In the mid-1990s, a spiritual transformation took place in Goiania, Brazil, a city of 1.2 million. Evangelicals grew from seven percent to over 45 percent in seven years. The movement was very much characterized by prayer, especially among women who formed bands of intercessors.
Around 1990, five women began praying together for the city. Elizabeth Cornelio, a mother and housewife, one of the leaders of the prayer group, was told by her pastor not to pray with Christians from other churches. But, four years later, she began inviting other Christians from various churches to pray in unison for the city. For this, she was expelled from her church.
Eight hundred and fifty came together for the first combined prayer meeting. The movement grew rapidly with nearly 200,000 women praying every morning for the city. Elizabeth Cornelio’s daily radio broadcast brought targeted reports on criminal trends to intercessors. Together they prayed, and a city was changed. After prayer, women went out in the marketplace to pray, simply blessing those around them. When the program was cancelled for three months, the crime rate rose 40 percent. The mayor and chief of police asked that the program be reinstated. The crime rate receded. It was commonly said that the intercessors were ruling the city, not the mayor! Mobile prayer teams went door to door. Most weekends around 150 people would be saved, and a new church would begin.
As thousands prayed, every church in the city grew and new churches were planted. Christians from one denomination prayed and fasted for 40 days at the end of 1998, and planted 372 new churches in January 1999 alone. As 90 local denominations worked together, thousands of prayer leaders were trained, and the flames of a prayer revival spread to other parts of Brazil. Ultimately, prayer cells were established throughout Brazil.
Today the church in Goiania is known as a place where “revival is a lifestyle.” Churches have experienced phenomenal growth. One congregation in the city, the Universal Church of God’s Kingdom, has 80,000 members, seven million nationwide and ten million worldwide. A 24-hour Mountain of Prayer draws many, and miracles are often reported.
What began by prayer is still spreading. Just as natural cells multiply, the prayer cell movement is rapidly growing beyond Brazil and Latin America to other parts of the world.
Carlos Oliveira of PrayerNet International is a revival preacher who comes out of a Goiania church of over 60,000 members. Now based in California, he works with Elizabeth Cornelio as prayer director of the National Intercession Network. Oliveira, who helps establish prayer cells worldwide, says:
God has been doing awesome things, especially in Brazil. Many pastors are coming from different parts of the country to hear about and participate in what God is doing — prayer cells. They are embracing this vision and taking it to their cities.
“We have been now establishing an average of one prayer cell a day in Brazil and around the world. Amazingly, God has directed us to also establish prayer cells in schools and government agencies. So far we have started one cell in a private elementary school and one in the treasury department of the state.
“In Nigeria there’s a church that started a children’s prayer cell. We have started church prayer cells in Nigeria, Kenya, and Pakistan, and are in the process of starting cells also in Taiwan, Togo, Zimbabwe, Ghana, and Angola. Soon, we will have church prayer cells in Hong Kong and Germany.”
Unlike private prayer groups, the prayer cells cover each other in prayer and pray for the whole network. They may be city prayer cells or church prayer cells, but all are encouraged to meet once a week to pray for revival and for their area’s specific needs.
Firmly convinced that prayer makes the difference, Oliveira says, “The most successful churches/ministries in the whole world are those that have ongoing prayer covering.”
Have You Thought?
What began as a small group of women gathering to pray has changed a city, a nation, and the world. Allow God to grow the “small beginnings” in your life.
Transformation Moment
In all our prayer let us remember the lesson the Saviour would teach us this day, that if there is one thing on earth we can be sure of, it is this, that the Father desires to have us filled with His Spirit, that He delights to give us His Spirit.
“And when once we have learned thus to believe for ourselves, and each day to take out of the treasure we hold in heaven, what liberty and power to pray for the outpouring of the Spirit on the Church of God, on all flesh, on individuals, or on special efforts! He that has once learned to know the Father in prayer for himself, learns to pray most confidently for others too. The Father gives the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him, not least, but most, when they ask for others” (Andrew Murray in Lord, Teach Us to Pray)
Article by: Inger J. Logelin Sentinel Group Email, April 16, 2014
The powerful revivals of the eighteenth century spread through Europe, especially England, and to North America. They became known as the Evangelical Revivals in England and the Great Awakening in America. They grew out of the outpouring of the Spirit of God on small communities of refugees which has suffered severe persecution in Europe.
No one present could tell exactly what happened on the Wednesday morning of the specially called Communion service. The glory of the Lord came upon them so powerfully that they hardly knew if they were on earth or in heaven. The Spirit of God moved powerfully on those three hundred refugees in Saxony in 1727. One of their historians wrote:
[Church history] abounds in records of special outpourings of the Holy Ghost, and verily the thirteenth of August, 1727, was a day of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We saw the hand of God and his wonders, and we were all under the cloud of our fathers baptized with their Spirit. The Holy Ghost came upon us and in those days great signs and wonders took place in our midst. From that time scarcely a day passed but what we beheld his almighty workings amongst us. A great hunger after the Word of God took possession of us so that we had to have three services every day, at 5.0 and 7.30 a.m. and 9.0 p.m. Every one desired above everything else that the Holy Spirit might have full control. Self love and self will, as well as all disobedience, disappeared and an overwhelming flood of grace swept us all out into the great ocean of Divine Love.
Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760), the benefactor and 27-year-old leader of that community, gave this account at a meeting in London in 1752:
We needed to come to the Communion with a sense of the loving nearness of the Saviour. This was the great comfort which has made this day a generation ago to be a festival, because on this day twenty-seven years ago the Congregation of Herrnhut, assembled for communion (at the Berthelsdorf church) were all dissatisfied with themselves. They had quit judging each other because they had become convinced, each one, of his lack of worth in the sight of God and each felt himself at this Communion to be in view of the noble countenance of the Saviour. …
In this view of the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, their hearts told them that he would be their patron and their priest who was at once changing their tears into oil of gladness and their misery into happiness. This firm confidence changed them in a single moment into a happy people which they are to this day, and into their happiness they have since led many thousands of others through the memory and help which the heavenly grace once given to themselves, so many thousand times confirmed to them since then.
Zinzendorf described it as “a sense of the nearness of Christ” given to everyone present, and also simultaneously to two members of their community working twenty miles away.
The Moravian brethren had grown from the work and martyrdom of the Bohemian Reformer, John Hus. They suffered centuries of persecution. Many had been killed, imprisoned, tortured or banished from their homeland. This group had fled for refuge to Germany where the young Christian nobleman, Count Zinzendorf, offered them asylum on his estates in Saxony. They named their new home Herrnhut, ‘the Lord’s Watch’. From there, after their baptism of fire, they became pioneering evangelists and missionaries.
Fifty years before the beginning of modern missions with William Carey, the Moravian Church had sent out over 100 missionaries. Their English missionary magazine, Periodical Accounts, inspired Carey. He threw a copy of the paper on a table at a Baptist meeting, saying, “See what the Moravians have done! Cannot we follow their example and in obedience to our Heavenly Master go out into the world, and preach the Gospel to the heathen?”
That missionary zeal began with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Zinzendorf observed: “The Saviour permitted to come upon us a Spirit of whom we had hitherto not had any experience or knowledge. … Hitherto we had been the leaders and helpers. Now the Holy Spirit himself took full control of everything and everybody.”
Converted in early childhood, at four years of age Zinzendorf composed and signed a covenant: “Dear Saviour, be mine, and I will be Thine.” His life motto was, “Jesus only”.
Zinzendorf learned the secret of prevailing prayer. He actively established prayer groups as a teenager, and on finishing college at Halle at sixteen he gave Professor Francke a list of seven praying societies he had established.
The disgruntled community at Herrnhut early in 1727 criticized one another. Heated controversies threatened to disrupt the community. The majority belonged to the ancient Moravian Church of the Brethren. Other believers attracted to Herrnhut included Lutherans, Reformed, and Anabaptists. They argued about predestination, holiness, and baptism.
Zinzendorf, pleaded for unity, love and repentance. At Herrnhut, Zinzendorf visited all the adult members of the deeply divided community. He drew up a covenant calling upon them to seek out and emphasize the points in which they agreed rather than stressing their differences.
On 12 May, 1727, they all signed the ‘Brotherly Covenant’ dedicating their lives, as Zinzendorf had dedicated his, to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Moravian revival of 1727 was preceded and then sustained by extraordinary personal and communal, united prayer. A spirit of grace, unity, and supplications grew among them.
On 16 July Zinzendorf poured out his soul in a prayer accompanied with a flood of tears. This prayer produced an extraordinary effect. The whole community began praying as never before.
On 22 July many of the community covenanted together on their own accord to meet often to pour out their hearts in prayers and hymns.
On 5 August Zinzendorf spent the whole night in prayer with about twelve or fourteen others following a large meeting for prayer at midnight where great emotion prevailed.
On Sunday, 10 August, Pastor Johann Rothe, a Pietist friend of Zinzendorf and minister of the Berthelsdorf parish church, was overwhelmed by the Spirit about noon. He sank down into the dust before God. So did the whole congregation. They continued till midnight in prayer and singing, weeping and praying.
On Wednesday, 13 August, the Holy Spirit was poured out on them all at the specially arranged communion service in the Berthelsdorf church. Their prayers were answered in ways far beyond anyone’s expectations. Many of them decided to set aside certain times for continued earnest prayer.
On Tuesday 26 August, twenty-four men and twenty-four women covenanted together to continue praying in intervals of one hour each, day and night, each hour allocated by lots to different people.
On Wednesday, 27 August, this new regulation began. Others joined the intercessors and the number involved increased to seventy-seven. They all carefully observed the hour which had been appointed for them. The intercessors had a weekly meeting where prayer needs were given to them.
The children began a similar plan among themselves. Those who heard their infant supplications were deeply moved. The children’s prayers and supplications had a powerful effect on the whole community.
That astonishing prayer meeting beginning in 1727 lasted a century. Known as the Hourly Intercession, it involved relays of men and women in prayer without ceasing made to God. That prayer also led to action, especially evangelism. More than 100 missionaries left that village community in the next twenty-five years, all constantly supported in prayer.
One result of their baptism in the Holy Spirit was a joyful assurance of their pardon and salvation. This made a strong impact on people in many countries, including the Wesleys. Their prayers and witness profoundly affected the eighteenth-century evangelical awakening.
1735 – January: New England, North America (Jonathan Edwards)
Jonathan Edwards
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), the preacher and scholar who later became a President of Princeton University, was a prominent leader in a revival movement which came to be called the Great Awakening as it spread through the communities of New England and the pioneering settlements in America. Converts to Christianity reached 50,000 out of a total of 250,000 colonists. Early in 1735, an unusually powerful move of God’s Spirit brought revival to Northampton, which then spread through New England in the north-east of America. Edwards noted that
a great and earnest concern about the great things of religion and the eternal world, became universal in all parts of the town, and among persons of all degrees and all ages; the noise among the dry bones waxed louder and louder; all other talk but about spiritual and eternal things, was soon thrown by….
The minds of people were wonderfully taken off from the world; it was treated among us as a thing of very little consequence. They seemed to follow their worldly business, more as a part of their duty, than from any disposition they had to it….
And the work of conversion was carried on in a most astonishing manner, and increased more and more; souls did as it were come by flocks to Jesus Christ. From day to day, for many months together, might be seen evident instances of sinners brought out of darkness into marvellous light … with a new song of praise to God in their mouths…
Our public assemblies were then beautiful: the congregation was alive in God’s service, every one earnestly intent on the public worship, every hearer eager to drink in the words of the minister as they came from his mouth; the assembly in general were, from time to time, in tears while the word was preached; some weeping with sorrow and distress, others with joy and love, others with pity and concern for the souls of their neighbours….
Those amongst us who had been formerly converted, were greatly enlivened, and renewed with fresh and extraordinary incomes of the Spirit of God; though some much more than others, according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Many who before had laboured under difficulties about their own state, had now their doubts removed by more satisfying experience, and more clear discoveries of God’s love.
Describing the characteristics of the revival, Edwards said that it gave people
an extraordinary sense of the awful majesty, greatness and holiness of God, so as sometimes to overwhelm soul and body; a sense of the piercing, all seeing eye of God, so as sometimes to take away the bodily strength; and an extraordinary view of the infinite terribleness of the wrath of God, together with a sense of the ineffable misery of sinners exposed to this wrath. … and … longings after more love to Christ, and greater conformity to him; especially longing after these two things, to be more perfect in humility and adoration. The flesh and the heart seem often to cry out, lying low before God and adoring him with greater love and humility. … The person felt a great delight in singing praises to God and Jesus Christ, and longing that this present life may be as it were one continued song of praise to God. … Together with living by faith to a great degree, there was a constant and extraordinary distrust of our own strength and wisdom; a great dependence on God for his help … and being restrained from the most horrid sins.
1739 – January: London, England (John Wesley, George Whitefield)
George WhitefieldJohn Wesley
When the New England revival was strongest, George Whitefield (1714-1770) in England and Howell Harris (1714-1773) in Wales were both converted at 21 in 1735. Both ignited revival fires, seeing thousands converted and communities changed. By 1736 Harris began forming his converts into societies and by 1739 there were nearly thirty such societies. Whitefield travelled extensively, visiting Georgia in 1738 (the first of seven journeys to America), then ministering powerfully with Howell Harris in Wales 1739 and with Jonathan Edwards in New England in 1740, all in his early twenties.
At the end of 1735, John Wesley (1703-1791) sailed to Georgia, an American colony. A company of Moravian immigrants travelled on that vessel. During a storm they faced the danger of shipwreck. John Wesley wrote in his journal for Sunday 25 January 1736:
At seven I went to the Germans. I had long before observed the great seriousness of their behaviour. Of their humility they had given a continual proof by performing those servile offices for the other passengers which none of the English would undertake; for which they desired and would receive no pay, saying, “It was good for their proud hearts,” and “their loving Saviour had done more for them.” And every day had given them occasion of showing a meekness, which no injury could move. If they were pushed, struck or thrown down, they rose again and went away; but no complaint was found in their mouth. Here was now an opportunity of trying whether they were delivered from the spirit of fear, as well as from that of pride, anger and revenge. In the midst of the Psalm wherewith their service began, the sea broke over, split the main sail in pieces, covered the ship and poured in between the decks, as if the great deep had already swallowed us up. A terrible screaming began among the English. The Germans calmly sung on. I asked one of them afterwards: “Were you not afraid?” He answered, “I thank God, no.” I asked: “But were not your women and children afraid?” He replied mildly: “No, our women and children are not afraid to die.”
Back in England in 1738 after John Wesley’s brief and frustrating missionary career, the Wesleys were challenged by the Moravian missionary Peter Bohler. In March 1738 John Wesley wrote:
Saturday 4 March I found my brother at Oxford, recovering from his pleurisy; and with him Peter Bohler, by whom (in the hand of the great God) I was, on Sunday the 5th, clearly convinced of unbelief, of the want of that faith whereby alone we are saved.
Immediately it struck into my mind, “Leave off preaching. How can you preach to others, who have not faith yourself?” I asked Bohler whether he thought I should leave it off or not. He answered, “By no means.” I asked, “But what can I preach?” He said, “Preach faith till you have it; and then, because you have it, you will preach faith.”
Monday, 6 March I began preaching this new doctrine, though my soul started back from the work. The first person to whom I offered salvation by faith alone was a prisoner under sentence of death. His name was Clifford. Peter Bohler had many times desired me to speak to him before. But I could not prevail on myself so to do; being still a zealous assertor of the impossibility of a death bed repentance.
Both John and Charles were converted in May 1738, Charles first, and John three days later
on Wednesday 24 May. He wrote his famous testimony in his Journal:
In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.
Later that year John Wesley visited the Moravian community at Herrnhut. He admired their
zeal and love for the Lord, and he prayed that their kind of Christianity, full of the Holy Spirit, would spread through the earth. Back in England he preached evangelically, gathered
converts into religious societies (which were nicknamed Methodists because of his methodical procedures), and continued to relate warmly with the Moravians. Evangelical revival fires began to stir in England and burst into flame the following year.
1739 saw astonishing expansion of revival in England. On the evening of 1 January the Wesleys and Whitefield (recently back from America) and four others from their former Holy Club at Oxford University, along with 60 others, met in London for prayer and a love feast. The Spirit of God moved powerfully on them all. Many fell down, overwhelmed. The meeting went all night and they realised they had been empowered in a fresh visitation from God.
Mr Hall, Kinchin, Ingham, Whitefield, Hitchins, and my brother Charles were present at our lovefeast in Fetter Lane, with about sixty of our brethren. About three in the morning, as we were continuing instant in prayer, the power of God came mightily upon us, insomuch that many cried out for exceeding joy, and many fell to the ground. As soon as we were recovered a little from that awe and amazement at the presence of his majesty, we broke out with one voice, “We praise Thee, O God, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.”
This Pentecost on New Year’s Day launched the revival known later as the Great Awakening. Revival spread rapidly. In February 1739 Whitefield started preaching to the Kingswood coal miners in the open fields near Bristol because many churches opposed him, accusing him and other evangelicals of ‘enthusiasm’. In February about 200 attended. By March 20,000 attended. Whitefield invited Wesley to take over then and so in April Wesley reluctantly began his famous open-air preaching, which continued for 50 years.
He described that first weekend in his Journal:
Saturday, 31 March In the evening I reached Bristol, and met Mr Whitefield. I could scarce reconcile myself at first to this strange way of preaching in the fields, of which he set me an example on Sunday; having been all my life (till very lately) so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order, that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it had not been done in a church.
Sunday, 1 April In the evening, I begun expounding our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount (one pretty remarkable precedent of field preaching) to a little society in Nicholas Street.
Monday, 2 April At four in the afternoon I submitted to be more vile, and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a little eminence in a ground adjoining to the city, to almost three thousand people. The scripture on which I spoke was “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.”
Sometimes strange manifestations accompanied revival preaching. Wesley wrote in his Journal of 26 April 1739 that during his preaching at Newgate, Bristol, “One, and another, and another sunk to the earth; they dropped on every side as thunderstruck.”
He returned to London in June reporting on the amazing move of God’s Spirit with many conversions and many people falling prostrate, a phenomenon he never encouraged. Features of this revival were enthusiastic singing, powerful preaching, and the gathering of converts into small societies called weekly Class Meetings.
Initially, leaders such as George Whitefield criticized some manifestations in Wesley’s meetings, but this changed. Wesley wrote on 7 July 1739:
I had opportunity to talk with Mr Whitefield about those outward signs which had so often accompanied the inward work of God. I found his objections were chiefly grounded on gross misrepresentations of matter of fact. But the next day he had opportunity of informing himself better: for no sooner had he begun (in the application of his sermon) to invite all sinners to believe in Christ, than four persons sank down, close to him, almost in the same moment. One of them lay without either sense or motion; a second trembled exceedingly; the third had strong convulsions all over his body, but made no noise, unless by groans; the fourth, equally convulsed, called upon God, with strong cried and tears. From this time, I trust, we shall all suffer God to carry on His own work in the way that pleaseth Him.
Both John Wesley and George Whitefield continued preaching outdoors as well as in churches which welcomed them. Whitefield’s seven visits to America continued to fan the flames of revival there.
Revival caught fire in Scotland also. After returning again from America in 1741, Whitefield visited Glasgow. Two ministers in villages nearby invited him to return in 1742 because revival had already begun in their area. Conversions and prayer groups multiplied. Whitefield preached there at Cambuslang about four miles from Glasgow. The opening meetings on a Sunday saw the great crowds on the hillside gripped with conviction, repentance and weeping more than he had seen elsewhere. The next weekend 20,000 gathered on the Saturday and up to 50,000 on the Sunday for the quarterly communion. The visit was charged with Pentecostal power which even amazed Whitefield.
1745 – August: Crossweeksung, North America (David Brainerd)
David Brainerd
Jonathan Edwards published the journal of David Brainerd (1718-1747), a missionary to the North American Indians from 1743 to his death at 29 in 1747. Brainerd tells of revival breaking out among Indians at Crossweeksung in August 1745 when the power of God seemed to come like a rushing mighty wind. The Indians were overwhelmed by God. The revival had greatest impact when Brainerd emphasised the compassion of the Saviour, the provisions of the gospel, and the free offer of divine grace. Idolatry was abandoned, marriages repaired, drunkenness practically disappeared, honesty and repayments of debts prevailed. Money once wasted on excessive drinking was used for family and communal needs. Their communities were filled with love.
Part of his journal for Thursday 8 August reads:
The power of God seemed to descend on the assembly “like a rushing mighty wind” and with an astonishing energy bore all down before it. I stood amazed at the influence that seized the audience almost universally and could compare it to nothing more aptly than the irresistible force of a mighty torrent… Almost all persons of all ages were bowed down with concern together and scarce was able to withstand the shock of astonishing operation.
On November 20, he described the revival at Crossweeksung in his general comments about that year in which he had ridden his horse more than 3,000 miles to reach Indian tribes in New England:
I might now justly make many remarks on a work of grace so very remarkable as this has been in divers respects; but shall confine myself to a few general hints only.
1. It is remarkable that God began this work among the Indians at a time when I had least hope and, to my apprehension, the least rational prospect of seeing a work of grace propagated amongst them. …
2. It is remarkable how God providentially, and in a manner almost unaccountable, called these Indians together to be instructed in the great things that concerned their souls; how He seized their minds with the most solemn and weighty concern for their eternal salvation, as fast as they came to the place where His Word was preached…
3. It is likewise remarkable how God preserved these poor ignorant Indians from being prejudiced against me and the truths I taught them…
4. Nor is it less wonderful how God was pleased to provide a remedy for my want of skill and freedom in the Indian language by remarkably fitting my interpreter for, and assisting him in, the performance of his work…
5. It is further remarkable that God has carried on His work here by such means, and in such manner, as tended to obviate and leave no room for those prejudices and objections that have often been raised against such a work … [because] this great awakening, this surprising concern, was never excited by any harangues of terror, but always appeared most remarkable when I insisted upon the compassions of a dying Saviour, the plentiful provisions of the gospel, and the free offers of divine grace to needy distressed sinners.
6. The effects of this work have likewise been very remarkable. … Their pagan notions and idolatrous practices seem to be entirely abandoned in these parts. They are regulated and appear regularly disposed in the affairs of marriage. They seem generally divorced from drunkenness … although before it was common for some or other of them to be drunk almost every day. … A principle of honesty and justice appears in many of them, and they seem concerned to discharge their old debts. … Their manner of living is much more decent and comfortable than formerly, having now the benefit of that money which they used to consume upon strong drink. Love seems to reign among them, especially those who have given evidence of a saving change. Back to top
1781 – December: Cornwall, England
A Humble Attempt Reprint
Forty years after the Great Awakening began the fires of revival had died out in many places. Concerned leaders called the church to pray.
Jonathan Edwards in America had written a treatise called, ‘A Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God’s People in Extraordinary Prayer for the Revival of Religion and the Advancement of Christ’s Kingdom on Earth‘. It was reprinted in both England and Scotland and circulated widely.
John Erskine of Edinburgh persisted in urging prayer for revival through extensive correspondence around the world. He instigated widespread combined churches monthly prayer meetings for revival called Concerts of Prayer.
An example of the prayer movement was the effect in Cornwall in the 1780s. On Sunday, Christmas Day 1781, at St. Just Church in Cornwall, at 3 a.m., intercessors met to sing and ray. The Spirit moved among them and they prayed until 9 a.m. and regathered on Christmas evening. By March 1782 they were praying each evening until midnight.
Two years later in 1784, when 83 year old John Wesley visited that area, he wrote, “This country is all on fire and the flame is spreading from village to village.”
The chapel which George Whitefield had built decades previously in Tottenham Court Road, London, had to be enlarged to seat 5,000 people, the largest in the world at that time. Baptist churches in North Hampton, Leicester, and the Midlands, set aside regular nights for prayer for revival. Methodists and Anglicans joined them. Converts were being won at the prayer meetings. Some were held at 5 a.m., some at midnight. Some unbelievers were drawn by dreams and visions. Some came to scoff but were thrown to the ground under the power of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes there was noise and confusion; sometimes stillness and solemnity. But always there was that ceaseless outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Whole denominations doubled, tripled and quadrupled in the next few years. The number of dissenting churches increased from 27 in 1739 to 900 in 1800, 5,000 by 1810 and 10,000 by 1820. It swept out from England to Wales, Scotland, United States, Canada, and to some Third World countries.
That eighteenth-century revival of holiness brought about a spiritual awakening in England and America, established the Methodists with 140,000 members by the end of the century, and renewed other churches and Christians. It impacted the nation with social change and created the climate for political reform such as the abolition of slavery through the reforms of William Wilberforce, William Buxton and others. John Howard and Elizabeth Fry led prison reform. Florence Nightingale founded modern nursing. Ashley Cooper, the Earl of Shaftesbury, reformed labour conditions.
The movement grew. William Carey, Andrew Fuller, John Sutcliffe and other leaders began the Union of Prayer, calling Christians to pray together regularly for revival. By 1792, the year after John Wesley died, this Second Great Awakening (1792 1830) began to sweep Great Britain and America.
this language of the heart has special [particular] language and grammar
How two unlikely people ended up in Rome
When Tony Palmer came to faith 22 years ago, he had a radical conversion experience. Encountering Jesus changed everything for the young man from South Africa. Together with his wife Emilia he visited every home in his suburb, about 3,000 addresses, to share the gospel with every person.
He soon joined a seminary, then moved into full-time ministry, first working with a local church, and later with a charismatic ministry as their director for Africa. However, God had other plans and called the couple to prepare for a different mission field: Italy, and more specifically: the Roman Catholic Church in Italy.
“At that time the Evangelical churches in Italy were very legalistic, and the Catholic Church was very traditional,” Tony recalls. “We prayed: ‘Lord, if you want us to leave South Africa, the invitation has to come from the Catholic Church.’ Nobody knew about that prayer. But years later, in 2003, I got an e-mail from Rome saying: ‘Tony, we’ve seen your ministry and we’d like you to share it with the Roman Catholic charismatic renewal. Would you be willing to come to Italy?’
‘As Protestants we have been praying for the Catholic Church for years.’
There was one clause: I had to be self-funded. So I thought, quite naively: No problem! As Protestants we have been praying for the Catholic Church for years, so obviously people are gonna back me and send me. But when I sent out my letters for partners, only one couple said yes. So we put our house and car into the ministry and moved to Italy with nothing. We couldn’t even speak Italian. I’m not really a good networker, but God orchestrated many divine appointments.”
Tony and Emilia quickly discovered that it was acceptable in the Catholic Church to be Charismatic and Evangelical as well. “Jesus was all of those, you know,” says Tony. “Jesus is sacramental, he believed in signs and symbols. But he was also evangelical, he recited Scripture and stressed that you have to be born again. And he was a contemplative and a charismatic.” Then, cheeky: “How much of Jesus do you want? You only want one denomination of Jesus? Jump in, get it all!”
‘There were 450,000 of us outside, singing ‘Come, Holy Spirit’.’
Although God called him to support the charismatic renewal in the Roman Catholic Church, Tony became an Anglican priest and today serves as the abbot bishop of the Order of the Ark Community (video), an international ecumenical community around Christ, inspired by the spirituality of the Celtic Church and of St. Francis of Assisi. The Order has a retreat centre in the hills of Umbria, the area where St. Francis started his 13th century ministry, which led to a revival movement in the Catholic Church. Tony believes that a new revival is coming to the Roman Catholic Church. “I was at a meeting at St. Peter’s a few years ago, celebrating Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit. There were 450,000 of us outside, singing ‘Come, Holy Spirit’. All Catholics, except a couple of us whom they called ‘the ecumenical delegation’. Pope Benedict publicly said to all the charismatic Catholics present: ‘You charismatics, you are the hope of the church. And you need to evangelize within before you evangelize outside.’ When I saw that, I realized: I’m giving my life to a good cause. It was not some kind of political diplomatic maneuvering of the Catholic Church to let us all become one big thing. They really wanted their people to come to faith.”
‘Who would have thought, my friend and mentor became the new pope!’
About eight years ago Tony travelled to Argentina, to work with the Catholic Church in that nation. As it was protocol to visit the residing Catholic bishop to ask his permission to work among his people, he visited Father Mario Jorge Bergoglio, then Archbishop of Buenos Aires. “He and I struck up an intimate friendship,” Tony says. “We started studying together, meeting more often, to a point where he became one of my mentors.” This was at the time that both men were involved in interdenominational reconciliation in Argentina. Bergoglio would wash the feet of the Protestant pastors, and the Charismatics would pray for the Catholic bishops to be baptized in the Spirit.
Last year, Tony received a suprising e-mail from Father Mario. “He said: ‘Tony would you please pray for me, because they called me to the conclave’. I was on the train, leaving Rome, when they announced the new pope was Mario Jorge Bergoglio. Who would have thought, my friend and mentor became the new pope! To be clear, this is not about my story, this is about history, His Story. God is doing something.”
The miracle of unity
Now my friend had become pope, I realized that our relationship was going to change. He got a new job description. I didn’t expect to have a friendship like I had before.
But just after Christmas, as I was watching television with my son, I got a phone call. To my surprise I heard: ‘Hello, this is Pope Francis.’ I said: ‘Father Mario?’ He said: ‘Yes’. I ran upstairs to my office where there was no noise and said: ‘What are you phoning me for?’ He asked: ‘When will you be in Rome next?’ I said: ‘In two weeks time. I have to visit one of my congregations.’ He said: ‘Can you come and see me? What date and time would suit you?’ I said: ‘Pope Frances, I can’t believe you just called me at home. I don’t know what to say to you.’ I honestly didn’t know. He said: ‘What do you mean?’ I said: ‘You’re the pope of the universal church, 1.2 billion people. And I’m just an Anglican clergyman doing his bit for the Kingdom.’ He said: ‘Tony, we’ve got a covenant, we’re brothers. Nothing will change that friendship.’ I was blessed. All these stories you’ve heard about Francis, picking up a hitchhiker in his popemobile, and visiting people, he hasn’t changed.
‘He said: ‘OK. Let’s make a video.’’
So I went to see him last Tuesday. We had the morning together in his apartment, and I asked him: ‘So what’s the agenda, why did you call me?’ He said: ‘I have no agenda, there’s nothing to discuss.’ That’s a father, that’s a mentor. Back in Argentina we had made a covenant to work for unity in the church, and I was planning to minister at a big Evangelical conference, so I asked him: ‘Can you give the leaders a word?’ He said: ‘OK. Let’s make a video.’ So I pulled out my iPhone and we recorded it right there and then.
This is a historic moment. Father Mario is the first pope who took the name of St. Francis of Assisi who was openly charismatic and called by Jesus to rebuild to church. This is also in Pope Francis’ heart, to rebuild the church. He recognizes us as brothers and sisters and speaks to us accordingly. God is turning the hearts of the sons to their fathers, and the hearts of the fathers to their sons, to prepare the way of the Lord. (Malachi 4,6)
‘Christian unity is the basis of our credibility.’
In the first thousand years since Christ there was one church: the Catholic Church. The word Catholic means universal. At the end of the first millennium there was a split between the Orthodox Church in the East and the Catholic Church in the West. Then 500 years later we had Luther and his protest: the third stream in 1500 years. And today there are 33,000 denominations. I’ve come to understand that diversity is divine, it’s division that’s diabolic. Jesus said: ‘I give them the glory, so that they may be one.’ (John 17,22) It’s the presence of God that glues us together, not the doctrine. If you accept that Christ is living in me, and I accept that Christ is living in you, that’s all we need. Because God will sort out all our doctrines when we get upstairs. Therefore Christian unity is the basis of our credibility. The world will not believe until we are one. In 1999 the Roman Catholic church and the worldwide Lutheran Church signed an agreement that brought an end to the protest. Luther believed that we were saved by grace through faith alone, and the Catholic Church believed that we were saved by works. They put the two definitions together. On the Vatican website it now reads: ‘Justification means that Christ himself is our righteousness, in which we share through the Holy Spirit in accord with the will of the Father. Together we confess: By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.’ This brought an end to the protest of Luther. Five years later the worldwide Methodists signed the same agreement.”
‘Come on, we are brothers. Let’s give each other a hug.’
In Pope Francis’ video message, that quickly went viral on YouTube, he said the following:
“I will not speak in English or Italian, but in a more simple and authentic language, the language of the heart. It has a simple grammar, only two rules: love God above all and love others as your brother and sisters. I’m here with my brother Tony Palmer, we’ve been friends for years. He told me about your meeting and it’s a pleasure to greet you. It gives me joy that you have come together to worship Jesus Christ the only Lord, and to pray to the Father and to receive the Spirit. We can see that God is working all over the world. At the same time I feel sad about the separation between our families, due to many sins and misunderstandings throughout history. We all share the blame for that. I yearn to see this separation come to an end, and communion being restored. I yearn to embrace each other.
Scripture tells us that when Joseph’s brothers began to starve from hunger, they went to Egypt to buy food. But they found something more than food, something money couldn’t buy, they found their brother. We all have currency: cultural riches, religious riches, diverse traditions. But we have to encounter one another as brothers. We must cry together, like Joseph and his brothers, these tears of love will unite us, so we can worship Jesus together as the Lord of history.
I thank you profoundly for listening to me and allowing me to speak in the language of the heart. I also ask you a favor: please pray for me, because I need your prayers. I will pray for you too. Let’s pray that the Lord unites us all. Come on, we are brothers. Let’s give each other a spiritual hug and let God complete the work that He has begun. As the famous Italian author Mazoni once wrote, quoting a simple man: ‘I’ve never seen God begin a miracle without Him finishing it well.’ He will complete this miracle of unity. I bless you. From brother to brother I embrace you.”
A movement of 200 million born-again Catholics
In this video Tony Palmer explains the Pope’s intentions and gives background to the charismatic renewal movement in the Catholic Church. This movement now has grown to over 200 million born-again and Spirit-filled Catholic Christians throughout the world.
The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it (John 1:5).
Revival continues to explode in spite of, and in the midst of, darkness such as the brutal massacres of Christians and others in North Korea, North Africa, Syria and the Middle East.
Local
Local Australian examples of healing evangelism, for example, continue to increase. Many churches now have ministry teams that pray for people at the end of each service.
Joel Shaw, a young pastor at Glory City Church in Brisbane leads youth in prayer healing evangelism in the streets and malls of Brisbane, along with others. Here’s a recent example from him:
Chris Turner
“I am just on a total high from last night! After church we went down with the young adults to Kangaroo Point. Chris Turner [youth pastor] and I were talking about all the opportunities that were all around us. As we were walking from one location to the next we saw this big bunch of young people smoking and rabbling around. Chris stopped and called out to them. At first they didn’t even acknowledge that he was there. Chris called out a second time in a louder voice “HEY GUYS!” Their conversation died down and they started to listen.
“Chris said, “Have you guys seen any miracles?” Some jeered, some were serious and others quite friendly. Within 30 seconds there was a guy who admitted to having a knee problem, One prayer and he was instantly healed! A girl stepped up saying that she had period pain and she was also instantly healed.
“A guy next to me started to talk to me about his elbow. He had heaps of pain and limited movement. By this stage it was electric. I knew there wasn’t a chance this guy wouldn’t be healed, so I said, “Watch this!” to the other guys around me and began to pray. I felt the presence of God go through me and he stumbled backward. “WHAT THE @#$%!” He exclaimed, moving his arm around vigorously. He began to jump around and continue to stream expletives in total shock that he had been healed.
“By that time I had lost track of the other miracles that were happening all around me. Immediately another guy comes up to me and said to me something along the lines of “I need help, I have a lot of sin!” It was because of the miracles and the presence of God he was convicted of his sin! The loving kindness leads us to repentance.
So as I hugged the guy with the healed arm for the 5th time, I proceed to share about the price that Jesus paid for his sin. Turns out he had been to church but was desperate to encounter the supernatural so had delved deep into witchcraft and other new age practices. I prayed for him, and he said he was so overwhelmed by God’s presence. … We got his number and his address and he is coming to church on Friday. Seriously Kingdom life is the most exciting life! That was an opportunity we could have easily walked by.”
Global
Andrew Chee and pastors pray for the paramount chief
During the last few years I led teams of young people from these churches on missions in the South Pacific. Healings, deliverance and salvation increase with each visit. Everyone prayed for in one pagan village reported their pain had gone, and for the first time ever the paramount chief asked for healing prayer for himself. When Andrew Chee and the pastors prayed for him the pain left. Previously he had burned a Bible given to him. Now he is saying that a church can be built where he burned the Bible.
Last year a team saw everyone healed that they prayed for on Pentecost Island, Vanuatu. The testimonies opened the way for more salvation, deliverance, and people being filled with the Spirit and equipped for powerful service. That includes detecting and removing magic and witchcraft.
Grant Shaw with nurse Leah Waqa
Grant Shaw, Joel’s brother and now pastor of Kingdom Culture Church in Brisbane, joined me at many revival meetings in Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. We saw God move powerfully on hundreds of people, especially at a national youth conference in the Solomon Islands. One young man, healed at the conference, that night prayed for his mum and brother in their home and they both were healed. He had never done that before. We prayed with nurse Leah Waqa in Port Vila (the capital of Vanuatu) who that week had been led to pray in the hospital for a girl who had died after being hit by a truck. Leah prayed for the girl for over half an hour of Spirit-led prayer commanding her to live. The girl lived.
We live through amazing revivals globally this century. One of the most obvious is with Iris Global, with Roland and Heidi Baker. They write:
Joel & Candice Shaw with Roland & Heidi Baker
“Iris Global (previously Iris Ministries) is a holistic ministry that we began in 1980 as we took small evangelistic street drama teams to Asia on short-term mission trips. Our emphasis was the creative presentation of the Gospel, and our ministry grew greatly. But we were so impacted by the condition of the poor that we changed direction drastically and began to stop for the one and prove the love of God by first addressing the temporal needs of the broken and humble, “the least of these.” We focused on the bottom of society rather than the top. Now, after coming to Africa and starting with street beggar children in 1995, we have seen a people movement spread across the ten provinces of Mozambique. Massive desperation for God rising out of a long history of repression, poverty and natural disasters has fueled revival, one that is sparking more fire in nations around the world. And signs and wonders are following all the way.
“What began as a ragged band of young beggars, thieves and delinquents has developed by the power of the Holy Spirit into a closely-knit national family of thousands of churches and a broad ministry encompassing Bible schools, children’s centers, church-based orphan care, primary education, medical clinics, constant evangelistic and healing outreaches, farming, well drilling and much else. Our vision in the Lord is constantly increasing.
“But most of all we proclaim Jesus. He is our salvation, our prize, our reward, our inheritance, our destination, our motivation, our joy, wisdom and sanctification — and absolutely everything else we need, now and forever. All His grace and power flow to us through the Cross and no other way. We are glad to be known as social workers and humanitarians, and to have a reputation for doing good. But all is in vain if we do not bring to the people faith in our God and Savior Jesus Christ. We want to be known by His Name, first and foremost. And we do not expect fruitfulness to come out of anything but intimacy with Him …” (http://www.irisglobal.org).
The Light still shines. We can live in the Light.
Or, to use another picture, we can hoist our sail of faith and catch the wind of the Spirit blowing powerfully in the earth.
Almost 3,000 young people from 40 nations in Europe started the New Year at the Mission-Net congress in Offenburg, Germany, where they received faith, hope and vision for their continent. Jeff Fountain was one of the speakers who shared about 7 signs of hope he sees in Europe today. These signs are:
1. New prayer initiatives are emerging across the continent.
2. The shakings of God: he has been shaking the Marxist world, the Muslim world and now the world of Mammon. “Everything not based on God’s kingdom will be shaken,” says Fountain.
3. New spiritual hunger: despite (or because of) secularism, spiritual hunger is rising. Here is a ripe harvest field for incarnational mission.
4. New expressions of church are emerging outside of traditional church walls.
5. The New Europeans: look who God is bringing to Europe – from Asia, Africa and Latin America. Almost half of all EU migrants are already church members. Migrant churches contribute to urban church renewal bringing lost gifts of spiritual discernment, colourful worship and bold proclamation.
6. Unity of heart: never before has there been as much convergence as today between old rival church traditions – Pentecostal, Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox. Spiritual renewal movements have swept over denominational barriers.
7. Recovery of the gospel of the Kingdom: the awareness that the Gospel is not just good news about salvation, but about Christ’s lordship over all spheres of life is leading to expressions of mission involving the transformation of individuals, families and communities.
Source: Jeff Fountain (Joel News International 888, January 2014)
God did it then – is doing it now – and will again
“The president was so impressed that he loaned the young 19 year old evangelist his presidential jet to travel to meetings through the entire country, giving him the use of stadiums and asking mayors to declare a holiday when the young evangelist arrived in their cities to preach.”
How a genuine revival impacted Bolivia
In 1995, Julio Ruibal, a prominent charismatic evangelist from Bolivia who lived and worked in Cali, Colombia, was martyred for his faith. The story of his courageous ministry of unity and opposition against Cali’s drug cartels is chronicled in the well-known Transformations video, produced by The Sentinel Group. However, less known internationally is his role in a genuine revival that impacted Bolivia in the 1970s.
In the early 1970s, after his conversion in Los Angeles, Julio returned to the city of La Paz, Bolivia and began to share Christ. After a core group of young people came to the Lord and started gathering in homes, conversions began to multiply exponentially until there were more than 5,000 new Christians.
After word of this spiritual outbreak spread in the predominantly Catholic country, Ruibal found himself in a meeting with Bolivia’s president, Hugo Bánzer Suárez. The president was so impressed that he loaned the young evangelist his presidential jet to travel to meetings through the entire country, giving him the use of stadiums and asking mayors to declare a holiday when the young evangelist arrived in their cities to preach.
During the next several years, hundreds of thousands of people were converted to Christ. Today the evangelical population of Bolivia has grown to more than 11 percent.
“As repentance was his lifestyle, it became a fruit of the revival.” Looking back to those days, Ruibal’s widow Ruth says the Bolivian revival was marked by repentance and simple obedience to Jesus.
“Julio’s conversion was dramatic and his repentance was deep. He would lie on the living room floor saying, ‘Jesus I have found You; I have found everything.’
Up until then, Julio was supporting himself by running a yoga academy. He told all his students about his conversion, and half the students were saved while half left. He closed down the academy and from that day, for the rest of his life, he lived by faith. Most people would have tried to save the academy or wait until they had something else to do. But Julio was drastic in obeying. As repentance was his lifestyle, it became a fruit of the revival. People were getting right with others, making restoration for prior wrongs and dramatically stepping out from sin.”
The Bolivian revival affected the nation and the culture. “This was a sovereign move of God over a nation, not just one church being revived,” says Ruibal. “Up until that time, Bolivia had had more presidents than years of independence. There had been so many coups. At one point there were four presidents in one day. However, when President Bánzer opened the country to the gospel, he stayed in power for eight years. That was a first for Bolivia. Bolivia experienced its first economic boom. Churches sprang up everywhere and poverty was diminished.”
“God had replaced the bone eaten away by cancer!” There were also many miracles. “The miracles were so remarkable and abundant that it is hard to adequately describe,” says Ruibal. “One of the outstanding miracles involved a woman who was dying of bone cancer. She was bed-ridden and her upper leg could not be moved for lack of bone. Her sons asked Julio to pray for her. He led her to the Lord and then prayed for healing. Then Julio felt the Lord telling him to lift the lady to her feet. He helped pull her up and she stood. God had replaced the bone eaten away by cancer! There were other types of miracles, too. Food was multiplied supernaturally. At a dinner, fish appeared on a plate in front of several elders. Once, money multiplied so that we could feed some leaders who had cometo minister.”
The revival was marked by sweeping conversions that sparked church growth. Before the revival the largest evangelical church in La Paz had about 90 members. Missionaries from many denominations had labored for decades with little results. What Julio, then only 19 years old, brought in was a commitment to prayer.
“When we started the church in 1974 we would teach the young people and then in the evenings they would go to home groups to teach what they had learned,” says Ruibal. “We would then reunite after the meetings and pray for the people in the meetings. This meant we prayed from 10 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. or 3 a.m. every night. There was a lot of prayer.”
“From then on the stadiums were too small to hold the crowds.” The stadium meetings had their own challenges. “It started in the stadium in La Paz, with thousands attending. But one day when the meeting was to start at 10 a.m., the police called Julio to ask for his advice. The crowds had come around 5 a.m. to get seats in the stadium, but when they arrived they found the stadium was already filled. People had spent the night there, and the overflow crowd was now at 40,000. The police feared a riot. That day Julio preached to the crowd within the stadium and then from the wall of the stadium to the overflow. Miracles took place as people repented and came to Jesus.”
“From then on the stadiums were too small to hold the crowds. The meetings were held on mountainsides and in plazas. There was no PA system at that time large enough to reach the tens of thousands of people, so they were encouraged to bring their transistor radios and turn them up as loud as possible. Since the meetings were being broadcast, everyone could hear the preaching. The Assemblies of God sold 33,000 Bibles and New Testaments in only two weeks. In fact, the Bible Society of Argentina and other outlets had to send them their stock of Bibles as well.”
As a result of the revival many new churches were planted in Bolivia. “Ekklesía, the church we started in La Paz, has more than 23,000 members today,” says Ruibal. “Daughter churches were started in every state in Bolivia and also in Colombia and Argentina.” Also other churches benefited. “There were about 15 churches started in the city of La Paz alone as a result of the revival.”
Source: Ruth Ruibal, interviewed for Charisma Magazine
Don and Helen Hill consider themselves just an ordinary couple who have been blessed throughout their life and had many opportunities to do extraordinary things. Perhaps that is oversimplifying their lifetime experiences, when in reality they have recognized opportunities, prayed for guidance and discernment, and then acted. This has lead to extensive travel to foreign lands on evangelical and teaching missions with the Rev. Dr. Geoff Waugh, to whom the title of this book refers.
Don and Helen have retired and Don has just completed writing up an extensive memoir of their lifetime experiences, mainly a private family diatribe for their children. Re-reading these memoirs showed there were a lot of extraordinary things that should be shared around. They have recently coined the phrase “….and it just so happened…”. But did it? They think not and there is evidence of the hand of God and His leading.
Don was an electrical engineer and Helen a primary school teacher. In 1987 Don, with his then boss took voluntary redundancy and set up their own engineering consultancy. Don leaving the power industry was akin to jumping out of a boat after thirty-five years of job security. It was not done without a lot of very careful and prayerful consideration, but it was still a step into the unknown trusting completely in God.
This was a major change in Don and Helen’s lives and opened many unknown doors and opportunities, especially the opportunity for quality overseas engineering assignments and associated opportunities in places like Malaysia, Burma, Brunei, and the Pacific Islands to name a few.
But more importantly, Don and Helen became aware of, as well as part of, the Brisbane Renewal Fellowship led by Geoff Waugh at about the same time. Both their secular and spiritual lives received a boost. They were “travelling” with Geoff both spiritually and physically.
Geoff had a quiet but powerful ministry and mainly through his work as editor of the “Renewal Journal” became widely known. Invitations were received to come and preach in places like Ghana, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the Pacific Islands to again name just a few. When the letter reads “Come over to Macedonia ……you do not know how poor we are…” it is hard to refuse.
Geoff accepted these invitations, but rarely asked others to accompany him. He asked them to pray about it and if they felt called they were quite welcome to come along. People from the Renewal Fellowship often did accompany him. All had the love of the Lord and if nothing else were travelling companions in foreign lands and “backroom” helpers.
Helen developed a video ministry recording Geoff’s teaching, and left videos and later DVDs to multiply the word. This was particularly important where it was difficult to post Christian literature back into the country without it being intercepted and “lost”.
Don was just “there” most of the time, but with the publication of the material in this book, perhaps his time has come and the stories recorded will have an impact.
Thus as you read you will find in chronological order (necessary as we grow through each new experience) accounts of “God moment” events both from their personal experiences and as a consequence of their Travelling with Geoff
German missionary to Africa, Reinhard Bonnke (1940-2019) founded Christ For All Nations (CFAN) which now ministers to millions.
Converted at nine, he had a missionary zeal. As a teenager, Reinhard saw Johannesburg in South Africa in a vision of a map of Africa. At 19 he headed off to the Bible College of Wales to train as a missionary, even though he couldn’t speak English. Three months later he was preaching in English! There he learned practical principles of living by faith.
After a short pastorate in Germany where he married Anna, they left for German Pentecostal missionary work in Africa. Working as traditional missionaries from 1967 to 1974 in Maseru, the capital of the small landlocked country of Lesotho, they saw meagre results.
The early days in Lesotho (1974)
Near the end of that time Reinhard’s interpreter broke down during his message at a healing meeting one Sunday morning and sank weeping to the floor because of God’s awesome presence. Waiting for the interpreter to recover Reinhard ‘heard’ the Lord speak ‘words’ which amazed him: “My Words in your mouth are just as powerful as My Words in My own mouth.”
The ‘voice’ repeated the sentence. He ‘saw’ it like a movie in Scripture – Jesus told the disciples to speak in faith and it would happen. “I suddenly realized that the power was not in the mouth – the power was in the Word,” said Reinhard.
Then, when the interpreter had recovered enough to speak, as he was preaching Reinhard ‘heard’ the Spirit say, “Call those who are completely blind and speak the Word of Authority.”
He did. About six blind people stood. He boldly proclaimed, “Now I am going to speak with the authority of God and you are going to see a white man standing before you. Your eyes are going to open.”
Taking a deep breath Reinhard shouted: “In the name of Jesus, blind eyes open!”
The power of his voice jolted even those on the stage. It felt as though a flaming bolt of lightning was let loose in the building. His voice was still resonating against the bare brick walls when there was another shout. This time it was the shriek of a woman’s voice. What she screamed shattered the silence that hung over the congregation: “I can see! I can see!”
She had been totally blind for years. The other blind people also saw. The place erupted in excited cheers. A woman handed her crippled boy through the milling crowd to Reinhard who sensed the power of God on the boy and watched amazed as his crippled legs shook and straightened. He was healed. The meeting went for hours as people screamed, shouted, danced and sang.
At the end of 1974, Reinhard relocated to Johannesburg and established Christ for All Nations (CFAN). Early in January, when he was ill, he had a vision of Jesus similar to the Joshua’s vision (Joshua 5:13-15). He wrote: “I was very sick. I didn’t think I would make it. I went to doctors. Nothing helped. I was crying to God: ‘Lord what are you doing? What is your plan?’ One afternoon I retired to my study. A thirst for prayer came over me and I was hardly on my knees when I saw a most wonderful vision. I saw the son of God stand in front of me in full armour, like a general. The armour saw shining like the sun and burning like fire. It was tremendous and I realised that the Lord of Hosts had come. I threw myself at His feet. I laughed and I cried … I don’t know for how long, but when I got up I was perfectly healed.”
When Reinhard flew to Gaberone in Botswana to buy time on radio there the Lord told him to hire the 10,000 seater sports stadium for a crusade. The local Pentecostal pastor who agreed to help prepare for the crusade was amazed. He had only 40 in his congregation!
The crusade in April 1974 with Reinhard’s evangelist friend Pastor Ngidi started in a hall which could seat 800. On the first night 100 attended. Healings happened every night, abnd people fell to the floor overwhelmed. That was new to Reinhard.
By the end of the first week 2,000 people were packed into the hall. So they moved into the stadium! Thousands attended. People were saved and healed every night and over 500 people were baptised in water within two weeks.
One night in the stadium, the Holy Spirit urged Reinhard to pray for people to be baptised in the Holy Spirit. So he asked an African co-worker to give a message on the Holy Spirit. Reinhard felt dissatisfied with talk because it didn’t mention tongues.
About 1,000 people responded to the call to be baptised in the Spirit. As soon as they raised their hands they were all flattened shouting and praising God in new languages on the ground. Reinhard had never seen anything like that before. It continued to happen in his crusades.
Reinhard used an enormous tent which could seat 30,000 people. Then the crowds grew so large no tent could hold them. Some of CFAN crusades in Africa have reached huge open air crowds of 600,000 to 800,000 people and even over 1 million.
“He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.” (1 Cor. 1:28-29)
Egypt: How God came to Garbage City
God heard the cries of a community of despised and rejected people. Those deemed the lowest in Egyptian society – the Zabbaleen or ‘garbage people’ of Mokkatam Village.
Every morning at the crack of dawn over 7,000 rubbish collectors leave Garbage City on horse carts or small trucks and move into the city of Cairo, where they collect over 13,000 tons of rubbish from nearly 17 million residents, and return to the narrow streets of Garbage City, bringing the refuse into their homes. Here the women and children sort it into piles of organic and inorganic garbage. Organic garbage is used to feed the livestock that roam the streets of the people’s homes.
“Then, nearly 30 years ago, one man did care.”
There was a time when it seemed as though life would never change for these people. And no-one cared. Because they were doing a filthy task, a job no-one wanted. And then, nearly thirty years ago, one man did care – Father Samaan.
“When I first came to Garbage City and stood at the first street, the homes were all made of tent. The people didn’t have a chair to sit on. They sat on cardboard on the floor. There were no roads, no electricity or water. It was not fit for human life. The stench from the dead animals was horrible. But I was not really affected by all of this. What affected me personally was the people who were in need of the grace of Christ. Everything else did not matter.”
The realisation of the lostness of these people burned deep into Father Samaan’s heart. Right then, he decided to be God’s instrument of change. He would wade through pig pens and literally pull people from the mud and mire, and present them with God’s love.
“God told me to kiss their hand and put shoes on their feet.”
“When I went to invite the people to come and hear about God, they would hide in the pig pens. I used to go in with sandals and couldn’t get my feet out of the mud. Then God told me to wear boots. The second thing He told me was to take a torch because it was very dark. So I tucked my trousers into my boots and took my torch to find them. It was not easy for them to come. God told me to take their hand and kiss their hand. Then kiss their head, and if they still didn’t want to come, take shoes and put them on their feet. That would really shake them and then they would come with me. All this I learned from the Holy Spirit who taught me how to work in this area.”
We continue our story of how God came to the most despised and rejected people in Egyptian society – the garbage collectors of Mokkatam Village.
As the number of believers began to grow, it became evident that the Zabbaleen would need a place to worship. In 1986, when a workman dropped a rock to the ground and it fell into a natural cave, they knew that God had answered their prayers.
Father Samaan personally supervised the moving of centuries of rubble that lay in the cave, carved out by the pharaos of old who had used the stones to build the pyramids. Many rebuked him for working so passionately and mocked him with questions of whether the stones mattered more than souls. But Father Samaan was simply preparing a place that would one day seat over 20,000 people. He was on a mission with God, and every decision was made in simple obedience. “Obedience is better than sacrifice,” he says. “When I make a sacrifice without obedience it means nothing.”
“Signs of transformation include the building of schools and clinics”
Over the last three decades many miracles have happened on Mokkatam mountain. Tiny shacks have been replaced with brick buildings. The streets have been paved. The children still play amongst the rubbish, but now they have a future because true transformation is taking place. Signs of this transformation include the building of schools, clinic and churches, all right in the heart of Garbage City. Vocational school includes classes, teaching sewing and knitting. Each item made has a value and a use. Take the burial shrouds which will be used in coffins that young boys are being taught to make in woodwork classes.
Despite the appearance of excessive amounts of garbage, there is a creative system of sorting in place. Plastics, metal and paper are gathered and transferred to large bails that are lowered from rooftops and taken into recycling rooms. Here the plastics are melted and used for recycling. Despite the strong stench of burning plastic, the people are eager to work, turning the garbage into usable items.
The efficiency of the Zabbaleen recycling system received international recognition. Far ahead of any modern ‘green’ initiatives, they recycle 80 percent of the garbage they collect, while most Western garbage collecting companies can only recycle about 20-25 percent of the waste.
“Delivering the oppressed is almost a daily occurrence.”
Today, walking the streets of Garbage City, people still flock to Father Samaan and his colleagues who gently move with love and compassion amongst the people. Father Samaan is often inundated with requests for prayer and healing. This work requires great faith, and God often reveals himself in miracles and signs and wonders. Delivering the oppressed and possessed is almost a daily occurrence on Mokkatam mountain. And as people find freedom in Christ, they begin to find beauty in the ashes.
Despite an ever-increasing demand of his attention, Father Samaan never compromises enjoying his time alone with God. He knows that God is raising up labourers from the harvest. “A garbage collector’s job is to collect garbage from Cairo. So when one of them knows Christ, they become a light to the world. Without even evangelizing, his life is a testimony.”
“Those garbage collectors can reach all the people for Christ”
Ever the visionary, Father Samaan regularly retreats to the desert outside Cairo where he shares his vision of building a church that will seat 5,000, and a retreat centre where the Zabbaleen can leave the squalor of Garbage City and enjoy the open spaces. Despite the scorn these people face, Father Samaan earnestly believes that Garbage City people will be used by God to turn the heart of Cairo to the Lord. “We [The Coptic Church] cannot reach all the people because we are so limited. We only have masses and meetings in our churches. But those garbage collectors can reach all the people. God has chosen them to be a blessing for Egypt. And He said: Blessed be Egypt my people.”
As the sun sets over Mokkatam mountain on a Thursday evening, the garbage collectors leave the rubbish in the streets and move into the grounds of the Cave Church. Here they gather for a time of teaching and preparation for ministry.
Adel Gad El Karim serves at the church. “Someone told me not just to think of myself as a garbage collector. Because in Jesus my value is great. So now I’m an evangelist and the nations come to me [visiting the church] and I can tell them how Jesus changed my life.”
Changing lives and pointing them to the Father is the goal of Father Samaan’s live, who has become as dear as an earthly father to the people of Garbage City. He is their arbitrator and confident. He is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. He is their spiritual leader and companion. But to God the Father he is simply a man who has lived a live of obedience and whose daily prayer ‘More of You and less of me’ has been answered.
“A simple prayer: More of you and less of me”
“This is our time to change our world,” says Father Samaan. “We need to cry, scream, travail and groan, to pray day and night. And the Lord will support this work of the Holy Spirit. But we’re not just talking about Jesus in words, but also in miracles which will follow our faith, and the world will see and believe and come back to Christ.”
Joel News International 850, 851, March 3, 6, 2013
The Lord moved in a surprising way at the Law School Christian Fellowship (CF) during 2002. The weekend following Easter, the CF held an outreach meeting on Saturday evening, April 6, on the lawn and steps of the university square. The grassy square faces the main lecture buildings, school administration and library. God moved on them in a strong way that night.
Romulo Nayacalevu, then President of the Christian Fellowship reported:
Romulo NayacalevuThe speaker was the Upper Room Church pastor, Jotham Napat who is also the director of Meteorology here in Vanuatu. The night was filled with the awesome power of the Lord and we had the back up service of the Upper Room church ministry who provided music with their instruments. With our typical Pacific Island setting of bush and nature all around us, we had dances, drama, and testified in an open environment, letting the wind carry the message of salvation to the bushes and the darkened areas. That worked because most of those that came to the altar call were people hiding or listening in these areas. The Lord was on the road of destiny with many people that night.
Unusual lightning hovered around in the sky, and as soon as the prayer teams had finished praying with those who rushed forward at the altar call, then the tropical rain pelted down on that open field area. God poured out his Spirit on many lives that night, including Jerry Waqainabete and Simon Kofe, both dramatically changed.
Many of these people are now leaders in their various Pacific Islands nations, both in civic and church affairs. Some of them experienced powerful conversions that night. Many were filled with the Spirit and began to experience spiritual gifts in their lives in new ways. Some students who had been heavily involved in drinking and night clubs found new freedom and zeal for God and have become effective evangelists through their changed lives. Many of the law students attended the lively, Spirit-led Upper Room church in Port Vila, where pastors Joseph and Jotham and others encouraged and nurtured them.
Eleven of those students came to Brisbane, led by Romulo their President, and led by the Holy Spirit, far more importantly! They sang and spoke at dozens of meetings in dozens of churches and homes, and prayed for people constantly. They were familiar with pastors laying hands on people and praying for them, but now they were doing that also, and seeing God touch people in many ways.
The law students from the Christian Fellowship (CF) grew strong in faith. Jerry, one of the students from Fiji, returned home after the visit to Australia, and prayed for over 70 sick people in his village, seeing many miraculous healings. His transformed life challenged the village because he had been converted at CF at the law school after a very wild time as a youth in the village. The following year, 2003, Jerry led revival in his village. He prayed early every morning in the Methodist Church. Eventually some children and then some of the youth joined him early each morning. By 2004 he had 50 young people involved, evangelising, praying for the sick, casting out spirits, and encouraging revival.
Simon, returned to his island of Tuvalu, also transformed at university through CF. He witnessed daily to his relatives and friends all through the vacation in December-January, bringing many of them to the Lord. He led a team of youth involved in Youth Alive meetings, and prayed with the leaders each morning from 4 a.m. Simon became President of the Christian Fellowship at the Law School from October 2003 for a year.
Pentecost Island
Ps Jerry at Mele Palm, site of martyrdom
In May 2003 I took a team from the CF to Pentecost Island in Vanuatu for a weekend of outreach meetings on South Pentecost. The national Vanuatu Churches of Christ Bible College, at Banmatmat, stands near the site of the first Christian martyrdom there.
Tomas Tumtum had been an indentured worker on cane farms in Queensland, Australia. Converted there, he returned around 1901 to his village on South Pentecost with a new young disciple from a neighbouring island. They arrived when the village was tabu (taboo) because a baby had died a few days earlier, so no one was allowed into the village. Ancient tradition dictated that anyone breaking tabu 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 evangelise his own people. Just before he was clubbed to death at a sacred mele palm tree, he read John 3:16, then closed his eyes and prayed for them. Tomas became a pioneer of the church in South Pentecost, establishing Churches of Christ there.
Hosted by Chief Willie Bebe, the CF team of six led meetings in Salap village each night Friday-Sunday and Sunday morning – in Bislama, the local Pidgin and in basic English. It was a kind of miracle. That village church sang revival choruses, but the surrounding villages still used hymns from mission days! The weekend 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 on a closing song, and then later on a closing announcement. People just kept singing and coming for prayer.
God opened a wide door on Pentecost Island (1 Cor 16:8-9). Another team of four students from the law school CF returned to South Pentecost in June 2003 for 12 days of meetings in 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-grand-daughter of the pioneer Tomas Tumtum gave her life to God in the village near his grave at the Bible College.
We held rallies in four villages of South Pentecost each evening from 6 pm. for 12 days, with teaching sessions on the Holy Spirit held in the main village church of Salap each morning 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, a young man who repented deeply with over 15 minutes of tearful sobbing, is now 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.
Pentecost Bible College
Bible College Chapel on Pentecost Island, Vanuatu
By 2004, the Churches of Christ national Bible College at Banmatmat on Pentecost Island increasingly became a centre for revival. 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.
Our leaders’ seminars and youth conventions at the Bible College focused on revival. The college hosted regular courses and seminars on revival for a month at a time, each day beginning with prayer together from 6 a.m., and 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 impartation 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.
Teams from the Bible College led revival meetings in village churches each weekend. Many of these went late as the Spirit moved on the people with deep repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness, and prayer for healing and empowering.
A law student team from Port Vila, led by Seini Puamau, Vice President of the CF, had a strong impact at the High School on South Pentecost Island with responses at all meetings. Most of the whole residential school of 300 responded for prayer at the final service on Sunday night 17 October, 2004, after a powerful testimony from Joanna Kenilorea. The High School principal, Silas Buli, has prayed for years from 4 a.m. each morning for the school and the nation, alone or with some of his staff.
The church arranged for more revival teaching at their national Bible College for two weeks to over two dozen church leaders. On the weekend in the middle of that course, 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 chief’s meeting house of their village, and the first to respond was a fellow from the ‘custom’ traditional heathen village called Bunlap.
Through 2004-2005 we held many revival leadership meetings at the Bible College, usually in my vacations from college in Brisbane. Don and Helen Hill from the Renewal Fellowship in Brisbane joined me there for some visits. They provided needed portable generators and lawn mowers, and Don repaired the electrical wiring and installations at the Bible College. Helen recorded my teaching sessions, now available on DVD. Friends around the world, such as in Kenya, Nepal and the Pacific, have used those DVDs for their leadership training.
Those Bible College sessions seemed like preparation for revival. Every session led into ministry. Repentance went deep. Prayer began early in the mornings, and went late into the nights.
Chief Willie asked for a team to come to pray over his home and tourist bungalows. Infestation by magic concerned him. So a prophetic and deliverance team of leaders at the Bible College of about six people prayed there. Mathias reported that they located witchcraft items in the ground, removed them and claimed the power of Jesus’ blood to cleanse and heal the land.
Village evangelism teams from South Pentecost continue to witness in the villages, and visit other islands. Six people from these teams came to Brisbane and were then part of 15 from Pentecost Island on mission in the Solomon Islands in 2006.
Pentecost on Pentecost
Grant Shaw joined me on Pentecost Island in Vanuatu in September-October 2006. Grant grew up with missionary parents, 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. From 14 years old Grant participated in mission teams travelling internationally in Asia. Then he attended a youth camp at Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship which had revival from 1994. He then worked there as an associate youth pastor for 18 months before studying at Bible College in Brisbane. So he is used to revival – all his life! In Vanuatu he received clear words of knowledge, and saw people healed daily in Port Vila and on Pentecost Island both in meetings and in the villages. That inspired and challenged everyone.
We attended the afternoon service at Upper Room church in Port Vila. That night the senior pastors were in Tanna Island on mission and the remaining leaders were so glad God had sent us to preach that night! Great warning! It was fantastic. Worship was strong.
Raised from the dead
At sharing time in the Upper Room 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, mostly in tongues. After an hour the monitor started beeping and the girl recovered. What a great testimony!
Grant gave words of knowledge about healings needed and prayed for those people, then told some of his testimony. When he was eight years old he saw Jesus in a vision, so bright that Grant could not see his face. In the vision Grant saw the glorious gates of heaven, but did no enter, although he wanted to.
We prayed for all the children, many of them ‘resting’ in the Spirit. Then Grant told more of his testimony, about his time in Toronto. The message that night covered Luke 8, 9, 10 – where Jesus, the 12 and the 70 all did the same things, with no money, preached the same message on the Kingdom of God, and had the same ministry of healing. Most people came out for prayer, most of them resting in the Spirit.
On Tuesday, the day we flew to Pentecost Island I woke again at 3 a.m., as often happened in the previous few weeks, but this was different. I had just seen a quick and powerful vision (while asleep). After seeing a ‘wall’ full of accusations ripped apart with a golden tear, I saw a marvellous long cascade waterfall full of bright living colours. The vision then merged into a brilliant hillside scene where Jesus the Good Shepherd, with shawl and staff, gathered his flock to himself. At first I thought they were sheep but the forms became children and people. I didn’t see Jesus’ face but felt his huge love for everyone – wanting them all to come to him and gathering them to himself. I woke up crying with joy. Significant timing as we started on Pentecost Island that night.
Our mission continued on South Pentecost once more. Based in the village of Panlimsi where Mathias was then the young pastor, we slept in a house with bamboo walls and floor and thatch roof, and ate with their team there in the village.
The Spirit moved strongly in all the meetings. Repentance. Reconciliations. Many healings, daily. Confessions. Anointing. Healings included Pastor Rolanson’s young son able to hear clearly after being born partially deaf. Rolanson leads evangelism teams, and helped lead this mission.
South Pentecost attracts tourists with its land diving – men jumping from high towers with vines attached to their ankles. Grant prayed for a jumper who had hurt his neck, and the neck cracked back into place. After prayer, an elderly man no longer needed a walking stick to come up the hill to the meetings. The Lord healed a son of the paramount chief of South Pentecost from Bunlap, a ‘custom’ village, when Grant prayed for him and pain left his sore leg. He invited the team to come to his village to pray for the sick. No white people had ever been invited there to minister previously.
A team of about 20 of us trekked for a week into mountain villages. I literally obeyed Luke 10 – going with no extra shirt, no sandals, and no money. The trek began with a five hour walk across the island to Ranwas on the eastern side. Mathias led worship, with strong moves of the Spirit touching everyone. At one point I spat on the dirt floor, making mud to show what Jesus did once. No one had ever done such a thing there! Marilyn Wari, wife of the President of the Churches of Christ in Vanuatu, then jumped up asking for prayer for her eyes. Later she testified that the Lord told her to do that, and then she found she could read without glasses.
Glory in a remote village
We trekked through Bunlap, the ‘custom’ 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. Then the team trekked for seven hours to Ponra, a remote village further north on the east coast. Revival meetings erupted there! 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 healing through ‘mud on the eye’ at Ranwas some came straight out asking for mud packs also!
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 at all by TV, videos, movies, magazines, worldliness. Their lives were so clean. Just pure love for the Lord, especially among the young.
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.
The team stayed two extra days there. Everyone received prayer, and many people surrendered to the Lord both morning and night. Everyone was repenting, as the Spirit moved on us all.
Grant’s legs, cut and sore from the long trek, saved the team from the long trek back. 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.
People in the host village heard angels singing there also. At first they too were thinking it was the church full of people, but they realised that the harmonies were more wonderful than we can sing.
Grant and I returned full of joy on the one hour flight to Port Vila after a strong final worship service at the host village on the last Sunday morning, and reported to the Upper Room Church in Port Vila on Sunday evening. Again the Spirit moved so strongly the pastor didn’t need to use his message. More words of knowledge. More healings. More anointing and many resting in the Spirit, soaking in grace.
That church continues to minister in the Spirit and has seen powerful moves of God in the islands, especially Tanna Island. They planted churches there in ‘custom’ villages, invited by the chiefs because the chiefs have seen their people healed and transformed.
During their missions there in 2006, many young boys asked to be ‘ordained’ as evangelists in the power of the Spirit. They returned to their villages and many of those young boys established churches in their villages as they spoke, told Bible stories, and sang original songs given to them by the Spirit.
Return to Pentecost
Andrew and Grant
21 year old Andrew Chee (Grant Shaw’s cousin) came with me on a three week mission to Vanuatu in June-July 2012. We saw God’s blessing and many miracles.
Andrew sensed God telling him to go on this trip, and he booked his flights only one week before we left when flights were full so he was wait-listed but the next day seats became available.
Andrew and Grant (photo) love praying for the sick because they see God constantly taking away pain and healing people. They 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.
Andrew, from Hawaii, once lived to surf. Now he lives to serve – for God.
We flew into Port Vila, the capital, late on a Friday night and stayed at the Churches of Christ transit house above the church there. Next morning at 6am we heard young people worshipping in 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 immediately. Our praying continued for everyone wanting prayer after the closing prayer. Nice fast start to our mission!
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. So now I was returning again, with another keen young firebrand for God. This long, narrow island was sighted and named on the Day of Pentecost, 1764, by explorer Bougainville, and also seen by Captain Cook in 1774.
Pastor Rolanson met us at the airstrip and we walked 300 metres to the beach to ride for half an hour in the outboard canoe 10k south to Pangi village. There Rolanson’s boys met us to carry our bags along the muddy track half a kilometre inland to their village, Panlimsi.
We had our first meeting there 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 three weeks of such night meetings. During the day 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 stones in my bungalow that night, so I had to cast it out in Jesus name, and it never returned. Rather weird to hear someone ‘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 torch light, 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 …”
One Sunday there we shared in a combined churches service in the packed village 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 while people were gathering in the church. We then sidcovered that the man was the leader of the service and the woman preached that day! Many times, the words of knowledge Andrew received were for pastors and leaders first, 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. A large number came for prayer and the healings were fast and strong.
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 worshipped, prayed, spoke and called people out for healing and empowering prayer. I was led to wash the leaders feet that night also [Photo: Andrew washes the chief’s feet].
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 Australian mission team from Gladstone staying there. That night we also prayed for many people after the service. Healings were the fastest and strongest we had seen till then. We realized that people’s faith was rising and God was especially blessing unity.
Bunlap
The heathen village of Bunlap on the east coast is famous as the spiritual centre for pagan witchcraft and curses. I went there with Grant in 2006 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 head 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 on the west coast, 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 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.
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 there.
Like Jesus’ disciples, we returned to Ranwas village 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. 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 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 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.
Revival Impacted Bolivia
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