. He said that ‘enemies’ had cursed him. So we prayed together, bound and cast out attacking spirits, and he felt fine.
At other times people asked me to help them get rid of strong invading spirits such as one that haunted a house by ‘jumping’ onto the stones on the floor at night. We prayed and it was gone after that. However, that impudent one ‘jumped’ on the stone floor in my bungalow that night, so I had to cast it out in Jesus’ name, and it never returned. Rather weird to hear someone/something ‘jump’ into your dark room at night!
This time we experienced strong witchcraft. On our last day there, when Andrew and I were weary, Andrew was hit by severe aches and headache. That night I saw a strange dull light, like a reddish torchlight, moving horizontally just outside our village hut. We began praying against powerful spirits. God’s Spirit reminded Andrew to bless those who curse you and pray for your enemies. He did. The strange spiritual connection was immediately broken, and pain started easing off. It took a day to recover from that one. “All hail the power of Jesus’ name.”
Every first Sunday of the month the Churches of Christ have a combined service for all their churches in South Pentecost. We shared in one in the packed Panlimsi church. Before the service, Andrew had words of knowledge about pain in a man’s shoulders and the right side of a woman’s face. Both came for prayer as people were gathering in the church. It turned out that the man was the leader of the service and the woman preached that day! Many times, the words of knowledge Andrew received, we discovered later, were for pastors and leaders, and then later we prayed for others.
At that Sunday service I was strongly led to call people out for prayer during communion. That was a first for them. It never happened in communion before. A large number came for prayer and healings were fast and strong.
Andrew washes chief’s feet in church
One night Andrew felt led to wash everyone’s feet. That took the whole service! We put a bucket of water near the door (regularly refilled) and Andrew washed everyone’s feet as they arrived while we worshiped, prayed, spoke and called people out for healing and empowering prayer. One lady, Alice, told us later that while Andrew in obedience washed her feet the Lord healed her legs! Alice was also healed another year while she was bringing a friend to the front for healing prayer! I was led to wash the leaders’ feet that night also [Photo: Andrew washes the chief’s feet]. That happened many times through the years – following Jesus’ example.
Our adventures included another outboard motor canoe trip an hour north for a combined churches youth rally on the beach with a large campfire at the end of the meeting. We joined forces with another mission team from Gladstone (in Queensland, Australia). That night we also prayed for many people after the service. Healings were the fastest and strongest we had seen till then.
Bunlap
The ‘custom’ village of Bunlap on the east coast is famous as the spiritual base for native witchcraft and curses.
I went there in 2006 with Grant on a five-hour trek across to Ranwas village and then via Bunlap on a seven-hour trek to Ponra village where we saw the power of God at every meeting and I heard angels singing in the night, like the church was full, although no people were there.
Grant had prayed for the paramount chief’s son whose groin was healed at Pangi village, so we offered to go to Bunlap and pray for the sick. A couple of days later we heard that the chief had invited us to come and pray – the first white people to ever be invited to pray for people there.
This time Andrew and I were swimming off the jetty near Pangi when one of the chief’s sons from Bunlap and his friends wandered onto the jetty. Two of those young men had pain so Andrew prayed for them and the pain left. The chief’s son told us they would be there when we came to Bunlap the following Saturday to pray for sick people again.
This year we enjoyed the luxury of a four-wheel truck trip across the island through the dense green mountains. We had three nights of meetings at Ranwas village, Friday to Sunday, including the Sunday morning service there. On Saturday we trekked half an hour through the jungle to Bunlap.
People were even more welcoming this time at Bunlap. We prayed for dozens of people, and their pain left. We talked about the kingdom of God and how Jesus saves and heals. Some of the people told us they believed that, and when the chief allowed it they would be part of a church there.
The paramount chief once burned a Bible given to him by a revival team from the Christian villages. Now he is willing for a church to be built on the ground where he burned the Bible. Hallelujah – what a testimony to God’s grace and glory.
For the first time ever, that paramount chief asked for prayer. He wanted healing from head pain. Andrew placed his hands on the sides of the chief’s head and we prayed for him in Jesus’ name. The pain left.
Pastors Willy, Gordon, Rolanson and his son David with Andrew and the paramount chief
Then another chief there prepared lunch for us so the pastors in the team and Andrew and I ate in his house – again the first time ever for white people on mission eating with him there.
Like Jesus’ disciples, we returned to Ranwas church, rejoicing that afflicting spirits were cast out, people were healed in Jesus’ name, some believed in Jesus, and they now plan to have a church there someday. Our host chief told Rolanson he can bring his guitar and have meetings in the chief’s house anytime.
Some Christians at Ranwas were amazed to hear the reports. They have endured witchcraft and curses from Bunlap for a century. Again, during communion on Sunday large numbers came for prayer for healing, and healings were fast and strong. They also had never done that in communion before. At all the meetings Andrew had specific words of knowledge about healings, and pain left quickly. In the beginning of our trip we had to pray for some people two or three times before the pain left, but as the weeks passed and faith rose, healings were much quicker and stronger. By the end of the mission trip people in the congregation were praying for each other in faith and seeing God touch their friends. We really encourage them to keep doing that.
Andrew especially encouraged leaders to pray with him for people’s healings, just as he had learned from leaders in his church. Soon those village leaders and others were praying more strongly in faith. Many of them do that constantly anyway, so we were just encouraging them to believe and take authority in Jesus’ name even more fully.
We returned to Ranwas village, and Bunlap village in 2014, with similar results. The sick were healed. Hearts were opened to faith in Jesus.
In 2014 we also spoke and prayed with many people at the Independence Celebrations held every 24th July for a week. Many responded, and many youth came for prayer during our time there. We slept one night with a local football team and woke up to them singing:
For I was made in His likeness Created in His image For I was born to serve the Lord And I can’t deny Him And I will always walk beside Him For I was born to serve the Lord.
I challenged them all to live fully this way and the whole team responded in prayer.
2015 Update
I’m just back from a good time in Vanuatu, though tiring – it reminds me I’m approaching 80! Great to have 3 young fellows full of energy and zeal, Andrew Chee (3rd time there, and he was with me in Nepal and Thailand last year), his friend Ben Gray, and my nephew-in-law Noel Missingham – see the Facebook Album. Pastor Rolanson has been the main organizer of my visits to Pentecost Island for over 12 years and I often stay in his village. This time Rolanson came to Vila the first week we were there so we stayed in Vila a week with contacts given to Noel. We joined with a new church group there and had free accommodation as well. The boys loved praying for people in the streets and seeing immediate healings, and we were taken out by church people on 3 days to pray for many, including the Paramount Chief of Port Vila, and for many of his people in his island village.
We had a good week on Pentecost staying with Elder Jackson and wife Annette (who worked in a bank branch there) in their house near the beach at Pangi, as Rolanson stayed on in Vila with government stuff. The team prayed for healings every day and in all the night meetings. Night meetings in four different villages: Panlimsi, Hotwater, Wali and Pangi, were all strong with personal prayers for healings, anointing, empowering and mission. See the Facebook album
It was a time of building them up again. Everyone who was prayed for about their healing reported that the pain had gone – quickly. I left some of the treks into the mountains to the young men this time, and Andrew and Noel returned and prayed for the ‘custom’ paramount chief not only for healings in the village but for his salvation. He indicated that he wanted to give his life to God and open all the ‘custom’ villages to evangelism. Two ‘custom’ chiefs opened their villages for healing prayers and evangelism.
Noel and Andrew pray with the ‘custom’ paramount chief for healing and salvation
We had a few days at Santo Island on our return. Pastor Lewis (who hosted my time teaching at the Bible College in 2004-5) was there in the main office as director of mission. We had a few days to relax on Sunny Santo.
2016 Update
Noel Missingham returned to Pentecost Island many times in 2015-16 including two visits with his family of four young children, hosted by Jackson and Annette at Pangi village. Here is their report in June 2016.
Noel, Judith and family
Email from Noel & Judith:
Greetings to our friends and partners,
It has been an exciting time for us over the last few months. Looking back, our word from the Lord was simply ‘come and follow Me,’ so we found ourselves stepping into the mission field on Pentecost Island in Vanuatu.
In being obedient to this word we have seen the Lord do amazing things and it feels like we have just been along for the ride. We have seen the Lord open deaf ears, make the blind see, heal backs, knees, ankles, broken bones and headaches.
The Lord has brought us before people great and small. He has created divine connections with leaders in Vanuatu and has given us ‘standing before kings’. In the small time we have been spending there, we have seen impossible situations made possible, broken relationships restored and enormous favour for the Lord’s work. We have seen people baptised in water and be completely overwhelmed after being touched by the Holy Spirit. We never anticipated the Lord would use us in such a way.
Out of everything we have witnessed so far, we’ve found that nothing quite compares to the miracle of salvation; seeing a repentant heart weeping in the Father’s love. A story that comes to mind is when a man approached us after a service. It had been some time since he last stepped into a church building, but something told him he should go this morning. As he listened from outside, the Lord touched him and he came forward and shared how he had been involved in adultery. Wow, what a scene as he completely broke down and gave the Lord everything and when we are willing to give everything to Jesus, He is willing to take EVERYTHING from us. He makes us clean, puts a robe and ring on us and calls us ‘faithful and beloved’… When the time for church announcements came, this man took the microphone and with tears in his eyes he apologized to the church and individual leaders and people he hurt. The leaders in turn forgave him, and restored him to the place he was formally serving, on the worship team. A son restored!
One of the ‘impossible made possible’ situations has been the restoration of the Banmatmat Bible College. As Noel hiked around the island to take the gospel to distant villages, one of the things he felt was that it could be more effective. While we are seeing divine favour, signs and wonders, healing and salvations and clear open doors, to do it by ourselves or with a small group of people is not as effective as it could be.
We feel the need for multiple teams of people, and strategic planning so that we can really take Pentecost Island, and all the islands of Vanuatu for the Lord, and then go beyond there to other nations. Of course the Lord had a solution already in the pipeline: The Banmatmat Bible College.
The Lord brought Banmatmat to our attention on one of our previous trips. It lies in the south of the island, a remote part only accessible by hiking or boat. It now lies in ruins and disrepair, however in times gone past it was regarded by locals as a paradise, and a valuable source of training and equipping for many pastors serving there and in surrounding islands.
Bible College and beach at Banmatmat, South Pentecost. Lulkon was martyred in these hills, and we saw supernatural fire on those hills from the Bible College.
We learned that the people dedicated the land where the college is located to God, a few generations after one of the first Christians was martyred (and eaten) near the site. The Church of Christ college was built on that location in 1964. It lasted up until 2004 when the college closed for various reasons. …
[From Geoff: I was able to teach there many times in 2004-2005, hosted by Pastor Lewis Wari, a revival pioneer, who later became President of the Churches of Christ in Vanuatu. God may have other purposes for this place in the future. Many people have had amazing prophecies about revival in South Pentecost.]
The other thing that the Lord opened up on the last trip was different connections with church leaders around the island (from Anglican, Catholic, Seven Day Adventists and Churches of Christ). These are divine connections with brothers and sisters who know Him and love Him and just want to see the King glorified regardless of denominational boundaries.
In closing out this update letter, we want to personally thank each of you for partnering with us in the work the Lord has us doing in Vanuatu. We pray that our Lord continues to richly bless you as we labour together in his work. Remember we are partnering together!
Bible College chapel 2005
Team Visit, June-July 2016
We had the privilege of sharing in meetings every night during our visit covering three weekends. The team, for part or all of the time, included Noel, Andrew, Stan (my brother-in-law) and Dante (my grandson).
Again, most meetings and outreach were around Pangi village on the coast (where we slept) and up the ridge at Panlimsi village, in Pastor Rolanson’s church. Again we participated with local people and encouraged them to continue boldly in faith in praying for one another and for mission teams to go out to the villages. At every meeting we had many responding for commitment to God, anointing and healing. This included evangelism meetings in a few different villages along that west coast of South Pentecost.
During the day we mixed with the people in their daily activities, including fishing with outrigger canoes and with nets. So we enjoyed fish cooked on the fire on the beach a few times, just like the resurrected Jesus with his friends on the shore of Galilee.
Noel and Stan accompanied Rolanson and other leaders to Banmatmat to assess future possibilities. No one seems to know what will happen there, or when, but it remains in our prayers along with the possibilities of having a Revival Training Centre on South Pentecost as the Lord opens the way.
Pioneer chief dies at 111
Paramount chief Morris lived to 111. He died in Panlimsi village on 1st July 2016 when we were there so we had the honour of being involved at the graveside and in the combined churches memorial service on Sunday 3 July.
Morris was a young man when a wife of his father, the highest ranking chief on the island, died. After they had wrapped her body for burial the cloths began moving. They unwrapped her and she told them to leave their heathen ways and follow the Christian way (see above in red). So most of them did.
Pastor Rolanson’s father, a Christian chief, gave them land where they relocated among Christian villages. Chief Morris helped to pioneer the Gospel in other villages in south Pentecost Island.
I had the privilege of speaking at the graveside and in the memorial service on the Sunday in July 2016. I sensed the Lord give me a word of comfort and a word of challenge – “Come and Go”: Come to Me … I will give you rest … My yoke is easy and my burden is light … (Matthew 11:28-20). Go and make disciples of all nations … I am with you always even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:18-20).
Photos: Chief Morris at 111 (June 2016) with his grandson Presley, the burial, and the combined churches memorial service at Panlimsi with the overflow crowd.
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Team Visits, 2017-2018-2019
I returned with grandson Dante and others in June-July, 2017. Stan came with his wife Daphne (my sister) and Emily from Riverlife Baptist joined us. The Riverlife church people sent a keyboard, a guitar, and a large box of reading glasses with us. We often take used and discarded spectacles with us on these trips.
This time we had meetings at Ranwadi High School again and once again prayed with large numbers there among the 300 boarding students. Then we returned south to Pangi and Panlimsi villages for more meetings and visitation with Pastor Rolanson. At a Sunday service, Elder Jackson gave his testimony that his blood readings were normal at the clinic following prayer for diabetes.
We continue to encourage Christians to pray for one another in faith and obedience. I participated when their new MP Silas Bule, formerly principal at Ranwadi, distributed Gideon’s New Testaments to the local school.
Then in 2018, I had a team of seven of us. The six young men with me included Dante and Ben again with Ben’s friends Scott (Andrew Chee’s brother), Blake, Sergie, and Dylan. We stayed in Rolanson’s village at Panlimsi, up the ridge from Pangi on the coast.
Again we prayed with large numbers at their village meetings and during the day. Pain left immediately with healing prayers, people were filled with the Spirit, using spiritual gifts, and we saw rising faith and obedience among them. As we pray with and for them, we encourage them to keep praying for one another – as they do. Faith grows stronger and people are touched powerfully by God in prayers.
Glimpses of my grandson Dante in the first of his many visits to Pentecost Island to speak, sing, and pray, including baptisms (and his original song ‘Still Worth It’, and this link to his biography of me!).
Then I returned again in September 2019 with Chris and Robert Bullock from Kenmore Churches of Christ for another stay with Rolanson and his family in their village at Panlimsi. Again we had prayer times at their house and many meetings in their local church. Now that I was in my 80s we stayed there without the regular trips to other villages so typical of previous villages. Again we prayed regularly with and for the local people, especially their leaders and chief.
Update 2023
Pastor Rolanson Tor had been our host and the leading evangelist pastor in South Pentecost. Sadly he died of a stroke in August 2023, but he leaves behind a great legacy of evangelism and revival in the power of God’s Spirit.
Ps Rolanson
David Scarlett joined me for two weeks of mission on Pentecost Island in September, originally arranged with Rolanson. It involved meetings each night across four village churches plus morning services and some day sessions such as a morning with the area pastors and a final morning praying for anointing for local leaders.
This time the faith and expectation level at each meeting seemed higher than previously, the worship stronger, and 20-30 or more came for prayer each time, including prayer for healing, empowering, surrender and anointing. That often included anointing with oil for healing or empowering.
David and Geoff stayed at a beautiful tourist bungalow by the beach run by its godly church elder who also attended the many meetings and prayer times together. So this touch of blessing and Spirit-led meetings and prayer combined nicely with South Pacific prayerful relaxation.
We encourage and support revival leaders on Pentecost Island regularly. That includes providing revival books and resources, Bibles, and helping pastors with school fees for their children. We also support mission team ministries.
If you would like to help us financially my mission account is: Geoffrey Waugh, PayPal – geoffwaugh2@gmail.com
Jesus told a parable about two sons whose father told them to work in his vineyard (Matthew 21:28-32). One son said he would go but he did not. The other son said he would not go but changed his mind and went. The one who said ‘No’ but then went was more obedient than the one who said ‘Yes’ but didn’t go. The story shows how we can repent, change our mind and obey.
Jesus’ parable of the two sons encourages us to repent, turn around, and obey even if previously we did not. Often we may feel guilty that we are not obeying Jesus fully and wholeheartedly. When we pray we may remember how we disobeyed or were half-hearted or reluctant to obey. We can repent, and obey.
Some of Jesus commands seem hard for us to obey: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you; whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me; carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; sell your possessions, and give alms; those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples (Luke 6:27-28; 9:23; 10:4; 12:33; 14:33). And that’s just a few of his instructions!
We’re not all called to be Saint Francis or Mother Teresa. But we are called to follow Jesus – and that’s a challenge. Jesus’ instructions can shape our attitudes and actions. We may live it out in different ways in different places, but his commands will always guide us as we are led by his Spirit. Jesus was wholly obedient in different ways at different times as a child, a student, a carpenter, a teaching rabbi, a healer, a sacrifice. We can obey in our different situations.
Our obedience springs from love and flows strong in God’s love. We love Him because he first loved us (1 John 4:19).
Love is the reason we obey
Jesus says that we will obey his commandments because of our love for him. We obey from love, not just from duty. Our duty becomes our delight.
We understand obeying in love with people we really love such as our parents or husband or wife. We love to obey or please them because we love them. It’s our delight, not just a duty. We love to please them, and we are so happy when our response to them pleases them.
Jesus’ obedience was a natural part of his loving relationship with his Father, and he calls us into loving obedience also.
If you keep My commandments you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love (John 15:10).
Jesus lived in full fellowship and intimate loving relationship with his Father. Consequently his obedience flowed naturally and supernaturally from that.
So this book explores how we can obey Jesus in love by loving God and loving others. Loving God and loving others are inter-related. John, the Apostle of love, reminds us:
Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also (1 John 4:20-21).
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome,for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith (1 John 5:1-4).
Believing in God and in his Son Jesus changes us. It enables us to love God and to love one another. When we believe in God and trust him he gives us his life and we discover that his life in us gives us love for him and for others.
From the Introduction to Part 2
Jesus is the best model for short term supernatural mission.
When Jesus, aged about 30, returned to his home town of Nazareth in the hills of Galilee, he explained his mission and ministry by quoting from Isaiah.
Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15 He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. …
16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read,17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.21 Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ …
(Luke 4:14-15, 16-21; see Isaiah 61:1-2)
Jesus fulfilled that prophecy in his life and ministry, and taught his followers to minister that way. We can too.
The name Joshua/Jesus means God saves, or God is salvation. That is why the angel announcing his birth said, “… you are to name him Joshua/Jesus (Yeshua), for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). It is the same name as Moses’ general, Joshua, who led the Israelites into their promised land.
The earliest English translations of the Bible used the name Jesus for Yeshua of Nazareth, and the name Joshua for others with that same name. So in English the name Jesus became unique and sacred for Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world.
This book explores the mission and ministry of Jesus/Joshua the Christ/Messiah, the Son of God, and how he fulfilled his brief ministry (Chapter 1). Jesus took others to minister with him and sent them out to minister in the authority and power of his name (Chapter 2).
Peter and Paul travelled with teams in their mission and ministry, also anointed with the Spirit of God (Chapter 3).
I give some brief contemporary examples of short term mission and ministry (Chapter 4) and Bart Doornweed (Chapter 5) and Randy Clark (Chapter 6) describe their experience of short term supernatural mission.
The final chapter is a powerful story by Carl Lawrence about two teenage girls in China who established 30 churches in two years with congregations ranging from 200 to 5,000 (Chapter 7).
Listen to God’s Spirit as you read and apply this good news.
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IRAN HAS FASTEST GROWING EVANGELICAL POPULATION IN THE WORLD
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Every day, SAT-7 receives more than 2,000 messages from Iran on Telegram.
Iran is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for Christians. Almost all of the Farsi-speaking churches have been closed and house churches are raided routinely, with their leaders and members arrested.
Evangelism is against the law and may even be punished by death. But despite Iran’s best efforts to stifle believers, God is at work and the church in Iran is growing rapidly! Iran has the fastest-growing evangelical population in the world, according to Operation World. Iran’s hardline approach, and violence perpetrated in the name of Islam throughout the Middle East, has caused Muslims to search for truth elsewhere. But with such a crackdown by the government against Christian worship and witness, how is the Iranian Church growing so quickly? Despite the dangers, Iranian Christians are sharing their faith.
SAT-7’s broadcasts (Christian Satellite Television) of Christian programs into Iranian homes have been one tool God is using. One Muslim woman found healing from one of SAT-7’s programs.
“My husband and I are both from very religious families,” she wrote. “I was doing all the required activities until I was diagnosed with leukaemia. A Christian friend told me to repeat, ‘If God is for me, who can be against me?’ I didn’t really understand it but I kept repeating it because I thought I was going to die.”
“One evening, I watched a film on SAT-7 called ‘God is Love,’ and there was a prayer at the end, which spoke to my heart. I knelt down and prayed the prayer. The leukaemia has gone and I feel very good now. Every day, SAT-7 receives reports from people telling them they have given their heart to Christ after watching a program on the television channel.
In addition to the programs, SAT-7 provides 24/7 support for viewers, who often have nowhere else to turn. Viewers want to know more about Jesus. Some want to pray with a Christian. Others want to share their testimony and have contact with fellow believers. SAT-7 is now using a new secure messaging app called Telegram and is posting program clips, the Bible and Christian books for people to watch and read.
Every day, SAT-7 receives more than 2,000 messages from Iran on Telegram and there have been over 60,000 Bible views. “Anyone with a satellite dish can turn on SAT-7, hear the Word of God in their language and join a global fellowship of Christians within the privacy of their own homes.”
About SAT-7
SAT-7 The Ministry: Christian Satellite Television Transforming Lives with Hope in Jesus Christ. Since 1996, SAT-7 has been working to illuminate countries in the Middle East and North Africa with God’s love.
The ministry currently has five channels (SAT-7 ARABIC, SAT-7 KIDS, SAT-7 PARS, SAT-7 PLUS and SAT-7 TÜRK.) Each channel holds to a similar ethos – show viewers God’s love, give local churches in the region a satellite TV platform to educate and encourage their communities.
SAT-7 programs are designed to combat misconceptions about the Christian Faith in the region, work inter-denominationally and foster bridges of understanding with the much larger non-Christian majority without compromising the truth of God’s Word.
The Vision: To see a growing Church in the Middle East and North Africa, confident in Christian faith and witness, serving the community and contributing to the good of society and culture.
The Mission: To provide the churches and Christians of the Middle East and North Africa an opportunity to witness to Jesus Christ through inspirational, informative and educational television services.
The Mission and Vision were developed by the ministry’s Partners (individuals, Churches and ministries located around the world) and its International Board of Directors, the majority of whom are local Christian leaders living in the Middle East or North Africa. This International Board is the owner of the ministry and sets its core policy and goals.
SAT-7 has ministry offices and studios in Cyprus, Lebanon, Turkey and Egypt. It also has fundraising offices in Europe, the UK, Canada and the USA. SAT-7 has more than 100 local staff working in its offices in the Middle East.
SAT-7
PO Box 2770
Easton , MD
United States – 21601
Phone – 410-770-9804
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100% of the 6,000 in a Pygmy tribe close to the area where the Ebola virus began now follow Christ 5 years after the young chief’s conversion.
Dick Eastman, International President of Every Home for Christ (EHC) – formerly Christian Literature Crusade – describes his visit to this area even though he was warned not to go. Catholic nuns and nurses who cared for the first known Ebola victims there also died from the highly contagious virus. The EHC team had round-the-clock prayer warriors praying for them the whole trip. They arrived 3 years after the pioneering Bantu Africans began sharing good news there and 4,000 had become Christians. Two years later all 6,000 of that tribe professed Christ.
This edited excerpt is from Chapter 3: People of the Trees (pages 37-51).
It would take eleven days travelling by canoe up the mighty Zaire River (also known as the Congo) before the two Every Home for Christ pioneer missionaries (Bantu Africans) from Kinshasa (Zaire) would reach their destination deep in the equatorial rainforest. From the Zaire River they would travel several days more against the strong current up the smaller Momboyo River. From the Momboyo they would journey still deeper into the forest on small tributaries, until they reached the heart of the rainforest rarely seen by outsiders. It was a dangerous journey few ever made.
The Power of a Prayer Shield
Despite what I knew was the harassment of the enemy, my colleague and I soon found ourselves in Kinshasa, Zaire, loading our small tents and other supplies – including 100 pounds of salt for the Pygmies – into a small Mission Aviation Fellowship plane.
Thankfully we had found a courageous MAF pilot willing to take us to a rugged landing strip an an encampment called Boteka, located along the Momboyo River. It would serve as the launching pad for our trip still deeper into the forest … to our final destination, the village of Bosuka, where hundreds of Pygmies were turning to Jesus.
The MAF flight took us only three hours. As if to heighten my concern, we were flying straight into huge, billowing clouds with raindrops ripping against the windshield and lightning dancing just beyond our wingtips. Yet the plane flew steady as an arrow. I was amazed how the Lord guided our MAF pilot straight through the weather with hardly a bump. Not a moment of our entire journey, day or night, lacked at least a few people praying as part of our special prayer shield.
The Last Tree on Earth
The plane landed safely on a patch of grass in Boteka, which I soon learned had been a Belgian Catholic mission since the early 1950s. (Zaire was known then as the Belgian Congo.) I also discovered that the Every Home Crusade ministry had already seen significant results in the region around Boteka. In fact, many of the Pygmies and Bantu people (taller Africans) who stood cheering along the small grass landing strip when we arrived were converts of EHC’s systematic every home evangelism ministry in the Boteka area.
At daybreak the next day, just before 6 a.m., we climbed into our borrowed 40-foot canoe to begin what would be a 14-hour journey against the strong current of the snake-like Momboyo River. We would not arrive at our destination, an encampment called Imbonga, until eight o’clock that night. We faced an additional 32-kilometer (20 mile) trek even deeper into the rainforest the following day.
The Momboyo was one of hundreds, if not thousands, of rivers that flow throughout the several rainforests of central Africa. As I looked at a map, I noticed, not too far north, the name of another river I recognized – the Ebola. Being reminded of that name made me a little uneasy.
The Catholics of Imbonga had the only vehicle within hundreds of kilometers – an old, beat-up Land Rover. Then we learned that the narrow road – not much more than a twelve-foot-wide jungle clearing – included 222 separate log bridges. Each bridge consisted of little more than 10 or 20 thick logs.
Along the 32-kilometer journey from Imbonga to the Pygmy settlement of Bosuka, we saw numerous Bantu villages – not uncommon in the area. Pygmy villages, on the other hand, were highly unusual, since Pygmies tend to be nomadic, seldom settling down to live in conventional huts or dwellings.
None of the initial progress reports from our workers had indicated how many homes were being reached even though this statistic appears on every report coming to our central office from the field. But our area director had been reporting only the numbers of conversions (and subsequent baptisms) among the Pygmies. So we asked him for updated reports that included the number of actual homes being reached.
He wrote again suggesting we still did not understand. The Pygmies do not live in homes, houses or even huts in the trees. They just live and sleep in the trees, sometimes on the thick leaves, sometimes under them and sometimes in temporary thatched shelters assembled hastily when a tribe moves to a new area for hunting. Occasionally they even tie themselves into a tree, he wrote, so they will not fall asleep (quite literally) from a high tree and injure themselves.
This report from our director ended with the usual African humour: “Brother Dick, we have now launched EHC’s very first Every Tree Crusade.” Then he modified our long-standing goal, which speaks of reaching “the last home on earth with the Gospel,” by printing in large letters on his report: “WE WILL NOT STOP UNTIL WE REACH THE LAST TREE ON EARTH WITH THE GOSPEL!”
The settlement called Bosuka meant “the end of the world” in their Pygmy dialect, for not much lies beyond Bosuka but dense forest. Indeed, the very village of Bosuka did not even exist until relatively recently. But here I was, standing among these usually nomadic “people of the trees” and seeing with my own eyes that they had formed a village with a church at its centre. It was a Christian phenomenon, I was told, and had resulted in thousands of Pygmies in the area giving their lives to Christ.
Half an Arm’s Length
The work had gone slowly at first. The two EHC workers, who had come to this part of the forest 14 months earlier – not for a visit but to live – were a married couple, both Bantu.
But as far back as anyone can remember, the smaller Pygmies have feared the larger Bantu. They learned to trade with them for precious commodities not available in the deep forest, commodities like salt and metal (the latter to make tools and weapons), but for generations the Bantu had slaughtered the Pygmies and driven them deeper into the forest.
Pygmies are the world’s shortest people. Because they are unable to process the hormones needed for normal growth, adults reach an average height of only four feet six inches. Pygmies feel they are second-class human beings – like monkeys, perhaps, or a category of human just above the animals. Their very name derives from the Greek word pygme, which means “half an arm’s length.”
The Pygmy sense of inferiority made it difficult at first for the Bantu workers to make even an initial presentation of the Gospel. So they had to be unusually creative. They would go to a clearning, for example, where they knew Pygmies could see them, and leave a quantity of salt on an old stump or mound in the clearing. Then they would retreat into the shadows of the forest but stand near the edge so the Pygmies could see they were still there. Soon the Pygmies would come, ever so slowly because they wanted the salt so desperately. Then they would snatch up the precious substance, leave monkey meat or fish in its place and rush off into the forest.
The Christians would come a third day, but this time they would wait only a few paces from the salt. Now it would take even more time for the Pygmies to cultivate the courage to come. But because salt is priceless to a Pygmy, a brave adult (usually a young warrior) would soon step into the clearing and move toward the salt. As he did, the Bantu Christians would walk very slowly toward the salt, trying to send a signal that they meant no harm.
Eventually at least one of the Pygmies, sometimes more, would muster enough courage to approach the believers waiting nearby with the salt. In this moment – through interpreters, if necessary – the Christian workers would begin to tell them they had come in a spirit of love with Good News for their people. The Pygmy listeners almost never looked into the eyes of the speaker, reflecting their conviction that they were less than human.
These first close encounters usually lasted only a few minutes, but they were crucial for building trust that might later lead to longer meetings. Still, in these first moments of contact, the Christians sought to share the gospel message as quickly as possible. They never knew if they would get another opportunity.
Sometimes it took two or three encounters before there was an indication the message was being understood. When it was, it was clear something was happening in the heart of the recipient. The pattern was almost always the same. The Pygmy would agree to say the sinner’s prayer, still not looking into the eyes of the believer. Then he or she would begin to weep, sometimes uncontrollably. Then, just as suddenly, as one worker described the process to me, “The Pygmy will lift his head boldly, look you straight in the eye and laugh with joy. We know then that something has really happened. The Pygmy has just met Jesus.”
A Cornelius Conversion
When our team had finally arrived at Bosuka, we discovered that a groundswell of conversions had taken place over an amazingly short time. Our last report some six months earlier had indicated that as many as 1,200 Pygmies in the Bosuka area had received Christ. But because of a lack of radio transmitters in this village, or any other communications from this deep in the forest, we did not know this number had grown significantly. There were now 4,000 converts from a tribe of little more than 6,000. Two thirds of the tribe had come to Jesus! (Two years later a report would indicate all 6,000 had now professed Christ!)
One of the special converts – and one of the very first ones – was Lendongo Botshemba, the 30-year-old chief of the tribe, who greeted us graciously on our arrival. His conversion, our director of the region told me, had been like that of Cornelius in Acts 10.
The young chief had grown up worshipping the snakes and trees of the dense rainforest along the Momboyo River, just as his parents Bokimba and Bolanza had before him.
But the miracle of the Gospel was now transforming those parts of the rainforest. Lendongo’s entire family had been converted affecting some 40 persons in all. And churches were being planted to help nurture and sustain these new believers. Lendongo was responsible for the formation of at least 18 additional Christian villages in the region, each one established around a church.
In a neighbouring part of the equatorial rainforest, where we had heard that 32 churches had been planted by EHC workers 36 months earlier, we now learned that an astounding 300 additional fellowships of new believers had been born. In still another rainforest area (in Cameroon, West Africa) 5,000 more Pygmies were converted and baptized. Several hundred additional churches were formed as a result.
The “Every Tree Crusade” launched in the rainforest had been responsible for more than 15,000 Pygmy conversions – in just 36 months! And as our journey to the people of the trees ended, and our large canoe headed back down the Momboyo River, I could not get a verse from Isaiah out of my mind: “The earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:9)
Reproduced from the Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies No. 4, 2001, pages 99-107, from Dr Chin Khua Khai’s research for his Ph.D. degree.
Although small and often unnoticed, Myanma (Burma) has had its share of great leaders. The late Reverend Hau Lian Kham, often referred to as the “John Wesley” of Zomi (Chin) because of the similar characters and patterns seen in his leadership, is a noted pastor-evangelist and teacher among the evangelical Pentecostal believers in Myanmar. From the early 1970s until his death in 1995, he was the key figure and leader of a renewal movement among the Zomis. The renewal began on a small scale in the early 1970s and has spread throughout the region to many parts of the country through evangelism and cross-cultural mission efforts (1). It has resulted in the planting of new churches in both rural and urban regions and to the establishment of leadership training schools. Kham has left his legacy as a revivalist, equipper, and transformer.
A Brief Story of His Life
Kham’s legacy in Zomiss began against the backdrop of a predominantly nominal Christian atmosphere (2). The Zomi is a major ethnic group in Myanmar occupying the north-western region. They were 2.2% of countries estimated population of 49 million in the year 2000 (3). Christianity has been a dominant religious practice among the Zomis for half a century.
The Zomis received Christian faith through the efforts of missionaries. American Baptist missionaries first introduced the Christian faith to them early in the 1900s (4). Other missions such as the Methodists (1925), Catholics (1934), Anglicans (1934), Seventh-Day Adventists (1954), Presbyterians (1956), and Pentecostals (that is, Assemblies of God, 1960s) arrived as well. When missionaries were expelled from the country in the 1960s, more than half of the Zomi population had become professed Christians. At this stage, there existed among the Zomis Christians a moral laxity and a lack of salvation knowledge (5).
Out of this background, Kham arose as a giant of faith who launched the renewal movement in 1973. On November 24, 1944, he was the sixth of eight children born to devout Christian parents in Ngennung-Tedim, Chin State, Myamnar. Upon graduating from high school, he began serving as the headmaster of Zomi Baptist Academy, a primary school, in his native town of Tedim from 1963 to 1965.
Though poverty has always been a roadblock to education for the Zomis, Kham found a way to pursue his secular education as well as theological education. He attended night classes at Workers College on a work-study program, receiving a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in 1968. He then enrolled in Myanmar Institute of Theology, Insein, Yangon, and received a Bachelor of Religious Education (B.R.E.) degree in 1971.
Upon completion of his studies, he decided to return to Tedim to engage in full time ministry. Indeed, temptations prevailed when relatives asserted he was making an undesirable career choice due to the poor income ministers receive. After a strong prayer, he made a lasting decision to serve the Lord alone.
Kham’s ministry went through enormous changes, which better equipped him for kingdom service. He was first installed as the senior pastor of Cope Memorial Baptist Church (April 1971 to 1974) in Tedim receiving his ordination credentials on February 25, 1973. He went on to become a leader of the Evangelical Baptist Conference (EBC) and the senior pastor of Tedim’s Evangelical Baptist Church (1975-1976) when Cope Memorial Baptist Church dismissed him from membership because of his promotion of the renewal movement.
Eventually, he became a Pentecostal minister (1977-1996) because of his new experience with the empowerment of the Holy Spirit and a larger vision of the kingdom’s mission. Regarding his joining the Assemblies of God of Myanmar, he once stated, “We must keep a large vision of the whole country, even the whole world, for the evangelization, while starting the work at the local area” (6). In 1979 Khain became the founding principal of Evangel Bible College in Yangon, the capital city of Myanmar, serving in this capacity as well as teaching until his death on December 29, 1995. During this time, he also held the position of the senior pastor of Grace Assembly of God Church. Kham was the general secretary of the Assemblies of God of Myanmar for a period. This position was relinquished when he was sent to the Philippines for graduate studies in 1987.
Kham received a Master of Divinity (M.Div.) degree from Asia Pacific Theological Seminary (APTS), Baquio, Philippines in 1991, a Master of Theology (Th.M.) degree from Asia Graduate Theological Seminary (AGTS), Manila, Philippines in 1994, and was a candidate for the Doctor of Ministry (D. Min.) degree at AGTS.
Kham’s premature death was a great loss not only to his family, friends and relatives, but also to the body of Christ in Myanmar. He was the prospective leader of the whole evangelical-Pentecostal body in Myanmar. His remaining family members include his wife Mary Hau Lun Cing who also had reached candidate of D.Min. status at AGTS, and three daughters, Cing Lam Dim, Man San Lun, and Cing Lian Ciin. At the writing of tiiis article, with the help of her daughters, Mary carries on the Kham’s ministries as the acting principal of Evangel Bible College and as by serving as the senior pastor of Grace Assembly of God Church.
Early Theological Paradigm Changes
Being raised in a pious family, Kham was a committed Christian since childhood. God-fearing in attitude, obedience, sincerity, friendliness, and humility were revealing marks in his life. He was a Bible lover, active churchgoer, and even a choirmaster. He was a genius in widespread reading, especially of Christian books. More than anything, he had a strong desire to serve the Lord as a full-time minister from his youth.
Two prominent experiences proved revolutionary in Kham’s faith journey. He, like Timothy in the Bible, had a strong faith in Christ though he did not know the exact time of his rebirth. However, a paradigm shift of faith took place in him sometime in 1970 when he accepted the Bible as the infallible word of God. This conviction came by his reading of an article in a Decision magazine in which Billy Graham stated his acceptance by faith of the whole Bible as the word of God. This, in fact, was opposite to the teachings at the theological institute that Kham was attending at the time (7). The theology he had received at the institute led him to confusion, as it questioned the authority and inspiration of the scripture. He attributed his overcoming the theological dilemma to the work of the Holy Spirit (8). As a result, he asserted the authority and sufficiency of the Bible for faith and practice.
Another experience had caused him to pursue renewal. Being a newly ordained minister, he paid home visits to church members once a week. He soon discovered the church members were nominal and weak in their faith, having little knowledge about the salvation of Christ, lacking real commitment. This discovery led to a turning point in his ministry, for he felt compelled to preach and teach the people about the gospel of the salvation of Jesus Christ in order to help bring renewal to the church. This was his prayer, “These people must hear the gospel and repent and come to the cross of Christ. God, help me and use me” (9).
Serving with Multiple Gifts
Kham was a gifted preacher. His preaching was persuasive, forceful, and biblical. When preaching, he always referred to the authority of the word of God, often stating, “The Bible says….” His frequent use of body movement gave him the title, “The Action Preacher.” With all of these qualities, his method was a breakthrough for contemporary preaching.
Kham was gifted in teaching. From the very beginning of his pastoral ministry, he taught the Bible and Bible doctrine from the evangelical perspective which was contrary to contemporary teaching in the vicinity. The people were amazed at his new teachings. Consequently, church attendance doubled for the first time since the death of the former pastor of his church in 1965. News about his ministry spread so quickly that the unchurched in the town and visitors from rural villages were persuaded to attend the worship services and his Bible classes.
Moreover, Kham was gifted in music, art, and literature. He conducted the church choir every Sunday, performed in and directed dramas on special occasions such as Christmas. The “Life of Jesus” attracted not only the town dwellers, but also people from the villages nearby. His first publication was a small handbook, Khasiangtho Ngeina Nam Lite [The Four Spiritual Laws], published and distributed in March 1973. He translated the books of Jeremiah and Jonah into the Tedim language for the Tediin Bible. Another work of his was the book Upna Laigil [The Essence of Faith] which was an evangelical position on Bible doctrine (10). Besides these publications, he wrote several articles and helped revise a local hymnal.
Revivalist
Kham was the pioneer leader of the renewal movement among the Zomis. A “burden for souls’ was his motivating factor. He was convinced that soul winning was the most important task under heaven. Referring to the scripture in Luke 16:25, he asserted that a soul is more precious than the whole universe; to win a soul is more important than to gain the whole universe, and to help a soul being saved is the most precious task in the sight of God (11). Thus, to promote and bring renewal (12) within the church and to seek souls outside the church was the most urgent call of his pastoral ministry.
Kham believed that prayer is a key to renewal (13). He said his supporters learned from historical evidences and personal witnesses that renewal often takes place when the people of God pray and seek him. They soon promoted individual and group prayer meetings for renewal.
Believing an open-air crusade would be the most appropriate strategy to reach the common people, the revivalist and his supporters launched a week-long crusade on April 30, 1973. They raised a bamboo pulpit on a football field where he preached seven nights about the salvation of Christ. This pioneer crusade was characterized by breakthroughs, a charismatic-style singing of revival choruses, a style in preaching the message that had direct implication upon the hearers, the altar call for repentance and acceptance of Christ, and face-to-face discussion of the personal assurance of salvation. These types of events marked a new breakthrough in ministry.
Furthermore, the revivalist learned to trust in the Holy Spirit. He acknowledged the dimension and crucial work of the Holy Spirit in bringing renewal. This factor prevailed as he surrendered himself by kneeling and crying to the Lord for the conversion of sinners, praying all night on the second day of the crusade (14). Preaching aggressively and persuasively for the first two nights did not draw a single sinner to the Lord. However, surrendering and trusting in the Holy Spirit made the difference.
A young man by the name Kham Lian Khup turned and stepped forward in the altar call and accepted Christ as his Saviour and Lord on the third night (15). The bold decision of this young man was a breakthrough that encouraged many to do the same in the days that followed. Converts were added every day.
Eventually, the pioneer crusade was the recognized launching pad of the renewal movement. The word “born again’ became a catchword throughout the renewal movement. The born-again believers spread the gospel by preaching, teaching, and counselling. Repentance for sin confession of Christ as Saviour and Lord, baptism in water as a witness of discipleship, studying the Bible, praying, and sharing the word of God were phenomenon indicative of this renewal.
Kham, along with his itinerant gospel team, continued to make gospel tours throughout the countryside during the years of 1973 to 1979. His motto became, “To bring as many people as possible to Christ in the shortest possible time” (16). He conducted gospel crusades from town to town and from village to village.
Like revivalist John Wesley of England in the eighteenth century (17) he travelled hundreds and thousands of miles on foot to spread the good news of Jesus Christ. His brother Gin Za Lian like Charles Wesley, was a gifted musician throughout this renewal period. The two brothers worked hand in hand preaching and singing. During the next ten years, Kham would also preach the gospel to several other people groups throughout the country.
Leadership Equipper
Not a lone star, Kham trained up other effective leaders for servicing in the Kingdom of God. Teaching Sunday School was a regular ministry. His gospel crusades were two pronged: preaching and teaching the word of God. He also conducted Bible seminars every year, attended by believers from all the countryside.
Kham renovated the pattern of leadership by emphasizing lay witnessing. Like John Wesley, he motivated, challenged, equipped, and mobilized believers to carry out the work of the ministry. Prioritizing the evangelistic mandate, he emphasized witnessing and winning souls as the greatest call of believers. Their greatest accomplishment would come by fulfilling that call.
He often elaborated the urgency of the call, the doom of people who never hear the gospel, the reward of obeying the call, and the consequences of disobedience. He explained agape as God’s kind of love, which meant loving others in the way God loves sinners who are doomed to eternal judgment. He also taught about how to witness, live a righteous and Spirit-filled life, and how to build the body of Christ.
As a result of his efforts, lay witnessing became the most dynamic factor of spreading the renewal throughout the country during the last three decades of his life (1970s-1990s) (18).
As stated earlier, Kham began teaching at the Evangel Bible College, serving as the founding principal as well. In fact this call was not a new challenge for him. He had long acknowledged the need to build armies for the Lord with deeper biblical knowledge.
Sensing the need to multiply himself by training leaders, he decided to take over the teaching role at the Bible school. Today, the school’s graduates are ministering the mission of the kingdom of God in different capacities all over the country.
Transformer
One final legacy to be noted here is that of the transformational changes within the church and in the culture that resulted from the renewal. Kham’s own rediscovery and subsequent preaching on key issues such as the Bible as the inspired word of God, the lukewarm nature of the church, the dispensation of law and grace, the atoning work of Christ, justification by faith alone, and other teachings laid the foundation of evangelical Pentecostal beliefs and practices. As a result, Evangelicalism (Fundamentalism and Neo-evangelicalism) and Pentecostalism emerged like a strong river among the born-again Zomi Christians. Half the Christian population label themselves Evangelical/Pentecostals today (19). The following figure shows the percentage of their attachments in 2000:
Kham’s pattern of preaching became a favourite model for young preachers. His messages were grounded not in mere knowledge but in sound biblical and theological teaching built upon solid theological terms in which Christ is the subject. He interpreted scripture passages from the root meaning and then adapted it to the local situation. He also drew examples from local contexts and biographical stories to support the message. He was an expert in coining and applying popular words and phrases in his preaching. Most often, he contextualized the husk and kept the kernel of the gospel unchanged. His method is a combination of the “translation model” and “adaptation model” of contextualization (20).
Moreover, the messages have facilitated a Christ-centred worldview among believers. They saw God not only as sovereign and transcendent but also as immanent. They recognized secular things as temporary and spiritual things as eternal. They accepted Christ as Saviour, Lord and King. Therefore, many believers chose to serve Christ rather than the world. Believers also gained positive self-images, liberating them from the low self-images of an inferiority complex.
Furthermore, the renewal has had a great social impact among the Zomis such that transformational changes occurred in the cultural subsystems (21). God was seen as the reservoir of blessings. Therefore thanksgiving celebrations toward God for blessings and success were and still are common phenomena in the communities today. Families give their children Christian names in order to express appreciation and acknowledgment of what He has done in a person’s life. Yet another outcome of the renewal is that the need to take the cultural mandate is more recognized among evangelical Pentecostal believers today than ever before. Churches and individual believers continue to establish orphanages, open private clinics, donate relief funds and take on social responsibilities in their communities.
With all these patterns and characters of the renewal, many believers in Myanmar have regarded Kham as a great revivalist, a great leadership equipper, and a great transformer whose legacy will speak to many generations to come. He could say as Paul did, “I have fought a good fight I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim 4:6 NIV).
References
(1) Chin Khua Khai, “Myamnar Mission Boards and Agencies,” in Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, ed. A. Scott Moreau (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), pp. 667-69.
(2) The Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization describes a nominal Christian as one who would call him/herself a Christian but has no authentic commitment to Christ based on personal faith. See Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, The Thailand Reporton Christian Witness to Nominal Christians Among Protestants, Lausanne Occasional Paper No. 23 (Wheaton, IL: Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, 1980), p. 5.
(3) Sein Tin, Central Statistical Year Book of Myanmar 1995 (Yangon, Myanmar: Central Statistical Organization, 1995), pp. 26-7. These statistics do not include the Asho-Chin (plain Chin), Mizos and Zomis in India and Bengaladesh.
(4) Robert G. Johnson has documented in detail the work of the American Baptist missions among the Zomis. Robed G. Johnson, History of American Baptist Chin Mission, 2 vols. (Valley Forge, PA: Robert G. Johnson, 1988).
(5) I briefly discussed in my dissertation mission works among the Zomis and argued why the churches fall into a nominal state. Chin Khua Khai, “Dynamics of Renewal: A Historical Movement among the Zomi (Chin) in Myanmar’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Fuller Theological Seminary, 1999), pp. 128-165.
(7) Myanmar Institute of Theology (formerly known as Burma Institute of Theology), Insein, Yangon, is the largest theological school in Myanmar. It has been largely influenced by the teachings of theological liberalism since the 1960’s. “The Church in Myanmar,” in Church in Asia Today: Challenges and Opportunities Today, ed. Saphir Arthyal (Singapore: Asia Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, 1996), pp. 349-60.
(8) Hau L. Kham, ‘My Testimony” (unpublished manuscript, 1994), p. 7.
(9) Hau L. Kham, Personal Diary, June 25, 1971.
(10) Khai, “Dynamics of Renewal” pp. 178, 205.
(11) Chin K. Khai, Personal Sermon Note, 1973.
(12) The term “renewal” has been defined in several ways. What I mean by “renewal” and “renewal movement” here is an inward experience of a spiritual dynamic that involves a new, deeper experience of God’s transcendence and holiness, of grace and forgiveness, coupled with a new dimension in worship and a reaching out in mission (Khai, “Dynamics of Renewal,” p. 4).
(13) Kham, Personal Diary, January 27, 1973. Referred to in Khai, “Dynamics of Renewal,” pp. 180-181.
(14) KhaM, Personal Diary, May 2, 1973.
(15) Publication Committee, EBC Taangthu.. History of the Evangelical Baptist Conference (in Tedim-Chin) (Tedin Myanmar: EBC Church, 1990), p. 29.
(16) Kham, Personal Diary, January 18, 1995.
(17) W H Fitchett, Wesley and His Century: A Study in Spiritual Forces (London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1906), p. 16.
(18) Khai, “Dynamics of Renewal,” pp. 245-46.
(19) Khai, “Dynamics of Renewal,” pp. 92,298.
(20) Dean S. Gilliland, “Contextualization Models,” in The Word Among Us: Contextualizing Theology for Mission Today, ed. Dean S. Gilliland (Dallas, TX Word, 1989), pp. 313-17.
In the last 15 years Brother Thomas and his team have led 18,000 imams, mullahs, and emirs to Christ. “We have led several Al Qaeda commanders to Christ, some of whom penetrated our centre as spies.”
Muslim scholar, West Africa
At 19, a leper first introduced him to Christ and a blind man led him to salvation. “His reading braille captivated me,” says Brother Thomas*. “I asked him where I will go when I die.” In response to the young man’s request, the blind man quoted Scripture from the Book of John. The power of God’s Word left a lasting imprint on his heart and propelled his future ministry. “I didn’t understand the cross or what my decision meant, but I went ahead and received Jesus as my personal Lord and Saviour.” Raised in a Muslim home and community in West Africa, he experienced hostility, but took it in stride. “Every true believer should experience opposition,” he maintains. “The important thing is the discovery of the life-given Spirit in Christ. I found a new life.”
Two years after his life-changing conversion, he felt an overwhelming desire to share the Good News. “I saw my people were living in darkness,” he says. Although he had little training, he began to travel from village to village for several weeks at a time. “Nobody told me to go. I didn’t know many of the Scriptures,” he admits, “but I wanted to tell people that Jesus can give you eternal life.” Through eventual contact with Sudan Inland Mission (SIM), he received further training. In 1990, he went on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ and served with them for a decade, utilizing the impactful JESUS Film. In 2000, he started his own organization, which targets Muslim leaders throughout West Africa. “They the leaders are sincerely deluded,” he observes. “Satan has blinded their eyes. They cannot see the light of the gospel.”
“They were born into it,” he continues. “Nobody told them anything different. Most people in West Africa are not Muslim by choice. They are born into a community that believes in Islam.” Brother Thomas decided he and his team would have to approach the “custodians” of the community of Islam, something very few are willing to do. “Christians never take the initiative to go to them,” he observes. “The Bible never tells us to wait for them to come to us. The Bible says to go. The lack of going to the Muslims is disobedience.” Brother Thomas and his team develop relational connections with Muslim scholars slowly and privately. It may take weeks or months of meetings before an Islamic scholar will discover the Truth.
“We met with a Shia leader in one country for a year,” he notes. After Islamic services on Friday, this Muslim leader would drive several hours to spend a weekend with Brother Thomas. “I went through the Word teaching him.
The turning point was when he realized that Jesus is God.” Remarkably, this imam actually stayed in the mosque, but his message changed dramatically as a follower of Jesus. The man’s changed perspective did not go unnoticed.
“They took him to a psychiatric hospital and took his wives away. They said he was mad,” Brother Thomas says. After his release from the psychiatric facility, Brother Thomas urged the man to escape. “We don’t know where he is today. Quite a few of these leaders who converted have died.”
Muslim scholar
Another Muslim leader who met with Brother Thomas made regular appearances on national TV during Ramadan. “He came to Christ because we proved to him the Quran is not the inspired word of God and is not in the program of God for salvation,” he recounts. One Friday evening a mob of other scholars came to kill the recent convert, but were unsuccessful. “He was fearless,” Brother Thomas says. “They gave his wife to his best friend and took his daughter away because he rejected Islam. This year he was poisoned and died.” Brother Thomas believes that in the top ranks of Islamic scholars, many are atheists, because they no longer believe in the inspiration of the Quran.
In the last 15 years Brother Thomas and his team have led 18,000 imams, mullahs, and emirs to Christ. “We have led several Al Qaeda commanders to Christ, some of whom penetrated our centre as spies.” His team of 300 has dwindled to 65, due to the intensity of the fight. “Some have died, some left us, and some became afraid,” he says. He has developed a training program that is bearing fruit wherever it has been employed. Brother Thomas believes the church has been ineffective in reaching Muslims because they have concentrated on methods and strategies. “Christians want to bribe the Muslims to faith through relief and compassion, but those methods do not save. If you give relief to them it will not save them.” For salvation Muslims must discover Christ through His Word.
THE DAY JESUS INVADED A BUDDHIST MONASTERY IN THE HIMALAYAS
Tyler Connell, is currently in the Himalayan Mountains distributing Bibles, praying for the sick, and preaching the Good News. “We hope to get a Bible in every home in the next two years,” Tyler said. “It’s exciting to be a small part in changing history in Nepal with God!”
Tyler and his team trekked to a village called Jhong, one of the highest villages in Nepal.“We wanted desperately to know where the Spirit was wanting us to go,” he recounted.
They split into groups of four and prayed for the Holy Spirit to direct their paths. Tyler’s group felt led to walk to the highest point of the village where they observed ancient ruins. At the moment they reached the peak, a monk appeared, smiling as he approached them.
“Hi, I’m Jems,” he said in perfect English. “We’ve been watching you guys; it is rare for anyone foreign to come to our village. Would you like to come inside our monastery?”
Tyler sensed it was a God-moment. They entered the monastery and were met by men and boys of all ages, studying under “the llama of the Monastery mountain.” They met the llama and continued to converse with their new friend, Jems, who studied under the Dalai Lama in India and learned English there.
“We are followers of Jesus,” Tyler told the monk.
“I once heard of Jesus in India, but wasn’t able to do any reading on who He was,” the man replied.
“Can we introduce you to Him through the power of the Holy Spirit and the presence of Jesus?” one asked.
“He said yes and put out his hands,” Tyler recounts. Suddenly the power and peace of God descended, his eyes got big, he began to take steps back, and began to laugh and shake his head in disbelief. “He said he’d never felt a peace or power like this. We gave him a Bible, and he insisted we come back in the morning to meet the other monks.”
Twelve hours later Tyler and his team returned. Jems said he wasn’t able to spend time with them because he had errands to run, but he invited them to meet with the other monks. They entered the monastery and were met by a monk in his late 20s.
“He invited us into the idol room, the ‘holy of holies’ for the monastery. It was dark and heavy, perfect ingredients for the Gospel to break into!” Tyler recounts.
As they sat down, one of the team received a word that someone in the monastery was injured. The man’s eyes widened. “Yes, I am injured and my back is in pain!” he replied.
They asked if they could pray for him in the name of Jesus for healing and the monk agreed. As they began to pray, a “sweet, heavy glory filled the idol room.” The man had the same experience as Jems. “I feel a peace and a power like never before!” the monk exclaimed. “It feels as though this major blessing has entered into me.”
He tested his back and discovered he was completely healed, saying it felt like a “hot and icy sensation” covered his body. The monk said he had heard of Jesus 15 years ago, when a man came to his village and told stories about Jesus, but he couldn’t read, so he didn’t fully understand who Jesus was.
“Thankfully, we had a translator and she explained the entire Gospel to him and gave him a Bible. He was grinning from ear to ear, and was so thankful, and told us he wanted to read more and was going to pray and ask Jesus to reveal Himself to him. We were overjoyed at the kindness of Jesus. We handed out more Bibles to monks and joyfully skipped down the mountain remembering with gratitude the day Jesus invaded a Buddhist monastery!”
Zo Min Thanga and his wife Pau Pau, teachers from Yangon, Myanmar/Burma, who teach and care for children, here at our home enjoying time with us and blessing us in Australia.
If you would like to help them you can give:
Myanmar Gifts, via Andrew Rogers:
Australian account: Andrew Rogers 084069 873550722
Two early reports from our pastor friends in Nepal now caring for their people:
Share this on the links below to inform others and bless Nepal.
From Raju Sundas, Hosanna Church, Kathmandu:
I am thankful to all of your prayer and phone calls. Many of us are safe but we have a lot of damages in the property. Our people have lost hundreds of houses and many of their loved ones. I do not know how to respond with this problem. I need all of your prayer and help. I slept with the children in the open ground. We are now starting to get information from different churches.
Report from Raju, May 1: In this area, people are living in fragile and vulnerable houses with no good foundations, on which mostly have been destroyed. The supplies distributed today will feed 120 families whose houses are collapsed in rubbles, displaced with no food, shelter and even tents to spent night under. While we distributed tents that can shed in 2 families of 6 members each, a total of 120 families collapsed houses can tonight relax under the shed covering their families from wet monsoon in the area. Sacks of rice and lentils will be able to kill their hunger that they have been experiencing for 3 days after the earthquake that struck all of their houses making them unable to even eat and sleep. The happiness that was seen in the families with their excitement of carrying the loads of supplies are hereby attached to this letter. Altogether 820 people were benefited from the Relief Aid Distribution. Thank You for your contribution! Sincerely, Raju Sundas
We can pass on your help from our Australian mission account:
Geoffrey Waugh, BSB 014249, Ac. 5748 99334.
Nepal Account for Raju:
Account Name : Hosanna Sewakai Nepal
Account Number : 0401017500219
Swift Code : NARBNPKA
Bank Name ; Nabil Bank Limited , Jorpati Branch, Kathmadu
P.O.Box 3729, Jorpati
Phone number ; 00977-1-4917498, 4917569
Photos of Raju’s people after the earthquake (click photo to enlarge):
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Photos of Raju’s team distributing aid (click photo to enlarge):
According to my dad’s description of that day, they were having their regular Saturday service and especially that morning they were having a wonderful ministry of the Holy Spirit until 12 midday. Then they were just about to start the sermon when the huge earthquake went. All the church believers had to leave the room quickly. They could not walk straight as the earthquake swayed them left and right. When mom and a lady walked out of the church, they were moved to the left and right then the neighbour’s huge wall collapsed on the right hand side. God stretched His hand of protection on them. Then they all went out to Ringroad, which was the only place they all could go, waiting for everything to be over and get back home. But it did not stop, as there were a lot of aftershocks. They were at the street until dark and they went back home. But it was too risky to get inside. So my parents and the children all spent the night sleeping under the sky. All night they could not sleep due to aftershocks. They spent the second night at a neighbour’s open space with other people while it rained with just a plastic cover, which was not enough for everyone. There is no electricity, no Internet connection and water shortage at the moment.
They have not been able to gauge how much damage has been done to the church building and our home. Once everything gets settled they will be able to get a better idea, which will be updated.
My parents-in-laws are also safe but there has been damage done to the house. They both spent their nights in the open space. My father-in-law is a chronic asthma patient and staying out in cold is affecting his health. We are worried about what we can do at this situation when most of the houses are unsafe to get in.
So we would like to request you all if you could remember our families back home at this difficult situation. Your prayers and support will be highly appreciated.
More from Pastor Rinzi, May 1:
Still people could not get out from the ground where the houses are collapsed. Today we visited some of our members and their community. They do not have any help from government. They are hungry from 4 days. They don’t have shelter to live and no tents. This is in Kathmandu where villages are. We provided rice and 40 tents for them.
(The earthquake is not yet stopped till today)
We are glad for your prayer thank you so much for uplifting the disaster of Nepal.
Immediate needs for these people: We are raising the funds and ask to our church members to help them, so what we received we provide them. We need your support and prayer. Please Please please!
Immediate needs: First priority, to provide the things for two thousand people related with our church.
1. Tent for salter
2. Blanket and mosquito nets.
3. Rice for food
2nd
Rebuild and settle the houses where these areas are affected by earthquake.
Photos from Rinzi(click to enlarge): “We are continuing to take relief supplies where they have not received. Thank you for your prayers.”
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Don and Helen Hill (in photo), friends from Brisbane, participated in some visits. Don repaired the electrical wiring at the Bible College and supplied needed portable generators and lawnmowers. Helen recorded the revival teaching sessions on DVD for international use by our friends in many nations who have also experienced revival.
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