Revival Adventures by Geoff Waugh

Revival Adventures

by Geoff Waugh

from Chapter 8 of his autobiography
Looking to Jesus:
Journey into Renewal and Revival (2009)

 

Revival is God pouring out his Spirit, abundantly.  It may start small, with 1, 2 or 3 converts, but escalates to 100, 200 or 300 and more.  It may explode with 1,000, 2,000 or 3,000 as on the Day of Pentecost, or with millions as in national revivals.  Revival impacts vast numbers of people, changes communities, and stirs up opposition, such as Jesus faced.

Significantly, Jesus explained that the Holy Spirit coming upon him powerfully equipped him for his mission.  He then faced tough opposition, after he fasted  and prayed.  The devil tried to stop him.  Jesus totally resisted that opposition.  Personal appetites, vainglory, short cuts or presumption did not divert him.

“He is out of his mind,” his family said.  They tried to stop him.  Pharisees and Herodians, the religious and state leaders, plotted to kill him.  The Gospels describe these strong reactions to Jesus as early as Mark 3:6, 21-22, 32.

He survived many assassination attempts.  Two kings wanted to kill him (Matthew 2:13; Luke 13:31).  His relatives attempted to push him over a cliff (Luke 4:29).  People in Jerusalem tried to stone him more than once (John 8:59, 10:31).  Leaders plotted to kill him many times (Matthew 12:14, 26:4; Mark 11:18; Luke 19:47).

Eventually they did kill him.  But Jesus chose the time, the place and the method (John 10:17-18).  I knew that the message of the cross is the power of God for everyone being saved (1 Corinthians 1:18).  I just didn’t realise how powerful it is for life here, as well as for life hereafter.

The cross is the heart of revival.  In revival God pours out his Spirit powerfully with salvation, healing, deliverance and community transformation.  As I travelled I saw many examples of local revivals.  Invitations came to teach leaders about revival, although I felt more like a learner than a teacher.  Pastors and leaders appreciated receiving resources such as the Transformation videos and DVDs and my book Flashpoints of Revival (1998, second edition 2009).

I had the privilege of going with various teams, especially from the Renewal Fellowship in Brisbane, to visit many countries to encourage pastors and leaders.  Many of those people overseas face difficulties and persecution we do not.  The mission teams, as in Africa, Nepal, India, Sri Lanka and China, gave us small glimpses of the challenges they face and their simple, strong faith.  It reminded me of Luke and others going with Paul, as Luke describes in the ‘we’ passages of Acts chapters 16, 20-21, and 27-28.

We Westerners believe in Jesus and live for him, but I found overseas Christians and leaders generally more responsive to the Lord and his Spirit, more aware of the spirit realm, and more convinced that Jesus’ ministry and New Testament life still happen now just as it did then.  They are more likely to pray as the early church did, “In the name of Jesus, be healed.”  They bind and cast out spirits more than we do!

They expect signs and wonders more than we do, and pray for God’s supernatural intervention amid opposition like the early church Christians: “Now Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.  Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus” (Acts 4:29-30).

Christians in other cultures also seem far less distracted than we are by media such as TV and DVDs.  That applied to Australian Aborigines also, although now the media increasingly bombard them as well.  We may know far more about our own culture’s gods, such as Hollywood and singing idols, than we do about Peter, Paul and Mary!

However, there’s hope for us too, if we, like them, will humble ourselves and pray, and seek God’s face and turn from our wicked way.  God promises to hear from heaven his dwelling place, forgive our sin, and heal the land.

Australia

Aborigines baptized with Dan Armstrong

We invited a team of Aborigines from Elcho Island near Darwin to come to Brisbane for Pentecost weekend in 1993.  The Uniting Church on Elcho Island experienced strong revival from March 1979, led by their pastor Rev Djiniyini Gondarra.  It sparked revival in aboriginal communities and churches across the north and west of Australia, so I wanted them to share with us.  Two dozen came and we housed them at Trinity Theological College in the students’ dormitories.  They found the beds too soft but enjoyed sleeping on the carpeted floor!

We held the meetings at Christian Outreach Centre, in their large auditorium offered freely to us.  Although we began in the seats, we soon found ourselves sitting on the floor on and around the large platform and its steps, talking and praying together aboriginal style.  They sang, gave testimonies and spoke, in simple, clear ways.  They surprised me when they told me that it was the first time they had been invited to lead meetings in a white congregation!

“We don’t know how to pray for white people,” they said.  “We haven’t done that before.”  I had asked them to pray for people at the end of each meeting.

“Just pray for us the same way you do for your own people,” I suggested.  They did.  We sat with them on the floor, talked together and then prayed for one another.

They invited us to join them on Elcho Island the following March, 1994, for their anniversary celebrations of the beginning of the revival.  A small team of us flew there as guests, attending and enjoying the meetings and friendship.  Although the initial intensity of the revival had died down, the meetings and community still carried the warmth, vitality and improved social conditions brought by the revival.  You can read about that revival in Renewal Journal No. 1: Revival – the first issue.

Aboriginal pastors and leaders spoke at the meetings, celebrating what God had done among them.  I had the privilege to speak one night, gladly thanking them for their God given national leadership in revival, so needed by the rest of us in Australia.

Some of us visited a small community, driving 50 kilometres on 4WD dirt tracks to the north end of the long narrow island.  That community had one trade store, a single room school and a church.  The whole community of about 30 people prayed together every morning and night, especially for revival in Australia.  They had seen their prayers being answered among their own people, but continued to pray together daily for the whole nation.  I found it a holy, humbling time to pray with them.

Asia

One of my most humbling and stirring experiences of revival happened in Asia where Christians have been severely persecuted for over half a century, and it is still illegal to hold unregistered meetings, free of government control and restrictions.

I loved it there among such humble, hungry, receptive, grateful, gentle and faith filled believers.  I was often in tears just being there, appreciating their heartfelt zeal in everything.  I have rarely been so impressed anywhere.  No concerts.  No acting.  No hype.  Just bare essentials.  What a big and wonderful family we belong to, and our Father is so proud of his family there, I’m sure.

We had a moving night with house church leaders in a business office used for teaching English to business people. Some night classes were actually to support and train house church leaders. A secretary at the reception office could press a buzzer if officials came to inspect, so the house church leaders could quickly hide their Bibles and have an “English class”!  Most of them had been imprisoned for their faith, some many times. They all prayed for one another at the end of the evening, Spirit-led and empowered.

I had the privilege of speaking at a house church.  People arrived in ones or twos over an hour or so, and stayed for many hours.  Then they left quietly in ones or twos again, just personal visitors to that host family.  Food on the small kitchen table welcomed everyone, some of it brought by the visitors.

About 30 of us crowded into a simple room with very few chairs.  Most sat on the thin mat coverings.  They sang their own heartfelt worship songs in their own language and style, pouring out love to the Lord, sometimes with tears.  The leader played a very basic guitar in a very basic way.

Everyone listened intently to the message, and gladly asked questions, all of it interpreted.  There was no need for an altar call or invitation to receive prayer.  Everyone wanted personal prayer.  Our prayer team of three or four people prayed over each person for specific needs such as healing and with personal prophecies.  That flowed strongly.  I knew none of that group, but received ‘pictures’ or words of encouragement for each one, as did the others.

While prayer continued, some began slipping quietly away.  Others had supper.  Others stayed to worship quietly.  It was a quiet night because they did not want to disturb neighbours or attract attention.

Most people in that group were new believers with no Christian background at all.  They identified easily with the house churches of the New Testament, the persecution, and the miracles, because they experienced all that as well.  Many unbelievers become Christians because someone prayed for their healing and the Lord healed them.

Afterwards, some of us drove to a local park just to pray with an elderly gentleman, unable to go to the meetings.  He thanked us so eloquently for coming to his country to support and encourage his people.  I was deeply moved.  So much personal support, encouragement and evangelism happen that way, so simply.

It neither looked nor sounded like a Western revival!  It wasn’t.  Yet it was part of one of the greatest revivals of the last half century, bringing over 100 million into the Kingdom of God.

Philippines

Jeepneys in Philippines
God is with us

Dr Charles Ringma invited me to teach graduate subjects at the Asian Theological Seminary in Manila in the Philippines where he taught.  Charles and his wife Rita also worked with Servants Mission, managing their guest house and headquarters.  I had known them in Brisbane when they were the inaugural directors of Teen Challenge in Australia.

So I stayed with Servants Mission and found my way to the seminary on hot, crowded Jeepneys, adapted from the popular army jeeps with passengers sitting side-saddle, or standing and crouching.  Most Jeepneys sported brightly coloured religious texts and slogans – Jesus is Lord,  God is love, Hallelujah, Blessed Virgin, and hundreds more.

I taught M.Th. subjects during the June vacations in 1994 on Revival History and in 1995 on Signs and Wonders, and visited huge churches in Manila.  My assistant lecturer invited me to a church he had established.  People there responded quickly, loved praying for one another, and expected healing and miracles.

A student in our class invited me to her home to pray for her sick daughter.  The little girl slept on her mattress on the floor, so I just rested my hand on her and prayed.  She slept on.  Next day her mum brought her to enjoy our air conditioned classroom, happy and healthy.

During the class seminars, my students reported on various signs and wonders that they had experienced in their churches.  Many of them expected God to do the same things now as he did in the New Testament, but not all!

“We don’t seem to have miracles in our church,” said one student, a part-time Baptist pastor and police inspector.

“You could interview a pastor from a church that does,” I suggested.

So he interviewed a Pentecostal pastor about miraculous answers to prayer in their church.  That student reported to the class how the Pentecostal church sent a team of young people to the local mental hospital for monthly meetings where they sang and witnessed and prayed for people.  Over 40 patients attended their first meeting there, and they prayed for 26 personally, laying hands on them.  A month later, when they returned for their next meeting, all those 26 patients had been discharged and sent home.

In Manila I joined the team of Servants Mission in their guesthouse base.  They worked with the poor in the slums and most lived in the slums with the people they served.  They lived simply, identifying with the people, trusting God for his supernatural intervention in personal and social needs.  I found it moving and challenging to visit the slum homes where Dorothy Mathieson and Judy Marsh from Gateway Baptist lived and worked.  Conditions there in the slums made the rest of Manila look luxurious, even with the city’s regular electrical brown-outs, jammed telephones, cracked and gritty streets, and badly broken road drainage awash with sewerage in heavy rains.

Following my return from Manila in 1995, Meg and I went on a round-the-world tickets to Ghana, England and Canada.  That was the cheapest way to visit Ghana on mission.

Ghana, West Africa

Ghana

We drove, for over an hour in torrential rain to our first evening open-air crusade meeting in Ghana, West Africa.  Our hosts from a small independent church, co-operated with other local churches for these meetings.  As the guest speaker, on my first visit to Africa, I wondered why the meetings had not been switched from the market area to a church building with a roof.  They explained that they always held crusade meetings outside in the market area where the people gathered.  But what about the rain? I wondered.

We arrived at the mountain town of Suhum in the dark.  Torrential rain had cut off the electricity supply.  The rain eased off a bit, so we gathered in the market area and prayed

“Lord God, you are mighty,” I prayed.  “You take over and do what you alone can do.”

Soon the rain ceased.  The town’s electricity came on.  The host team began excitedly shouting that it was a miracle.

“We will talk about this for years,” they exclaimed with gleaming eyes.  And we had not even started the first meeting yet!  We had clear skies all that week.

I asked them again why they planned outdoor meetings in the monsoon season.  They told me that if I could only come at that time, then they trusted God to work it all out.  Soon the musicians from one of the local churches had plugged in their instruments to the sound system.  The loudspeakers did not face the faithful Christians gathered in the fluorescent-lit open area, but pointed at the surrounding houses, the stores, and the hotel.

My interpreter that night didn’t know English really well.  I think he preached his own sermon based on some phrases of mine he understood or guessed, and apparently he did well.  When we invited people to respond and give their lives to Christ, they came from the surrounding darkness into the light.  Some wandered over from the pub, smelling of beer.  They kept the ministry team busy praying and arranging follow-up with their churches. 

I moved about laying hands on people’s heads and praying for them, as did many others.  People reported various touches of God in their lives.  Some were healed.  Later that week an older man excitedly told how he had come to the meeting that night almost blind but now he could see clearly.

Each day we held morning worship and teaching sessions for Christians in a church, hot under an iron roof on those clear, tropical sunny days.  During the third morning I vividly ‘saw’ golden light fill the church and swallow up or remove blackness.  At that point the African Christians became very noisy, vigorously celebrating and shouting praises to God.  A fresh anointing seemed to fall on them just then.

Although it didn’t rain the whole time we were holding meetings there, the day after our meetings finished, the torrential rains began again.  The following week we saw floods in Ghana reported on international television.  Later on we received letters telling us how the church where we held our morning meetings had grown, expanded their building, and had sent out teams of committed young people in evangelism.  Through that experience, God showed us a glimpse of what he is doing in a big way in the earth right now.

Even the economy changed. Previously, people selling at the market made little or no profit. After God removed evil spirit everyone did well at the market.

Kenya, East Africa

Evangelism in Kiberra, Nairobi, Kenya, Africa’s largest slum of one million.

I met Francis Nyameche, a youth evangelist from Kenya, when he studied for his Bachelor of Ministry degree in Brisbane, graduating in 2000.  Since then I’ve visited him in Kenya a few times.

His father, Samson Nyameche, founded the Believers Fellowship Church in Kisumu, Kenya, with 2000 attending, and established over 30 churches.  He runs an orphanage for 50 children on his family farm.

Frank had a vision of Jesus when he was five, and was powerfully filled with the Spirit as a teenager.  He became the youth pastor in his father’s church and spoke at local markets where thousands were saved and filled with the Spirit.  Frank evangelized in many places in Africa.

Supported by his wife Linda, Frank began Nairobi Believers Mission church in the slums of Kibera where a million people live, jammed together in small mud brick homes with rusty iron roofs.  I’ve had the privilege of teaching leaders and speaking at meetings there.  In spite of poverty and political unrest, their churches continue to grow steadily.

Before the Kibera slum church moved into their corrugated iron shed they met in a community hall.  I taught leaders there, and spoke at their Sunday service with about 30 people.  We gave them real bread for communion, not just symbolic cubes.  The Spirit led me to give them all the bread we had, just three loaves (not five barley buns as the boy had in Scripture).

“Can I take some home to my family?” asked one young man.  That’s a hard question to answer in front of 30 hungry people.

“You can take some of your own communion bread home if you want to,” I answered.

Then everyone took a large handful of communion bread, and most put some in their pockets to take home later.  We shared real glasses of grape juice in plastic glasses, thanking the Lord for his body and blood given for us.

After my return to Australia I heard that the bread apparently multiplied, as those who took some home had enough for their families to eat.

My glimpses of revival in Kenya with Francis in the slums, with his parents in the orphanage and teaching pastors and leaders from over 30 of their churches, reminded me that God uses the weak things of this world to confound the mighty.  People with limited or no resources still see the Kingdom of God come powerfully among them.

Nepal

Bob & Jill Densley and team in Nepal

Our friends Bob and Jill Densley from the Renewal Fellowship worked with the United Nations in Nepal for a few years.  They encouraged many pastors there, most with small house churches, facing hostile opposition.  Holding church meetings in Nepal was illegal until the 1990’s.  Most pastors have been imprisoned, many of them severely beaten.

During several visits to Nepal from 1996, usually with a team from the Renewal Fellowship visiting and working with Bob and Jill, we had meetings in Kathmandu the capital, in East Nepal with Bhutan refugees and churches, and in Maoist dominated West Nepal.

About 40 house church leaders gathered for our first meetings in West Nepal, sitting cross-legged on the floor with Bibles opened. I was led to call people who were, if necessary, willing to be martyrs to come for prayer. All 40 did. As the team prayed for them, most had open visions, and many were healed without any prayers for healing. The meeting closed around mid-night but after that these leaders kept on praying and worshipping through the night.

During some meetings in West Nepal, we walked the 20 minutes from our accommodation cabins to the church, past unfriendly or suspicious villagers.  The two pastors sent to collect us in a jeep took another route and missed us.  They panicked, thinking we had been abducted.  After that they insisted that we wait to be collected each time!

In Kathmandu, on that same visit, we stayed in a Buddhist retreat house, because that was a safer location than hotels we had used previously.  Some hotels had been bombed.  Even there, in that Buddhist ‘safe house’ we had a night watchman on duty all night.  He walked around tapping his stick loudly so that nearby soldiers would not mistake him for a terrorist!

Pastor Raju Sundras organized most of our visits.  We first met him as a young evangelist who had already been imprisoned and beaten severely many times.  Raju, with his wife Samita, began Hosanna Church in Kathmandu which grew to over 800 by 2009, one of the large churches in the nation.  Each time we visited them we found they had expanded their premises.  They planted other churches in Nepal, Tibet, India, and refugee communities from Bhutan and networked with 240 churches by 2009.  Ten years ago it took a decade to add 100 people to a church.  That now happens in six months or less.

Their church prays.  A lot.  They have a 24 hour prayer room where many of their people go to fast and pray.  They believe in miracles, and see many.  Their outreaches include feeding hundreds of street children in their ‘Jesus Kitchen’.

We saw many leaders filled with the Spirit, many people healed, and many gifts of the Spirit poured out, including revelations and visions.  I heard a young man in East Nepal, and an older man in Kathmandu, both pray eloquently in English, although neither of them spoke English.  That was a beautiful gift of tongues, which blessed me profoundly.

Here is Raju’s report of our team visit at Easter 2000:

 Greetings in the name of our Almighty God Jesus Christ from the land of Himalayas!  The Lord continues to do great things in this land, we have not much to do but to praise Him and thank Him for every good gift raining on us from Him and only Him.

It was a great blessing from the Lord to send us a team from Australia mid April. The fellowship, the Word from God, the mighty touch of the Holy Spirit, the love of Christ flourishing from our Australian brothers and sisters, the awesome presence of the Lord throughout the rushing schedule of conferences, trips, and visits, overwhelmingly expressed the great love of our Lord Jesus Christ towards this nation.  During the short stay of about two weeks with the team of eight people we had the privilege to see the ministry of the Holy Spirit through them in several occasions.

Some of the group along with me had a short trip to the Tibetan border.  We started early morning and arrived there about noon time.  The towns of Liping on the Nepali side and Khawsa on the Tibetan side are connected through a bridge on Bhotekoshi river and right in the midst of the bridge is the border white line showing the boundary of each country.  At the end of the bridge on the Tibetan side is the entry gate which is controlled by Chinese guards and immigration officials.

After praying on the bridge we approached the Chinese officials to get a permission to enter Tibet.  The first official refused but the second one nodded approvingly, taking the four Australian passports from my hand as security, and let us go free of charge!  This could happen only by the supernatural intervention of our Almighty God, Hallelujah!  We had good prayer inside Tibet especially on those individual shopkeepers whom I would grab and pray on without any resistance from them!

On 21 April all the eight of Australians and I had a trip to Gochadda in west Nepal and held a three days conference over there at Easter.  While driving toward the destination I shared the Word with the driver of the private bus and during the inauguration of the conference he approached the altar and accepted Christ as his personal Saviour.  On the same day a Christian brother whose hand was partially crippled for six years was touched by the Holy Spirit and healed absolutely.  He was shaking in his whole body and raising his hands, even the crippled one already healed, praising the Lord with all his strength, he glorified the Lord for his greatness, Hallelujah!

Out of about 200 participants in the conference by the grace of God 100 of them were baptized in the Holy Spirit praising the Lord, singing, falling, crying, and many other actions as the Holy Spirit would prompt them to act.  About ten of them testified that they had never experienced such a presence of the power and love of God.  Some others testified being lifted to heavenly realms by the power of the Holy Spirit, being surrounded by the angels of the Lord in a great peace, joy, and love toward each other and being melted in the power of his presence.  Many re-committed their lives to the Lord for ministry by any means through his revelation.

On the second day of the conference the trend continued as the people seemingly would fall down, repent, minister to each other in the love of Christ, enjoy the mighty touch of the Holy Spirit, singing, prophesying, weeping, laughing, hugging, and all the beauty of the Holy Spirit was manifested throughout the congregation by his grace and love.  One woman of age 65 testified that she never had danced in her life in any occasion even in secret, but the Lord had told her that she should now dance to him and she was dancing praising him with all her strength.  For hours this outpouring continued and the pastors of the churches were one by one testifying that they had never experienced such a presence and power of God in their whole Christian life and ministry.

Some 60 evangelists from Gorkha, Dhanding, Chitwan, Butwal declared that they were renewed in their spirits by the refreshing of the Holy Spirit and they are now going to serve the Lord in the field wherever the Holy Spirit will lead them to be full fledged in His service.  In the last day of the conference while praying together with the congregation and committing them in his hands, many prophesied that the Lord was assuring them of great changes in their ministry, life and the area.  While the power of God was at work in our midst three children of 6-7 years old fell down weeping, screaming and testifying about a huge hand coming on them and touching their stomachs and healing them instantly.  After the prayer all the participants got into the joy of the Holy Spirit and started dancing to the Lord, singing and praising Him for His goodness.

Before leaving Gochadda while we were having snacks in the pastor’s house a woman of high Brahmin caste came by the direction of the Lord to the place, claiming that she was prompted by a voice in her ear to go to the Christians and ask for prayer for healing of her chronic stomach pain and problems, and that is why she was there.  We prayed for her and she was instantly healed and we shared the Gospel, but she stopped us saying, “I need to accept Christ as my Saviour so don’t waste time!”

She accepted Jesus as her personal Saviour being lifted in spirit, and even the body as she said she didn’t feel anymore burden in her body, and spirit, Hallelujah!

On 25 April we held another conference in Nazarene Church pastored by Rinzi Lama in Kathmandu.  Ten churches unitedly participated in the two days gathering where about 100 people participated.  The outpouring of the Holy Spirit continued in this conference refreshing many in their spirits and bringing much re-commitment.  Some cases of healing were testified.  In one case the brother testified that he had received healing from the Lord and his swollen feet and the high Uric Acid had disappeared from his body, confirmed by the Holy Spirit.

We showed the Transformation video brought from Australia.  All committed themselves for constant prayer to bring transformation to their cities too by God’s power.

On 27 April we held a one day conference in Hosanna Church where the touch of the Holy Spirit was tremendous and people blessed by the Holy Spirit and his might were manifesting his power and presence in the place.  While people were worshipping and praising the Lord, a prophecy came and the Lord said, “What happened to the vision given to you six years ago?  You have forgotten to pray about it but I have not forgotten what I have promised to you through the vision!”

I was reminded by the Holy Spirit that I had seen a vision where I was taken over the highest mountains in this country with a few of my foreign friends and some of our evangelists and as we put our step on the top of the mountain it started shaking and melting and my friends and the evangelists started disappearing, then I cried out, “Lord where are my friends?”  And He said open your eyes and see, and I saw all my friends and the evangelists were scattered all over the mountains and they were coming towards me with multitudes of people behind them.  I started weeping and with a feeling which words cannot explain I was thanking the Lord for His goodness, I was laughing in the Spirit for the repetition of the vision which I could see again.  Hallelujah!

I have to thank the Lord for His great outpouring of the Holy Spirit and I have to thank the Lord also for my Australian brothers and sisters who took up the burden to come over to this place and minister to our people.

Raju also reported on further developments the next year:

During the past two months in 2001 we have experienced a new wave of outpouring of the Spirit on the congregation. Many instant healings of people suffering from fever, flu, unconsciousness, blood discharge, boils and tumours, stomach problems, chronic headaches.  The fame of the healings in the Church has reached many unbelievers through the congregation and numbers of unbelievers are coming to seek the healing, most of them ending up saved!

The Church is growing rapidly in the Spirit, many standing in faith are experiencing prosperity, good health, spiritual satisfaction, close intimacy with the Lord and moreover a hunger and thirst along with zeal of God to know Jesus intimately and to do his will whatever it may cost. This new wave of revival in the Church is another assurance from the Lord that in the days ahead he has got great and marvellous plans to be revealed and carried out by the people he has called to fulfil his purposes.

This revival is quite a new movement of God in the Church and the leadership of the Church is waiting on the Lord to receive revelation if there is anything to be done or just let it grow to maturity as it is growing by the Holy Spirit.  Since the start of the year 2001 the leadership of the Church is busy to pray on almost every individual of the Church for receiving the gifts of the Spirit as well as counselling them in the Word and praying with them at the time of need.

 In December 2007 the Prime Minister invited Raju to speak at a nationally televised Christmas Day service in their International Stadium.  Hosanna Church musicians led the 2,500 people there in singing their Nepalese version of Carols by Candlelight, as they held their candles:  Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthday to Jesus, Happy Birthday to You.

The following year in 2008, for the first time in Nepal’s history, the government proclaimed December 25-26 a national public holiday.

India

Travelling with Geoff
by Don Hill

Following visits to Nepal, Meg and I, with a team from the Renewal Fellowship, visited majestic Darjeeling in the Himalayas, then crowded New Delhi and Sri Lanka’s luscious green mountains.  In every place we saw people touched by God in many ways, especially being filled with the Spirit and healed.  They had strong, simple faith.

 

Darjeeling

 

Dr David Mangratee hosted our visits to Darjeeling.  A gracious, pioneering Apostle in the Himalaya mountains, David said our visits opened new doors for him to work among all the churches.  People from many churches joined together for our meetings on renewal and revival.  His own congregation at Mt Hermon had experienced revival, rapid growth, and launched missions to remote regions.  Here is part of his reports about previous revivals:

Revival broke out in Darjeeling in 1960.  The person God used in this great revival was Rev. David Mangratee.  Born into a Hindu family, I had a wonderful birth.  I asked the Lord, when I had a vision of the Lord, whether my father had died before he was born and had lived again, for I was told by my parents that my father died in the year 1933.  He was to be taken for burial.  People had made everything ready.  He was kept inside the coffin ready for taking him the burial place.  But before they could take him he woke up and lived again.

After this my father lived for another 20 years and died again in 1953 never to rise again.  During my vision I asked the Lord whether this was true.  The Lord answered, “Yes, because I wanted a man with a miracle birth.”

It was God’s great grace that He raised me for this great work which one can see at present among the Nepalese.  I accepted the Lord as my personal Saviour on 3^rd June, 1953, just 63 days after the death of my father.  I underwent a Bible Training Programme at Southern Asia Bible Institute (now College) and returned to Darjeeling.  We started a church in Darjeeling with 35 newly converted people.

 On Pentecost Sunday in the month of May, 1960, one of our church members got filled with the Spirit of God.  She spoke in tongues and prophesied.  Then in the month of June that same year the Holy Spirit came upon the believers mightily.  They were filled with the Spirit of God and God blessed them with gifts of the Spirit, especially the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge.  By this, lost money was found, lost souls traced, sick healed and sin uncovered.

Many miracles took place in the ministry, even raising the dead.  The work faced a lot of opposition in the beginning but the changed lives of the first Christians made their mouths shut.  Many national missionaries are working now in Nepal or Bhutan and different parts of India like Assam, Manipur and Nagaland.  The Nepalese, among whom our major work was concentrated, and also tribes like Bodos, Santhals, Nagas, Rajbansis, and many other tribal people, got saved.

“I will send even greater revival than before,” the Lord said.  The revival continues.  We are praying to him who in a covenant keeping God.

 New Delhi

 

Paul & Annie Pillai

Our team from the Renewal Fellowship visited Grace Bible College and orphanage near New Delhi, India’s capital.  Dr Paul Pillai and his family pioneered India Inland Mission, sending out thousands of evangelists and pastors across India.  Their Bible College, the largest in India, has 600 students studying under-graduate and post-graduate courses, with 200 evangelists sent out each year.

I had the humbling honour to speak to their students, and also pray with the staff.  Most of their graduates face hostile communities as they plant churches in Hindu villages and towns.  We heard about two of their graduates shot dead in Nepal when we held our meetings in West Nepal in 1998.

I first met Paul Pillai when he stayed in our community home while he spoke at churches in Brisbane.  Paul had been a young Hindu lawyer, converted when healed through prayer in Jesus’ name.  He told us how he and his evangelism team had once been severely beaten by radical Hindus who broke his arm and tried to kill them all.  God intervened.  By the firelight of their burning tent, the team saw themselves surrounded by handsome men who moved them to a safe place, miraculously.  Those angels said, “God will send you back here again.”

He did.  Later on a man from that area invited them back to hold meetings in his home.  That became the beginning of a church there.

Paul gave this report of challenges facing their graduates:

Manoharpur, where Australian missionary Robert Stains and his two sons were killed by burning them alive in their vehicle, is seeing a mighty revival.  Thousands of tribal people are coming to Christ.  Several of our teams are using the ‘Jesus’ movie all over that area where Bajrang Dal killers are brought in from outside that area to attack Christians.  Killing of Christians may continue in that area, but the prayer of saints all over the world is making a change.  Many Bajrang Dal killers also are coming to know Christ in miraculous ways.

Our churches in Kashmir are suffering much as the war is raging there between India and Bin Laden’s high tech Islamic ‘Mujahideen’ (holy warriors) with Pakistan as their base.  With Chinese technology, and enormous amounts of Arab money, Pakistan and Afghan terrorists believe that there should be a nuclear war in South Asia for the conquest by Islamic terrorists as an ‘historic Jihad’ as a final holy war to wipe out Christianity.  This big blow to Christian work in Kashmir will affect us for a long time to come.

Two of our Grace Bible College graduates working in Rukum district in Nepal were shot dead by the Hindu police for baptising Hindus in Nepal.  Secret attacks are still going on while thousands are coming to Christ all over Nepal.  More than 42 leading evangelistic organisations organised and directed by Grace Bible College graduates are working all over Nepal today.

Today there are more than 2,000 believers worshipping in different house churches in Bhutan secretly.  Having an open border with India, Indian Christians are the only missionaries there.  No church buildings are allowed in Bhutan.  Many students graduated from our Bible College are working in Bhutan.  This Himalayan foothill kingdom needs the Gospel desperately, and we need your continuous prayer and support for this strategic ministry.

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka – Philip & Dhamika George
Dedication of water bottling plant

I taught Philip and Dhamika George, at Trinity Theological College.  They came from Sri Lanka where Philip’s brothers and sister are pastors, prayerfully supported by their godly parents.  Philip and Dhamika, based in Brisbane, have raised many thousands of dollars for mission, especially in Sri Lanka.  They invest in God’s Kingdom, and see miracles continually.

I conducted their miracle wedding in Brisbane.  It cost them nothing.  Not only did they have no minister’s fees, but also the church, the flowers, the bridal party’s clothes, the banquet, and the wedding video all came free, without them asking for any of it!  Philip earned money while a student by cleaning St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, a beautiful, Gothic church in the heart of Brisbane city.  So they offered him the church for the wedding. The people arranging flowers for the Sunday service the next day made it special for the wedding also. A student friend’s mother owned a clothing boutique, and donated all the bridal party’s outfits, normally rented or bought.  Philip boarded at the Salvation Army hostel near the college, so they gladly provided the smorgasbord wedding breakfast for 100 people.  Another friend offered to video their wedding.  Imagine the family’s surprise when they saw that video in Sri Lanka.

They also provided their ‘miracle’ rental house freely to a mission team from the South Pacific for a month.  They bought that house with no money, just a generous loan from a lady they befriended, and sold it two years later for a large profit, used to wipe out all their debts and contribute more to missions.

Teams from the Renewal Fellowship visited Sri Lanka with Philip and Dhamika, staying with their family and relatives, speaking in their relatives’ churches and local Bible Schools, and praying with their people.

We had the privilege of dedicating a spring water bottling factory built on their land there, supplied by a fresh mountain spring on their property.  That provided income for their relatives’ ministries in their churches and Bible Schools.

In spite of ethnic war with the Tamils and many Buddhist threats against churches and pastors, God moves strongly in the nation.  Some of Philip’s relatives have been taken to court, imprisoned, and had bomb threats, but they continue to trust God and serve him.

Vanuatu, South Pacific

Pentecost Island, Vanuatu
Ocean baptisms

I flew to Port Vila in Vanuatu in the South Pacific for a holiday in September 2002.  There I met leaders of the Christian Fellowship (CF) at the Law School.  The CF presented a long, lively concert the Saturday night of my visit, so I went.  Then I discovered that they planned to take a mission team to Australia.  I offered to host them in Brisbane.

The University of the South Pacific, based in Suva Fiji, has its School of Law in Vanuatu (because of the unique combination of French, English and local laws in Vanuatu, previously called New Hebrides).  Students come from most nations of the South Pacific Islands to study law there.  Many of them are born leaders, sons and daughters of chiefs and government leaders.

The very active CF at the School of Law regularly organized outreaches in the town and at the university.  About one third of the 120 students in the four year law course attended the weekly CF meeting on Friday nights, and a core group prayed together regularly and organized outreach and evangelism events. 

The Lord moved in a surprising way at the 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:

 The 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, evangelizing, 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

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 evangelize 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

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 international mission teams in Asia. He attended a youth camp at Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, a church 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, 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.

Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands Mission team at home of first PM – Sir Peter & Lady Margaret Kenilorea

The Lord poured out his Spirit in fresh and surprising ways in New Georgia in the Western District of the Solomon Islands in 2003, and has touched many churches in the capital Honiara with strong moves of the Holy Spirit.  God’s Spirit moved powerfully especially on youth and children.  This included many conversions, many filled with the Spirit, many having visions and revelations.

In spite of, and perhaps because of, the ethnic tension (civil war) for two years with rebels armed with guns causing widespread problems and the economy failing with wages of many police, teachers and administrators unpaid, the Holy Spirit moved strongly in the Solomon Islands.

An anointed pastor from Papua New Guinea spoke at an Easter Camp in 2003 attended by many youth leaders from the Western Solomons.  Those leaders returned on fire.  The weekend following Easter, from the end of April, youth and children in the huge, scenic Marovo Lagoon area were filled with the Spirit, with many lives transformed.  Revival began with the Spirit moving on youth and children in village churches.  They had extended worship in revival songs, many visions and revelations and lives being changed with strong love for the Lord.  Children and youth began meeting daily from 5 p.m. for hours of praise, worship and testimonies.  A police officer observed that the number of reported crimes fell and that former rebels attended daily worship and prayer meetings.

Western Solomon Islands

A team of students from the University of the South Pacific Law School in Port Vila, Vanuatu, joined me on mission to Honiara, the capital, and the Western Solomon Islands in 2003.  Sir Peter Kenilorea, inaugural Prime Minster and then the Speaker in the Parliament, with his wife Lady Margaret, hosted the team in Honiara.  Dr Ronald Ziru, then administrator of the United Church Hospital in Munda in the Western District hosted the team there, which included his son Calvin.

Our team first experienced the revival on an island near Munda.  We took the outboard motor canoe with Rev Fred Alizeru from Munda.  Two weeks previously, early in July, revival started there with the Spirit poured out on children and youth, so they just wanted to worship and pray for hours.  They meet daily from around 5.30 p.m., and wanted to go late every night.  Then children did not want to go to school the next day!  We encouraged the children to see school as a mission field, to pray with their friends there, and learn well so they can serve God better.  So they needed to get to bed early enough to do that!

At Seghe and in the Marovo Lagoon the revival had been spreading since Easter.  Some adults became involved, also repenting and seeking more of the Holy Spirit.  Many outpourings and gifts of the Spirit emerged, including the following:

Transformed lives – Young men that the police used to check on because of alcohol and drug abuse became sober and on fire for God attending daily worship and prayer meetings; a man who previously rarely went to church was leading the youth singing group at Seghe; adults publicly reconciled, repenting from ancient quarrels.

Long worship – This often included prophetic words or actions and visions.  I visited Sunday services in a village of the lagoon.  About 200 youth and children led worship at both services with 1,000 attending.  They sang revival songs and choruses accompanied by their youth band.  I prayed individually for over 200 people from 9.30 to 11.30 p.m.  They just kept coming, mostly adults.  On the Monday night at Seghe the congregation there worshipped from before 6 p.m. to after 9 p.m., then after that I taught, and prayed with each of the family groups there.

Visions – Children saw visions of Jesus (smiling at worship, weeping at hard hearts), angels, hell (with relatives sitting close to a lake of fire, so the children warned them); some kids saw Jesus with a foot in heaven and a foot on earth, like Mt 28:18 – “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”  One boy preached (prophesied) for 1½ hours, Spirit-led. 

Revelations – especially words of knowledge about hidden things, including magic artefacts and good luck charms.  Jesus wants no rivals!  Kids told parents where they hid these things!  If other adults did that there would be anger and feuds, but they had to accept it from their children.  One boy told police that a man accused of stealing a chain saw (and sacked) was innocent as he claimed, and gave them the name of the culprit, by word of knowledge.

Spiritual Gifts – including controversial ones, kept multiplying.  Adults asked many questions at teaching sessions.  We discussed traditional and revival worship, deliverance, discernment of spirits, gifts of the Spirit, understanding and interpreting visions, tongues, healing, Spirit-led worship and preaching, and revival leadership.  Young people in their twenties became revival leaders moving strongly in many spiritual gifts.

These revival effects continued to spread throughout the Solomon Islands.

Solomons Mission

I led a team of 22 in the Solomon Islands for a month, in November-December 2006, 15 of them from Pentecost Island in Vanuatu, on their first international mission.  The rest came from Brisbane, an international group of Bible College students (from Holland, England, Korea, and Grant Shaw who grew up in Asia) plus Jesse Padayachee, an Indian healing evangelist originally from South Africa, now in Brisbane, who joined the team for the last week.  Jerry Waqainabete and his wife Pam (nee Kenilorea), joined us in Honiara.  Rev Gideon Tuke, a United Church minister, organized our visit.

Six of the Vanuatu team travelled via Brisbane experiencing the wonders of electricity, hot and cold tap water, fast travel on good roads in a van, and a huge city.  They led worship powerfully at the Kenmore Baptist Church 6 a.m. daily prayer group, and spoke at some meetings, as well as visiting Australia Zoo and the coast.

Then in the Solomon Islands the revival team from Vanuatu and Brisbane held meetings in Honiara and visited villages in the Guadalcanal Mountains.  They trekked for seven hours, walking up the mountain tracks to where revival was spreading, especially among youth.  High School youth have teams going to the villages to sing, testify, and pray for people.  Many gifts of the Spirit are new to them.  Our team prayed for the sick and for anointing and filling with the Spirit.  They prayed both in the meetings and in the villages.

One Sunday night Grant and Mathias (the team worship leader) spoke about how they learned to move in the power of the Spirit, and then they went out from the meeting (as Jesus sent people out in pairs) and prayed for a lady in the village with back and leg pains and she was healed.  They returned to the same meeting rejoicing and reporting on this miracle.

Mathias involved the youth in singing groups, with keyboards, guitars, and spontaneous items.  Our team of over 20, mostly islanders, prayed for the villagers, with personal prayer and prophecies.  We ran out of room for bodies to rest on the floor!

Choiseul Island

Gideon and Grant joined me that December 2006 at the National Christian Youth Convention (NCYC) in the north-west at Choiseul Island, two hours flight from Honiara.  Around 1200 youth gathered from across the nation, many arriving by outboard motor canoes.

A group coming from Simbo Island in two canoes ran into trouble when their outboard motors failed.  Two of their young men swam for nine hours from noon in rough seas to get help.  By 9 p.m. they staggered onto an island near Gizo, and contacted a RAMSI team (Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, an Australian army and police project).  A RAMSI patrol boat towed the two stranded canoes back to Gizo.  The next day that group from Simbo arrived in one packed canoe, minus their food which they had to throw overboard when stranded in the rough seas.

The Friday night meeting saw a huge response as Grant challenged them to be fully committed to God.  Most of the youth came out immediately so there were hundreds to pray for.  The anointed worship team led the crowd in ‘He touched me’ for nearly half an hour as prayer continued for them, including many wanting healing.

Grant described that youth crusade night:

 The nation-wide youth convention was held at Choiseul Island.  We were there for five days.  It was an awesome time and God moved so powerfully.  So much happened, so I’ll just tell you about one of the nights.  It really impacted my life!

 We were invited to speak for their huge night rally.  Geoff spoke first and as he started to speak God began to move on the young people in a special way.  Then he handed it over to me at about half way and I gave some words of knowledge for healing.  They came forward and we prayed for them.  Most of them fell under the power and all of them testified that the pain had left their body.  After that I continued to speak for a bit and then gave an altar call for any youth that wanted to choose to give their lives fully to Jesus, no turning back!

 Most of a thousand youth came forward.  Some ran to the altar, some crying!  There was an amazing outpouring of the Spirit and because there were so many people Geoff and I split up and started laying hands on as many people as we could.  People were falling under the power everywhere (some testified later to having visions).  There were bodies all over the field (some people landing on top of each other).  Then I did a general healing prayer and asked them to put their hand on the place where they had pain.  After we prayed people began to come forward sharing testimonies of how the pain had left their bodies and they were completely healed!  The meeting stretched on late into the night with more healing and many more people getting deep touches. 

 It was one of the most amazing nights.  I was deeply touched and feel like I have left a part of my self in Choiseul.  God did an amazing thing that night with the young people and I really believe that he is raising some of them up to be mighty leaders in Revival.

 One young man, healed from pain that night, went back to his nearby village and prayed for his sick mother and brother.  Both were healed.  He had never done that before.  He testified about it at the conference the next morning.

The delegation from Kariki, in the Shortland Islands further west, returned home the following Monday.  The next night they led a meeting where the Spirit of God moved in revival.  Many were filled with the Spirit, had visions, were healed, and discovered many spiritual gifts including tongues and discerning spirits.  That revival moved through their islands.

Revival Movements

 Revival movements continue to spread in the Solomon Islands.  Visiting teams have participated and encouraged leaders.

Honiara, the capital has seen many touches of revival.  A week of evening revival meetings in Wesley United Church in the capital Honiara spontaneously erupted in September 2007.  That was the first time they held such a week of revival meetings, including joining with youth from other churches.  Calvin Ziru, their youth leader had been worship leader in the law student team in Brisbane in 2002.  He was then legal advisor to the parliament in the Solomons, ideally placed to lead combined churches youth revival meetings and also the parliamentary Christian fellowship.

Seghe lies at the south east point of New Georgia in stunning scenery.  I taught at the Theological Seminary at Seghe in the fantastic Marovo Lagoon, 70 kilometres with hundreds of tropical bush laden islands north and west of New Georgia Island.  Morning teaching sessions, personal prayers in the afternoons (and some rest) and night revival meetings, with worship led by the student team, filled an eventful week in September 2007.  That was the first time they hosted such a week at the seminary.  Meetings included two village revival services in the lagoon, including at Patutiva village, where revival started in Easter 2003.  That meeting went from 7 p.m. to 1.30 a.m. with about 1,000 people!  Hundreds received prayer after the meeting ‘closed’ at 11 pm.

Simbo.  A tsunami ravaged Gizo and Simbo islands in April 2007.  It smashed all the Simbo canoes, except Gideon’s and his brother’s which were then on the ocean on the two hour trip from Simbo to Gizo.  Tapurae village had hosted many revival meetings.  It was wiped out by the tsunami, so the villagers relocated to higher ground.  Strong moves of the Spirit continue on Simbo.  The village that relocated from Tapurae has a revival prayer team of 30, and no one from that village needed medical help from the clinic in three years since they started praying constantly for the sick, laying on hands and casting out spirits.

Gizo, the provincial capital of the Western Region is the Solomons Island’s second largest town.  Its airstrip is an island near the town, with its pressed coral runway covering the whole length of the island.  Visitors take a canoe or launch across to town.  The central United Church hosted revival meetings in October 2007.   The Premier of the region asked penetrating questions and joined those who came out for prayer.  He testified that he was immediately healed from stress related head pain and tension.

Taro, the regional centre for Choiseul province in the west Solomons hosted an amazing week of unity among all the churches, the United Church, SDAs, Catholics and Anglicans.  The meetings included 30 leaders from Karika in the Shortland Islands region, further west.  Revival started in Karika the day after leaders returned from the National Christian Youth Convention in Choiseul Island the previous December.

Pastor Mathias from Pentecost Island in Vanuatu participated at Taro.  He literally dropped out of the sky at Gizo on an early flight from Honiara.  He boarded the plane with no ticket and no money!  Dr Ron Ziru took him to the plane in Honiara, an extra one with spare seats, so he walked on leaving his international ticket at the office till we paid the fare!  Gideon and I saw him wondering along the main street as we ate breakfast at the Gizo hotel.  So he joined us there, and then we flew to Taro that afternoon.  The United Church hosted that full week of meetings and constant prayers for people.

The premier and regional officials attended a meeting at the regional parliament house, which included praying with people afterwards.  So did the director for medical services and his staff at a meeting at the hospital.  Others gathered at the Catholic Church for a meeting and personal prayer there.  Each night combined churches revival meetings were held on the soccer field, with huge responses for prayer nightly.

The Lord opened the way for strong ministry with revival and national leaders in all these places.  Revival, reconciliation and transformation increase.  God is doing far more than most people are asking or even thinking about in these islands (Eph 3:20-21).  In all these places people made strong commitments to the Lord, and healings kept happening.

Both in Vanuatu and in the Solomon Islands the people said that they could all understand my English, even those who did not speak English, so they did not need an interpreter.

Fiji

South Pacific mission team in Brisbane, now lawyers in Fiji and elsewhere

I enjoyed being part of the combined Kenmore Baptist Church (KBC) and Christian Outreach Centre (COC) teams in Fiji in 2006-7.  The teams, led by senior pastor Ric and Anne Benson and pastor Jesse and Cookie Padayachee, worked with the COC churches in Lautoka in the west and Navua on the Coral Coast in the east.  We saw many saved and healed in morning visits to villages, as well as at the night meetings.

A ‘magic man’ in one village came for prayer after seeing healings in his village.  Three women and a man who had done fire walking from another village made commitments to Christ, renounced their spirit involvement and were healed from constantly itchy skin irritations on their legs.  Jesse prayed for 11 people in the Suva hospital who were then sent home soon afterwards.

I led a group each day as we visited homes, and spoke in many village gatherings, and then prayed for the sick.  I was especially touched watching Dr Andrew Cotterill from KBC, a pediatrician, pray for the sick, often with tears.  Many reported immediate improvement.  Team leader Ric Benson taught pastors and leaders in morning sessions, and I taught about revival now stirring in the South Pacific.

One morning in Navua our group had a meeting in the home of Indo-Fijian pastor Nevian, and his wife Esther.  He had just finished Bible College in Suva.  Everyone we prayed for there was touched strongly.  The first lady prayed for was delivered from some Hindu god spirit.  Nevian then became our interpreter as we visited other Hindu homes nearby, and we led one old Hindu man to faith in Jesus.  Nevian and his family then attended all the rest of the night meetings, received healings and saw his Hindu sister saved as well.

The team shared together in night crusades in the Garden of Joy COC church.  Jesse preached and gave his testimony, and prayed for everyone who came forward, assisted by the team.  We prayed first for salvation and repentance, and the team gave follow-up materials to first time believers.  Jesse moved strongly in words of knowledge and authority.  Many meetings went late!  In both Lautoka and Navua crowds grew as the meetings progressed.  Reports of healings and deliverance spread. 

One Sunday I spoke at the Assembly of the Lord Jesus Christ church in Suva, an independent Spirit-filled congregation of around 100, half of them youth.  Romulo (leader of the 2002 law student team in Brisbane) joined me with Jimmy a medical university student from Vanuatu.  The Spirit moved strongly.  Romulo called youth out for prayer during the worship, and I involved him in the preaching as well and he called people out again for ministry at the end.  That went for some time.  After the service we shared food together including a lovo, food cooked in the earth oven.

Then that night I spoke at Sigatoka COC, an hour’s drive back from Suva, with 100 attending, sitting on the ground.  They had a temporary iron roof cover for instruments and ‘platform’ area on the ground.  We prayed personally for most of them, and saw beautiful healings and some delivered and saved.  A couple of young children with hearing problems told their mothers that after the man prayed for them they could hear well.  We thanked Jesus together.

Lawyer friends

After the team returned to Australia, I stayed on to visit the young lawyers I had hosted for a month in Brisbane in November 2002 when they were students.  In 2002, I drove them around and took them to meetings, and now they drove me around and took me to meetings!

I visited an early morning prayer group of the Graduates Christian Fellowship, another group of young leaders in the nation, and prayed personally for each of the 20 there.  That afternoon on Saturday 7-7-07, I shared in the memorial service for the Nigerian founding pastor of the Redeemer Christian Church in Fiji.  Jerry (another of the lawyer team) and his wife Pam are now pastors there as well as lawyers, a common arrangement in the Pacific for smaller churches with honorary pastors.  Romulo is another leader in that church, and continues to impact many churches and youth groups through his networks of young leaders in Fiji and other nations.

Then on the Sunday Jerry led the service and I preached, and we had two ministry spontaneous times during that service, including a commissioning for Jerry and Pam led by the Nigerian regional co-ordinator for the Redeemer Church, visiting from his church in Melbourne.  On my last Sunday in Fiji I preached again at Redeemer Church, supporting Jerry.  We had three ministry times, as the Spirit moved in the worship and the message.  As that church grows in faith it will certainly be a spark for revival in the nation, and will impact leaders, youth groups, and churches all over Fiji.

           On a recent visit to the church I washed the feet of the first prime minister of the Republic of Fiji prayed for him.  He graciously washed the feet of the Australians, drying our feet with his rugby jacket.

I spoke at the combined inter-tertiary Christian Fellowships prayer rally weekend in October 2008.  The Fiji School of Medicine Christian Fellowship organised and led it.  Over 500 tertiary students met for two nights of worship and prayer.

The Fiji School of Medicine Christian Fellowship has about 200 doctors in training with some trainee dentists.  They impressed me.  Their leaders seek God, and respond strongly to him.  Their worship team led the combined campuses rally on the Friday and Saturday nights.  Buses brought in groups from the various universities and colleges.  Different Christian Fellowship (CF) groups presented powerful Pacific dances to strong Christian songs.  The prayer team prayed personally for over an hour at the end of each meeting for the hundreds of tertiary students who responded, while the School of Medicine CF continued to lead appropriate and anointed worship.

Romulo reported:

Inter–tertiary went very well at Suva Grammar School that was hosted by Fiji School of Medicine CF.  It was an awesome two nights of fellowship with God and with one another.  The Pacific Students for Christ combined worship was a huge blessings for those that attended the two nights of worship. … Geoff Waugh spoke on Obedience to the Holy Spirit – this being a spark to revival and power.

Students came in droves for prayers and the worship lit up the Grammar School skies with tears, repentance, anointing and empowerment. The worship by Fiji School of Medicine students brought us closer to intimate worship with the King. It was a Pacific gathering and each and every person there was truly blessed as young people sought a closer intimate relationship with the King. We were blessed beyond words. Thank you all for the prayers, the thoughts and the giving.

Roneil, a Fijian Indian, added, “It was all so amazing, so amazing that words can’t describe it.  For me, it was obvious that the glory of God just descended upon the people during the Inter–tertiary CF.  I’ve never seen an altar call that lasted for way more than an hour. I myself just couldn’t get enough of it.  It was and still is so amazing.  God’s anointing is just so powerful.  It was a profound privilege and a great pleasure to be taught by you but more so to see the Spirit of God move in such an amazing away.  Hallelujah to Him Who Was, Who Is and Who is to Come.”

Brazil

RICOH

Baptist Church of Lagoinha

In June 2008, I saw something of God’s mighty work in Brazil.  George and Lisa Otis and the Sentinel Group hosted a conference in Belo Horizonte and a group of us visited communities that have been transformed in Brazil.

We worshipped on Sunday in the huge Baptist Church of Lagoinha in the city of Belo Horizonte.  This church of about 35,000 holds four services every Sunday. The sanctuary is round with two high galleries. Before the worship service began they baptised about a dozen people in the baptistery high above the platform.  Their worship leader, Ana Paula Valadao, is well known in Brazil.  She led worship at the conference and has led national worship gatherings with over one million attending.

The worship service ended, as always, with an invitation for people to give their lives to God.  As people streamed forward, counsellors joined to pray with them.  People in the sanctuary let down banners saying, “Welcome to the family of God”.

We visited the city of Teresopolis, just north of Rio, where a whole community that once existed on the city’s garbage dump, now lives in a beautiful new valley nearby.  We met youths from former gangs, now transformed into prayer and evangelism warriors, and we prayed with them on the prayer mountain there.

Algodao de Jandaira

Algodoa de Jandaira water after miracle of 2004

Floods after 24 years of drought, and Victoria

Then we flew north to see the transformation of Algodao de Jandaira, a rural town which suffered from 24 years of drought, until God answered prayer.  My story draws on information from the Sentinel Group report.

The Valentina Baptist church in Joao Pessoa hosted us.  Many of them had cried out for a fresh move of God.  A quiet choir member, Victoria, began to have vivid dreams about a town called Algodao de Jandaira.  Later they discovered such a place existed in a desert area with no proper roads.

A prayer team drove there, as we did.  When the team arrived at the outskirts of the community, they were shocked by the poverty of its 2,200 inhabitants.  The community well stayed dry.  The team approached one home and discovered it was the only evangelical home in the community!

The church sent a team once a month with needed supplies. These follow-up trips continued through 2003.  At the end of each visit, after they had delivered their meager supplies of food, salt and clothing, the team would walk up to a rock outcropping above the village to pray.  We prayed there also.

That year the congregation decided to help the people of Algodao de Jandaira at Christmas.  They took their supplies and continued to pray earnestly for God to intervene.

On January 24, 2004, the team returned to Algodao de Jandaira.  About five miles from the community they approached a riverbed they had crossed dozens of times before.  This time raging waters coursed down the channel.  Parking their vehicle, the ecstatic believers hoisted supply sacks onto their shoulders and waded across the river.

As they walked the final stretch to town, a spirit of worship overcame them.  Reaching the edge of the village, the team stood in astonishment.  From the rock outcropping that served as their prayer station, a waterfall was pouring forth life-giving water upon the community below.  Children ran in the river, splashing and laughing all around.  Men watered their horses, while goats drank their fill.

Shortly after their previous visit the heavens over Algodao de Jandaira had unleashed a deluge. Water exploded out of previously dry wells with such force that huge boulders were tossed into the air like pebbles.  After the “Flood of Blessings” – the 24 year old mayor’s term for the recent miracle – they drilled 45 wells to tap what hydrologists now say is a substantial water table under Algodao de Jandaira.  We met the young mayor and prayed with him.

The land now produces fava beans, papaya, guava, and other crops.  Bees generate high quality honey, goats yield record amounts of milk, and the river is filled with fish and shrimp.  For the first time ever they can sell their overflow produce to public schools and outside distributors.

Algodao de Jandaira’s population rose to 3,000.  The Valentina congregation has planted a church and social center in the community, and holds joint services there with a local Assembly of God congregation.  Today, a substantial majority of Algodao de Jandaira’s citizens follow Christ as their Lord and Savior. When glory is to be given, it is given to God rather than their former patron saint, Padre Cicero.

The mayor’s leadership has landed multiple federal grants worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Recently, when he presented his case for a further grant, Algodao de Jandaira was the only community in the state of Paraiba to win a grant.

We worshipped in the Valentina Baptist Church, now powerfully Spirit-filled, and also in the Christian pioneers’ home in Algodao de Jandaira, and out on the street in front of that home.  That family hosted us.  We worshipped and praised God on the rocky outcrop near the town, where their prayer teams had prayed each month.  And I swam in the cool fresh water, now flowing through the low dam beside the town.

God answers prayer!  Not always as soon as we want, and not always the way we want, but he does.  I left Brazil filled with awe once again.  Revival has made Brazil the country with the third largest number of Christians, after America and China.

Myanmar (Burma)

Renewal Journal
Photo: Pastors in Myanmar

In January 2009, I visited Myanmar (Burma) for the first time, also on mission.  This time I enjoyed being part of three generations of our family on mission together, with my son Jonathan and my eldest grand-daughter Jemimah, as well as my sister Hazel all involved.  Jonathan’s friend Andrew Rogers organized team visits there for a few years.  Andrew lived with us for a couple of years when he studied at university.

It’s tough for Christians in that Buddhist country with a military dictatorship.  They are not officially allowed to start churches, but they can run orphanages, so each orphanage becomes a church as well.  We worked with leaders in the Apostolic Church there.  They have two orphanages in Yangon, a Bible College out in the country, and they brought their pastors together for a conference there with us.

The Bible College is small, but students are very committed and extremely grateful.  So were the pastors, some of them coming from very hard, remote areas.  They were all so appreciative, and of course want return visits.

Jonathan and Jemi did a lot with the children and youth in the two orphanages, and Jonathan helped with practical work.  My sister Hazel visited the orphanages and attended some of the pastors’ conference.  She provided help for the Bethel Baptists and their orphanage as well.  We both spoke at their church, and prayed for people there.  She and her husband Kerry returned there, and people in their home church at Orange support that ministry in prayer and practical ways.

Some of us went daily to the Bible College for the conference, 1½ hours away by side-saddle covered truck.  Jonathan helped with building their pig sty – so their pigs will be an income producing project.  I helped teach the pastors about revival and taught the students at the Bible College.  We prayed together in faith for God’s mighty purposes in their land.

In subsequent visits was have continued this ministry to encourage pastors and leaders, not only in Yangon the capital, but also in other towns.

Jonathan reported, “On our last day a number of local people came to me and expressed their deep gratitude that we came over.  There is a level of joy and encouragement that they receive from our simple presence, from white people coming to a tough environment to try and help practically and spiritually.  It is so humbling to be told over and over that they are praying for us.  May it go back to them a hundred fold.”

As in all the countries I have been privileged to visit on mission, not only do we see God blessing and empowering the people abundantly, but we too are abundantly blessed.

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Survey of Revivals – unedited German version

Revivals weiter ausbauen, der Menschen verändert und Gemeinden. Die Bücher von Flashpoints Revival und Revival Fires enthalten voller Berichte über diesen kurzen Konten Revivals.

 

Biblischen Zeugnisses

Biblische Begriffe beschreiben Wiederbelebung Auswirkungen der Geist stark variieren. Dazu gehören:
der Geist gegeben wurde – Numbers 11.17; John 07.39;
der Geist kam auf – Richter 3:10, Apg 19.05;
der Geist übernahm die Kontrolle – Judges 6.34; 1 Samuel 11.06; 16.13;
der Geist ausgegossen – Joel 2:28-28; Apostelgeschichte 10,45;
der Geist kam – Matthäus 3:16; Lukas 3.22; John 01.33;
der Geist fiel (oder kam) – Apg 10.44; 11.15;
der Geist empfangen – Apostelgeschichte 8:15-17; 19.02;
getauft in oder mit dem Geist – Luke 3,16; John 1.33; Apg 1,5;
gefüllt mit dem Geist – Apg 2,4; 9.17; Epheser 5.18.

Der spezifische Charakter dieser Auswirkungen ist signifikant, ebenso wie die vielfältige Natur der nachfolgenden Ministerien daraus resultierenden Auswirkungen.Diese Auswirkungen der Geist bevollmächtigt Menschen für den Dienst. Das Ministerium beteiligt eine breite Palette von Charismen einschließlich gesalbt Verkündigung und Prophetie, Heilungen und Wunder, Zungen und Ärger.

 

Historische Zeugen

Deutliche Belebung Auswirkungen der Geist Gottes haben durch die Geschichte fort. Diese können übersehen worden oder minimiert Gründen wie diese:

• Viele Historiker schrieb aus der Sicht der etablierten Regierung oder Kirche, die oft bekämpft und unterdrückt Revivals.
• Starke Auswirkungen der Geist ständig neue Bewegungen zu initiieren, die die etablierte Ordnung bedrohen, so dass diese Bewegungen entgegengesetzt waren und ihre Schriften vernichtet.
• Revivals kann als ketzerisch angesehen werden, und ihre Führer getötet, wie bei Jesus, in der frühen Kirche, und im Laufe der Geschichte.
• Accounts von Revivals wurden systematisch zerstört, die oft als ketzerisch verbrannt.
• Übermäßige Begeisterung und Fanatismus in Revivals kann diese Bewegungen in Verruf zu bringen.
• Führer und Anhänger der Erweckungsbewegung haben oft mit dringenderePrioritäten als das Schreiben der Geschichte belegt, wie die Sicherstellung ihr eigenes Überleben.

Allerdings, wenn diese Aufzeichnungen überliefert sind, meist nach der Erfindung des Buchdrucks, Revivals konsequent zeigen ähnliche Muster des biblischen Zeugnisses. Eine kleine Auswahl ist hier eine erste Person Konten gegeben.

-Bevor Konstantin der Kirche verbreitete sich schnell in Trotz und gerade wegen Verfolgung. Das Zeugnis der Märtyrer beeinflusst viele Menschen.Nach Constantine C hjristianity die offizielle Religion des Römischen Reiches der Heilige Geist setzte seine Arbeit in der Kirche und in der Welt, was häufig zu starken Widerstand wie im Neuen Testament.

– Irenäus (d 195), ein Schüler des Apostels Johannes Jünger Polykarp, führte eine erhebliche spirituelles Erwachen in Lyon im südlichen Gallien, wo zusätzlich zu seinem bischöflichen Verantwortung er die lokale Sprache und seine Predigt wurde durch Gaben des Geistes, Exorzismen begleitet gelernt und Berichte von einigen von den Toten auferweckt.

-Die Montanists oder der New Prophecy Bewegung, blühte in Kleinasien von 150-400s. Diese Bewegung enthalten eine Wiederbelebung der Prophezeiungen und anerkannte Propheten einschließlich Frauen, eine Herausforderung für die Christen zu weltlichen Haltungen mit strengeren Lebensstandard in den christlichen Gemeinden verlassen und einem starken Glauben an die Wiederkunft Christi mit der idealen Gesellschaft bald in der festgelegt werden New Jerusalem. Montanus redeten in Zungen und begann prophezeien bei seiner Taufe, und lehrte, dass die Gaben des Heiligen Geistes noch zur Verfügung standen. Der Anwalt-Theologe Tertullian (150-223 c) ​​wurde zum berühmtesten konvertieren Montanismus als er diese Bewegung angeschlossen in den frühen 200s. Die Bewegung kam in Verruf, weil der Exzesse, vor allem in der Prophetie, aber es wurde eine starke Herausforderung für die lax Zustand der Kirche zu dieser Zeit.

-Gregor der Wundertäter (c 213-270), durch den Kontakt mit Origenes (185-254 c) umgewandelt wird, wurde Bischof seiner Heimatstadt Pontus und scheint führte eine starke Bewegung der Umwandlung haben bis die meisten seiner Diözese war Christian.

Mönchsorden wurden in den Dienst Gottes und der Menschen, die oft in Protest Laxheit und nominellen Christentum in der Kirche gewidmet. Viele dieser Führer geführt starke spirituelle Bewegungen, einschließlich verschiedener Wunder, Heilungen und Exorzismen, obwohl Vorsicht bei der Unterscheidung zwischen Fakt und Fiktion nachfolgenden benötigt wird.

-Augustinus von Hippo in Nordafrika (354-430), stark die Kirche und die Gesellschaft durch seine Schriften beeinflusst. Sein Werk Die Stadt Gottes ein Kapitel mit dem Titel “Was Wunder, die in Auftrag Schmiedeeisen Wurden damit die Welt an Christus glauben, und die nicht aufhören, jetzt, dass die Welt glaubt, Schmiedeeisen werden.”

-Patrick (389-c 461) erzählte von den Umwandlungen von Tausenden von der irischen, keltischen, die aktive missionarische Tätigkeit einschließlich nachfolgender Evangelisation von Columba (521-597) in Schottland und Columban und andere in Frankreich, der Schweiz und Norditalien. Nach 600 Augustinus von Canterbury und seine Missionare sahen Tausende akzeptieren Christentum in England und es wurde berichtet, dass sie die Befugnisse der Apostel nachgeahmt in den Zeichen, die sie angezeigt.

– Peter Waldo und die Waldenser in den 1100er Jahren begann die Reform und Wiederbelebung Bewegungen, die die Kirche herausgefordert und belastet die Gesellschaft.

-Franz von Assisi in den 1200er Jahren rief die Menschen auf alle verlassen und folgen Jesus. Viele taten. Sie beeinflussten andere in der Gesellschaft.

– John Wycliffe und seine Wanderprediger, die Lollarden, machte einen starken Einfluss auf England in den 1300er. Sie erregte starke Opposition, die zu viele zu Märtyrern.

John Hus in Böhmen und Savonarola in Italien führte starke Reformbewegungen in 1400 die Wiederbelebung brachte aber führte zu ihrer Martyrien. Hus wurde für seine makellose Reinheit des Lebens und kompromisslosen Eintreten für die Wahrheit in einer dekadenten Gesellschaft bekannt. Savonarola fastete, betete und predigte mit prophetischer Feuer, das Übel seiner Zeit konfrontiert, füllten die Kirchen, und brachte viel Ehrlichkeit in der bürgerlichen und geschäftlichen Lebens.

-Gutenburg Druckerpresse im Jahre 1456 erfunden hat die Schrift überall verfügbar. Dies half Funken der 1500er Reformation mit Führern wie

– Huldrych Zwingli in der Schweiz zunächst fordern die Freiheit des Gewissens, obwohl später leugnen dies für andere,

– Martin Luther in Deutschland verkünden Rechtfertigung allein durch den Glauben auf der höchsten Autorität der Schrift basiert, und

– Johannes Calvin in Genf betonte die großartige Souveränität und Gnade Gottes.

Radical-Reformer, wie Felix Manz die ersten Wiedertäufer Märtyrer wurden von einigen der Reformer in jenen Tagen des beheizten religiöser Konflikt getötet.

– John Knox furchtlos genannt Schottland zur Buße inmitten der intensiven politischen und religiösen Eifer der Zeit.

Revivals weiterhin ausbrechen während und nach der Reformation trotz und oft durch, Verfolgung verursacht.

 

Mittwoch, 13. August, 1727 – Herrnhut, Sachsen

Der Geist Gottes fiel auf 300 Flüchtlinge in Deutschland im Jahre 1727, vor allem Morvian Exilanten Asyl gegeben auf den Gütern des Nikolaus von Zinzendorf. Einer von ihnen schrieb, dass “die dreizehnte August 1727, einen Tag der Ausgießung des Heiligen Geistes war. Wir sahen die Hand Gottes und seine Wunder, und wir waren alle unter der Wolke unserer Väter mit ihren Geist getauft. Der Heilige Geist kam auf uns und in diesen Tagen große Zeichen und Wunder fand in unserer Mitte.Von dieser Zeit kaum ein Tag vergangen, aber das, was wir sahen seine allmächtige Wirken unter uns. “(Greenfield 1927:14).

Innerhalb von 25 Jahren schickten sie 100 Missionare, dann von 1782 hatten sie 175 Missionare in 27 Orten, und in ihre Faust 100 Jahre Missionen aus über 1.199 Menschen, darunter 459 Frauen, die alle durch rund um die Uhr ‘stündlich Fürbitten’ unterstützt gesendet . Sowohl John und Charles Wesley wurden durch ihr Zeugnis umgewandelt. Ihre englischen Missionar Zeitschrift, Zeitschrift Accounts, inspiriert William Carey. Er warf eine Kopie des Papiers, auf einem Tisch in einem Baptist Sitzung und sagte: “Sehen Sie, was die Herrnhuter getan haben! Können wir nicht ihrem Beispiel folgen und im Gehorsam gegenüber unserem himmlischen Meister gehen hinaus in die Welt, und verkündet das Evangelium den Heiden? “(Greenfield 1927:19).

 

Januar 1735 – New England, Amerika

Jonathan Edwards berichtete über eine Erweckungsbewegung, die in den Great Awakening entwickelt, wie es durch die Gemeinden von New England und den bahnbrechenden Siedlungen in Amerika zu verbreiten. Konvertiert zum Christentum erreichte 50.000 von insgesamt 250.000 Kolonisten. Anfang Januar 1735 eine ungewöhnlich starke Bewegung Gottes = s Geist brachte Belebung Northampton, die dann durch New England im Nordosten von Amerika zu verbreiten.

Und die Arbeit der Umwandlung wurde am in einer höchst erstaunliche Weise durchgeführt, und mehr und mehr erhöhte. Souls hat, wie es war, von Herden zu Jesus Christus zu kommen. … Diejenigen unter uns, die früher umgewandelt worden war, waren sehr belebt und erneuert mit frischen und außergewöhnlichen Einkommen der Geist Gottes, obwohl einige viel mehr als andere, nach dem Maß der Gabe Christi (Stacy 1842 1989:12 – 13).

 

Monday, 1. Januar, 1739 – London

1739 sah erstaunliche Ausweitung der Wiederbelebung in England. Am Abend des 1. Januar die Wesleys und George Whitefield mit 60 anderen, trafen sich in London für das Gebet und die Liebe Fest. Der Geist Gottes bewegt kraftvoll auf sie alle.John Wesley beschrieb es:

Über drei Uhr morgens, als wir weiterhin wurden im Gebet, kam die Kraft Gottes mächtig auf uns, so sehr, dass viele für Frohlocken rief, und viele fielen zu Boden.Sobald wir ein wenig von dieser Ehrfurcht und Staunen über die Anwesenheit seiner Majestät wurden gewonnen, brachen wir mit einer Stimme: “Wir loben dich, Gott, erkennen wir dich dem Herrn sein” (Idle 1986:55).

Dies London Pfingsten beigetragen kraftvoll Erweckung, welche verbreitete sich rasch. In Februar 1739 Whitefield begann zu predigen den Kingswood Bergarbeiter in den offenen Feldern in der Nähe von Bristol, weil viele Kirchen gegen ihn, wirft ihm und anderen Evangelikalen von> = Begeisterung. Im Februar etwa 200 besucht. Bis März 20.000 besucht. Whitefield eingeladen Wesley zu übernehmen und dann so im April Wesley widerwillig begann seine berühmten Open-Air-Predigt, die seit 50 Jahren fortgesetzt.

 

Donnerstag 8. August 1745 – Crossweeksung, Amerika

David Brainerd, Missionar zu den Indianern Nordamerikas von 1743 bis zu seinem Tod am 29. im Jahre 1747, erzählt der Erweckung ausbrechen unter den Indianern an Crossweeksung in August 1745. Bezüglich der 8. August 1745, schrieb er

die Kraft Gottes schien auf der Assembly ‘wie einem gewaltigen Wind “und mit einer erstaunlichen Energie trug alle, bevor es hinab. Ich stand erstaunt über den Einfluss, die das Publikum beschlagnahmt fast universell und konnte es nicht mehr treffend als die unwiderstehliche Kraft eines mächtigen torrent vergleichen … Fast alle Personen aller Altersgruppen wurden gebeugt mit Besorgnis zusammen und knappen konnte den Schock widerstehen erstaunliche Betrieb (Howard 1949:216-217).

Die “Great Awakening”, die ein Jahrzehnt zuvor begonnen hatte jetzt Indianer-Siedlungen mit charismatischen Ergüsse des Heiligen Geistes beeinflusst, wodurch sowohl Umsätze und erhebliche soziale Verbesserung.

Sonntag, 25. Dezember 1781 – Cornwall, England

Vierzig Jahre nach dem achtzehnten Jahrhundert evangelische Revivals begann das Feuer der Erweckung hatte in vielen Orten gestorben. Concerned Führer rief die Kirche, um zu beten. Diese Gebetstreffen enthalten Ergüsse des Geistes in Wiederbelebung. Am Weihnachtstag 1781 in St. Just Kirche in Cornwall, am 03.00 Fürsprecher erfüllt, zu singen und zu beten. Der Geist wurde auf sie gegossen und beteten sie durch, bis 09.00 Uhr und wieder zusammengeführt, dass Weihnachten Abend. Den ganzen Januar und Februar setzte sich die Bewegung. Von März 1782 wurden sie bis Mitternacht beten, wie der Heilige Geist auf sie bewegt. Die Kapelle, die George Whitefield Jahrzehnte zuvor in Tottenham Court Road, London gebaut hatte, musste auf Platz 5.000 Menschen, die größte Kirche in der Welt zu dieser Zeit vergrößert werden. Baptist Kirchen in North Hampton, Leicester, und den Midlands, beiseite regelmäßigen Nächte gewidmet Gebet für Erweckung.Methodisten und Anglikaner gesellte sich zu ihnen, und die Wiederbelebung Verbreitung.

 

Juni-Juli 1800 – Kentucky, USA

Presbyterian James McGready organisierten Camp Treffen in Kentucky, ein Bereich, den Spitznamen Rogues Harbour mit Flüchtlingen vor der Justiz einschließlich Mörder, Diebe Pferd, Wegelagerer und Fälscher besiedelt. Am letzten Tag des ersten Lagers Sitzung im Juni mit rund 450 Personen, gehalten ‘eine mächtige Ausgießung des [Gott = s] Spirit’ kam auf die Menschen “, und der Boden wurde bald mit der Erschlagenen bedeckt, ihre Schreie um Gnade durchbohrt den Himmel. = Am nächsten Camp Sitzung Ende Juli 1800 hielt eine enorme Menge von 8000 besucht, viele von bis zu 100 Meilen entfernt. McGready erinnerte sich:

Die Macht Gottes schien die ganze Versammlung zu schütteln. Gegen Ende der Predigt, entstand die Schreie der notleidenden fast so laut wie seine Stimme.Nachdem die Gemeinde entlassen wurde die Feierlichkeit erhöht, bis der größte Teil der Menge schien in der feierlichsten Weise engagiert. Niemand schien zu wollen, nach Hause gehen – Hunger und Schlaf schien niemand beeinflussen – ewige Dinge waren die große Sorge. Hier erwachen und Umwandeln Arbeit war es, in jedem Teil der Menge gefunden werden, und auch einige Dinge, die seltsam und wunderbar neu für mich (Christian History, Nr. 23, S. 25).

 

August 1801 – Cane Ridge, Amerika (Barton Stone)

Presbyterianischen Pfarrers Barton Stein, ähnliche Treffen im Jahre 1801 in seinem Bereich in Cane Ridge, Kentucky. Eine riesige Menschenmenge von rund 12.500 nahmen in über 125 Waggons. Damals Lexington, der größten Stadt in Kentucky, hatte weniger als 1.800 Einwohner. Presbyterianer, Methodisten und Baptisten Prediger und Schaltung Fahrern gebildet predigen Teams, sprechen gleichzeitig in verschiedenen Teilen der Campingplätze, alle mit dem Ziel für Konvertierungen. Methodist James Finley, schrieb:

Der Lärm war wie das Brüllen von Niagara. Das weite Meer der Menschen schien, als ob durch einen Sturm gerührt werden. … Auf einmal sah ich mindestensfünfhundert fegte in einem Augenblick, als ob eine Batterie von tausend Gewehren war über sie geöffnet wurde, und dann sofort gefolgt Schreie und Rufe, die sehr Himmel (Pratney 1994:104) mieten.

Die Rev. Moses Hoge beschrieb es:

Der unvorsichtige fall down, schreien, zittern, und nicht selten sind mit krampfhaften Zuckungen betroffen … Nichts, was Phantasie malen kann, kann einen stärkeren Eindruck auf den Geist zu machen, als eine jener Szenen. Sinners Herunterfallen auf jeder Hand, kreischend, stöhnend, weinend um Gnade erschüttert; Professoren beten, qualvollen, Ohnmacht, Herunterfallen in Not für die Sünder oder in Schwärmen der Freude! … Was die Arbeit im Allgemeinen kann es keine Frage sein, aber es ist von Gott. Das Thema ist es, zum größten Teil sind zutiefst für ihre Sünden verwundet und kann eine klare und rationale aufgrund ihrer Umwandlung (Christian History, Nr. 23, S. 26). Geben.

Diese Grenze Revivals wurde ein neuer Schwerpunkt in der amerikanischen Erweckungsbewegung. Dazu gehörten die “Sägespäne trail ‘down, um den Staub zu begleichen oder aufsaugen nassen Boden, über den Büßer zum” Altar “an der Front bewegt gelegt. Revival in den frühen neunzehnten Jahrhundert nicht nur die amerikanische Grenze belastet, sondern auch Städte und vor allem Hochschulen.Eine weit verbreitete Ergebnis in Amerika, wie in England, war die Bildung von Missionsgesellschaften zu trainieren und leiten die große Zahl der Konvertiten mit missionarischem Eifer gefüllt.

Mittwoch, 10. Oktober, 1821 – Adams, Amerika

Charles Finney hatte einen mächtigen Ermächtigung von Gott = s Geist in der Nacht von seiner Bekehrung am Mittwoch, 10. Oktober 1821. Verurteilt durch den Geist an diesem Morgen, er in den Wald Gott herauszugeben. In dieser Nacht wurde er mit dem Heiligen Geist erfüllt:

Ich erhielt einen mächtigen Taufe des Heiligen Geistes. Ohne jede Erwartung es, ohne jemals den Gedanken in meinem Kopf, dass es so etwas für mich, ohne Erinnerung an das, was jemals zu hören von einer Person in der Welt erwähnt, kam der Heilige Geist auf mich in einer Weise, die schien über mich ergehen lassen, Körper und Seele. Ich konnte fühlen, den Eindruck, wie eine Welle von Strom, geht mir durch und durch. Tatsächlich schien es in Wellen von Flüssigkeit Liebe kommen, denn ich konnte nicht ausdrücken in sonstiger Weise. Es schien wie der Atem Gottes. Ich kann deutlich daran erinnern, dass es mir fächern, wie immense Flügel schien.

Keine Worte können ausdrücken die wunderbare Liebe, die im Ausland in mein Herz zu verbreiten. Ich weinte laut vor Freude und Liebe. Ich habe buchstäblich brüllte das Unsagbare Überlauf meines Herzens. Diese Wellen überkam mich und über mich und über mich, einer nach dem anderen, bis ich erinnere mich, schreit: “Ich werde sterben, wenn diese Wellen über mir passieren fortzusetzen. ‘ Ich sagte: “Herr, ich kann es nicht ertragen nicht mehr,” aber ich hatte keine Angst vor dem Tod (Wessel 1977:20-22).

Finney weiterhin für den Rest seines Lebens in Evangelisation und Erweckung. Er gründete und lehrte Theologie am Oberlin College, die Koedukation Pionier und schrieb sowohl Schwarzen und Weißen. Seine Vorlesungen über Revival wurden viel gelesen und dazu beigetragen, Erweckung in Amerika und England schüren.

Sonntag, 22. Mai, 1859 – Natal, Südafrika

Revival begann unter den Zulu und Bantu Stämme in Südafrika, bevor sie über verschüttete in der niederländisch-reformierten Kirche. Tribal Menschen in großer Zahl auf die Frontier Mission Stationen gesammelt und dann nahm Wiederbelebung, afrikanischen Stil, in ihre Dörfer. Am Sonntag Abend, den 22. Mai, fiel der Geist Gottes auf eine Dienststelle der Zulus in Natal so mächtig, dass sie die ganze Nacht gebetet. Nachrichten verbreiten sich schnell. Diese Erweckung unter den Zulus von Natal an der Ostküste gezündet Missionen und Stammes-Kirchen. Es erzeugt tiefe Überzeugung von Sünde, Reue und sofortige Konvertierungen, außergewöhnliche beten und kräftig Evangelisation.

Im April 1860 gelegen an einer kombinierten Missionen Konferenz von über 370 Staats-und Regierungschefs der niederländisch-reformierten, methodistischen und presbyterianischen Führer Treffen in Worcester, Südafrika, diskutierten sie Revival.Andrew Murray Sr., zu Tränen gerührt, musste aufhören zu sprechen. Sein Sohn, Andrew Murray Jr., nun auch durch seine Bücher bekannt, im Gebet führte so mächtig, dass viele das sah zu Beginn der Erweckung in diesen Kirchen.

Oktober 1871 – New York

DL Moody, im Jahre 1855 umgesetzt, führte leistungsstarke Evangelisationen in Amerika und England. Bei einem Besuch in New York im Jahre 1871, um Mittel für Kirchen und Waisenhäuser in der Chicago Feuer zerstört Oktober in diesem Jahr, in dem sein Haus, Kirche Heiligtum und die YMCA Gebäude wurden zerstört zu erhöhen, hatte er eine tiefe Begegnung mit Gott. Er schrieb:

Ich weinte die ganze Zeit mir Gott mit seinem Geist füllen würde. Nun, eines Tages in der Stadt New York – oh, was für ein Tag! – Ich kann es nicht beschreiben, ich selten beziehen sich auf ihn, es ist fast zu heilig, um eine Erfahrung zu nennen.Paul hatte ein Erlebnis, von dem er nie seit vierzehn Jahren sprach. Ich kann nur sagen, dass Gott selbst offenbarte mir, und ich hatte so eine Erfahrung seiner Liebe, dass ich ihn bitten, seine Hand bleiben musste. Ich ging zur Predigt wieder.Die Predigten waren nicht anders, ich brachte keine neuen Wahrheiten, und doch hunderte umgewandelt wurden. Ich würde nicht wieder aufgestellt werden, wo ich vor diesem gesegneten Erlebnis für die ganze Welt war – es wäre wie ein Sandkorn auf der Waage (Moody 1900:149) sein.

Montag, 31. Oktober 1904 – Loughor, Wales

Evan Roberts, ein Student an der Methodist Academy in Wales, erlebt eine tiefe Werk des Heiligen Geistes in den Sitzungen am Donnerstag, 29. September 1904, nach Presbyterian Evangelist Seth Joshua schloss die Sitzung 07.00 schreit in Welsh, Herr … beugen uns. ‘ Roberts gequält im Gebet an diesem Tag. Er schrieb: “Es war der Geist, der den Schwerpunkt für mich setzen auf> Beugen uns. => Das ist, was Sie brauchen = sagte der Geist zu mir. Und als ich ging, betete ich, Herr, zu biegen mir. “(Evans 1969:70).

Angetrieben durch den Geist kehrte er nach Hause von der Hochschule auf eine Woche Urlaub und sprach nächtlichen vom 31. Oktober bis zunehmende Massen wie der Geist bewegt kraftvoll auf sie. Aus der folgenden Woche führte er Teams auf Einladung über South Wales, Funken der Welsh Revival, die 70.000 Konvertierungen in drei Monaten und 100.000 innerhalb eines Jahres gemeldet.Kriminalität und Abtreibungen gesunken. Viele Tavernen in Konkurs ging. Einige Richter hatten keine Fälle, um zu versuchen, und die Polizei hatte so wenig in vielen Städten auf der Höhe der Wiederbelebung, dass sie die Sitzungen während noch im Dienst besucht tun.

 

Friday der 30. Juni 1905 – Mukti, Indien

Pandita Ramabai etabliert eine Verbindung für Witwen und Waisenmädchen bei schweren Hungersnot in ihrem Gebiet in der Nähe Pune (Poona) südlich von Bombay, und nannte es Mukti (Salvation). Vor 1901 hatte sie 2.000 Mädchen und Frauen und von Januar 1905 begann sie Unterricht über die Notwendigkeit der Wiederbelebung. Bald über 500 Personen trafen sich zweimal täglich für Erweckung beten, vor allem Frauen und Mädchen. Dreißig ihrer Damen dienten in Teams in den Dörfern. Sie trafen sich täglich für die Stiftung des Heiligen Geistes zu beten. Am Donnerstag, 29. Juni der Geist bewegt stark auf vielen der Mädchen.Am Freitag, 30. Juni, während Ramabai lehrte von John 8, fiel der Heilige Geist auf sie alle plötzlich mit großer Kraft. Jeder dort fing an zu weinen und beten laut, schreien, mit dem Heiligen Geist und mit Feuer taufen. Revival verbreiten durch ihre Mission, und in vielen umliegenden Gebiete. Regelschule Aktivitäten wich Beichte, Buße, und große Freude mit viel Lob und Tanz. Viele redeten in Zungen (einschließlich Englisch!), Und waren mit Eifer für Evangelisation und soziale Betreuung gefüllt.

 

Samstag, 14. April, 1906 – Azusa Street, Los Angeles

Charles Paraham führte eine Bibelschule in Topeka, Kansas, wo Am 1. Januar 1901 Agnes Ozman in Zungen sprechen, wenn Parham legten die Hände auf sie und betete für sie, im Geist getauft werden. In diesem Monat Parham und die Hälfte der 34 Schüler auch in Zungen gesprochen. Diese Ereignisse haben zu Beginn der Pfingstbewegung in Amerika gesehen worden.

William Seymour, ein Neger Heiligkeit besuchte Pastor Parham die kurzfristig Bible School in Houston, Texas Anfang 1906 dann bis April war der Führer des apostolischen Glaubens Mission in der Azusa Street, Los Angeles. Treffen begann dort am Ostersamstag, den 14. April 1906. Über 100 nahmen einschließlich Schwarzen und Weißen. Der Geist Gottes bewegt kraftvoll auf das kleine Mission.Viele wurden in den Geist mit dem Sprechen in Zungen, Weissagungen und Heilungen getauft. Die Zentrifugalkraft Einfluss gezündet pentecostal Mission quer durch Amerika und Übersee.

 

Sunday am 4. Juli 1909 – Valparaiso, Chile

Minnie Abrams, der bei Mukti in Indien arbeitete während der 1905er Revival gibt, schickte einen Bericht über sie im Jahre 1907 zu Willis Hoover, Methodist Missionar in Chile. Die Methodisten begannen beten für Erweckung, die ihnen am Sonntag, 4. Juli platzen, was in ihrer Kirche wächst von 300 bis 1000 in zwei Monaten. Willis Hoover schrieb:

Samstagabend war eine ganze Nacht des Gebets, in dem vier junge Damen vergeblich (drei von ihnen waren in den Chor) zu Boden fiel unter der Kraft des Heiligen Geistes. … Von diesem Zeitpunkt an die Atmosphäre schien durch den Heiligen Geist erhoben, und die Menschen auf den Boden gefallen, oder brach in anderen Zungen, oder singen im Geist, in einer Weise unmöglich in ihrem natürlichen Zustand. (Frodsham 1946:177-178).

 

1914 – Belgisch-Kongo, Afrika

Afrika hat viele mächtige Revivals, wie die belgische Kongo Ausgießung mit CT Studd 1914 gesehen. “Der ganze Ort war, als ob mit einem elektrischen Strom aufgeladen. Männer fielen, springen, lachen, weinen, singen, zu bekennen und einige Schütteln furchtbar “, berichtete er. “Als ich im Gebet führte der Geist kam in mächtige Kraft fegt die Gemeinde. Mein ganzer Körper zitterte mit der Macht. Wir sahen ein wunderbarer Anblick, Menschen buchstäblich gefüllt und getrunken mit dem Geist “(WEC 1954:12-15).

 

Montag 7. März, 1921 – Lowestoft, England

Douglas Brown, ein Baptist Minister in South London, sah Umwandlungen in seiner Kirche jeden Sonntag für 15 Jahre bis 1921. Er fühlte sich der Herr ihn verurteilen zu verlassen seine Pfarrstelle für evangelistische Mission arbeiten. Obwohl nur ungern, er schließlich kapitulierte. “Dann geschah etwas”, schrieb er. “Ich befand mich in der liebevollen Umarmung der Christus für immer und ewig, und alle Kraft und Freude und Seligkeit gerollt wie eine Sintflut” (Griffin 1992:17-18). Nach dem 2. Begegnung bin, begann er über den ambulanten Missionen beginnt am 7. März in Lowestroft, East Anglia, mit sofortiger Reaktionen in großen Stückzahlen. Innerhalb von achtzehn Monaten sprach er über 1700 Sitzungen, und sah in seine Wiederbelebung evangelistischen Dienst in England.

 

1949 – Hebriden-Inseln, Schottland

Nach dem Trauma des Zweiten Weltkriegs erreichte geistige Leben einen Tiefstand in den schottischen Hebriden. Die Führer der Kirche betete für Wiederbelebung. Sie luden Evangelist Duncan Campbell zu den Sitzungen führen. Am Ende seiner ersten Sitzung in der presbyterianischen Kirche in Barvas der Reise müde Prediger wurde eingeladen, eine ganze Nacht Gebet Treffen kommen! Dreißig Menschen versammelten sich zum Gebet in einer nahe gelegenen Hütte. Duncan Campbell beschrieb es:

Gott begann sich zu bewegen, die Himmel öffneten, waren wir dort auf unseren Gesichtern vor Gott. Drei Uhr morgens kam, und Gott fegte in. Über ein Dutzend Männer und Frauen auf dem Boden lag hingestreckt, sprachlos. Etwas war geschehen, und wir wussten, dass die Kräfte der Dunkelheit wollten zurück gefahren werden, und die Menschen würden geliefert werden. Wir verließen die Hütte um 3 Uhr für Männer und Frauen, die Gott zu entdecken. Ich ging entlang einer Landstraße und fand drei Männer auf ihren Gesichtern, schreien zu Gott um Gnade. Es war ein Licht in jedem Haus, schien niemand zu schlafen (Whittaker 1984:159) denken.

Seine Mission dauerte fünf Wochen. Services hat am frühen Morgen bis spät in die Nacht und in den frühen Morgenstunden. Die Wiederbelebung breitete sich auf den benachbarten Gemeinden von Barvas mit ähnlichen Szenen der Buße, Gebet und Predigt. Menschen spürte die gewaltige Gegenwart Gottes überall.

 

SONNTAG, 26. September, 1965 – Soe, Timor

Revival brach in beispiellose Macht in Timor im Jahr 1965. Diese Wiederbelebung in den unsicheren Tagen nach dem versuchten Militärputsch am 30. September 1965 in Indonesien verbreitet. Vier Tage zuvor eine Heimsuchung von Gott hatte in Soe, eine Bergstadt etwa 5.000 Menschen in Timor in der Reformierten Kirche am Sonntag, 26. September begonnen. In dieser Nacht, wie an Pfingsten, gehört, wie Leute den Klang eines Tornados Wind und Flammen auf dem Kirchengebäude aufgefordert Polizei zur Verrechnung der Feueralarm um Freiwillige Feuerwehr zu rufen, aber die Kirche brannte nicht. Viele wurden umgewandelt in dieser Nacht, viele gefüllt mit dem Geist einschließlich Zungenreden, einige mit in Englisch, die nicht wissen, Englisch. Um Mitternacht Teams von Laien organisiert worden war, um das Evangelium zu verbreiten beginnen am nächsten Tag. Schließlich wurden etwa 90 evangelistischen Teams gebildet, die funktionierte kraftvoll mit geistlichen Gaben.

Die reformierte Kirche Pfarrhaus auf Timor aufgezeichnet 80.000 Umbauten ab dem ersten Jahr der Wiederbelebung gibt, wobei die Hälfte der ehemaligen Kommunisten. Sie bestätigt, dass 15.000 Menschen dauerhaft in diesem Jahr wurden geheilt (Koch 1970).

 

DIENSTAG, 3. Februar, 1970 – Asbury College, Wilmore, Kentucky

Eine Wiederbelebung brach in Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky, am Dienstag, 3. Februar 1970. Gottes Geist bewegt auf den regulären Morgen Kapelle beginnen bei 10 o = clock. Studenten kam weinend nach vorne, um in Reue zu knien. Andere gaben Zeugnis einschließlich Sündenbekenntnis. Sie beteten und beteten spontan.Das Personal abgesagt Vorträge für den Tag als das Auditorium mit über 1.000 Menschen gefüllt. Wenige links für die Mahlzeiten. Um Mitternacht über 500 immer noch beten und Anbetung. Mehrere hundert verpflichtet ihr Leben Christus an diesem Tag. Von 6.00 am nächsten Morgen 75 Schüler wurden noch beten in der Halle, und durch den Mittwoch ist es wieder so gefüllt Vorträge wurden wieder für den Tag abgesagt. Die Zeit wurde mit betenden, Gesang, Geständnisse und Zeugenaussagen gefüllt. Fast die Hälfte der Studierenden von 1000 formierten Teams Zeuge über die Wiederbelebung. In der ersten Woche nach der Wiederbelebung begann Teams von Studierenden besucht 16 Staaten auf Einladung und sah mehrere tausend Konvertierungen durch ihre Zeugen (Coleman 1970).

 

Sonntag, 23. August, 1970 – Solomon Islands

Muri Thompson, ein Maori-Evangelist aus Neuseeland, besuchte die Salomonen im Juli und August 1970, wo die Kirche bereits bedeutende Erneuerung erlebt hatte und wurde für Erweckung beten. Während der letzten zwei Wochen dieser Sitzungen der Heilige Geist bewegt noch stärker in den Sitzungen. Am Sonntagmorgen, 23. August auf der Insel Malaita Muri predigte kraftvoll, dann sagte er: “Wenn jemand nach vorne kommen will …” und sofort die ganze Gemeinde von 600 drängte vorwärts in Reue. Viele sahen Visionen von Gott, von Jesus am Kreuz oder auf seinem Thron, von Engeln oder von hellem Licht. Einige sprachen in Zungen. Einige von ihnen wurden geheilt. Die meisten kamen in eine neue Erfahrung von Gott mit einem tiefen Bewusstsein für die Notwendigkeit von Demut und sensibel für den Heiligen Geist.

Der folgende Donnerstag 27. August, an einem anderen Dorf auf Malaita wenn die 2.000 Menschen im Gebet gebeugt, hörte sie eine wachsende Sound. “Ich blickte durch eine Öffnung in dem Blatt Dach in den Himmel, von wo das Geräusch schien zu kommen. Es wuchs zu brüllen – dann kam es mir: das ist sicherlich der Heilige Geist kommen wie ein mächtiger Wind rauschen. Ich rief die Menschen zu erkennen, dass Gott, der Heilige Geist im Begriff war, auf sie hinab “(Griffiths 1997:175). Viele Menschen in dieser Auswirkungen des Geistes beschäftigt hat ähnliche Revivals in der gesamten pazifischen (Waugh 1998:69-75).

 

Mittwoch, 14. März 1979 – Elcho Island, Australien

Djiniyini Gondarra, Vereinigende Kirche Minister in der Siedlung Galiwin = ku auf Elcho Island zurückgekehrt aus dem Urlaub am späten Nachmittag Missionary Aviation Fellowship Flug am 14. März, 1979. Aboriginal Christen dort waren ernsthaft beten, und traf in dieser Nacht in seinem Haus für einen anderen Gebetstreffen. Er berichtet,

Plötzlich begann zu fühlen, Gott = s Geist bewegt sich in unsere Herzen und die ganze Form unser Gebet plötzlich geändert und jeder fing an, im Geist und in Harmonie zu beten. Und es war ein großer Lärm los in den Raum, und wir begannen, einander zu, was los war fragen. Einige von uns sagen, dass Gott uns besucht und jetzt wieder aufgebaut sein Reich unter seinen Leuten, die so lange schon von der Macht des Bösen gebunden … Im selben Abend das Wort genauso wie die Flammen des Feuers zu verbreiten und erreichte die ganze Gemeinde in Galiwin = ku. Gelung [seine Frau] und ich konnte = t Schlaf überhaupt jener Nacht, weil die Menschen gerade erst wurden für den Dienst, womit sich die Kranken, für gebetet werden, für die Heilung. Andere kamen, um ihre Probleme zu bringen.Selbst ein Mann und Frau kam, um ihre Ehe Problem zu bringen, so der Herr berührte sie und heilte ihre Ehe (Gondarra 1991).

Teams aus Elcho Island nahm Wiederbelebung Bewegungen während Arnhem Land, Northern Territory und Western Australia. Am Warburton, dann als mit einer der höchsten Kriminalitätsraten Aborigines in Australien, die Ergebnisse zu betrachten

 

Sonntag, 15. Mai 1980 – Anaheim, Amerika

John Wimber führte die evangelische Vineyard Fellowship in Anaheim von 1977.Am Muttertag, 15. Mai 1980 an der Abendgottesdienst ein junger Mann sprach.

In dieser Nacht, nachdem er sein Zeugnis gab, fragte Lonnie den Heiligen Geist zu kommen und die Auswirkungen waren unglaublich. Der Geist Gottes buchstäblich klopfte Menschen auf den Boden und schüttelte sie albern. Viele Menschen redeten in Zungen, oder prophezeit hatte Visionen. Dann in den nächsten paar Monaten kamen Hunderte von Menschen zu Christus als das Ergebnis des Zeugen der Personen, die in dieser Nacht berührt wurden, und in der Folge. Die Kirche sah etwa 1.700 bis Christus in einem Zeitraum von etwa drei Monaten umgesetzt. Dies entwickelte sich zu einer Reihe von Möglichkeiten, beginnend im Jahr 1980, dem Minister der ganzen Welt. So ist die Vineyard Erneuerung Ministerium und der Vineyard Bewegung geboren wurden (Vineyard Reflections, Mai / Juni 1994).

 

Thursday, 14. June – Brugam, Papua-Neuguinea

In den Niederungen der nördlichen Sepik Papua-Neuguinea Wiederbelebung berührte die Südsee Evangelischen Kirchen zu Ostern 1984 von Solomon Island Pastoren ausgelöst. Es wurde von Reue, Beichte, Weinen und großer Freude aus.Gestohlene Güter zurückgegeben wurden oder ersetzt wird, und Unrecht zu Recht gemacht. Australischen Missionars Ray Overend Bericht beinhaltet Kommentar auf Wiederbelebung Anfang an Brugam, die Kirche Sitz, am 14. Juni:

Über 200 Menschen drängte vorwärts. Viele fielen auf ihr Angesicht flach auf dem Boden schluchzte laut. Einige zitterten – als geistige Kämpfe wüteten innerhalb. Es war ziemlich wenig Lärm … Die geistigen Schlachten und Schreie der Reue dauerte eine lange Zeit. Dann, eines nach dem anderen in einem Raum von etwa drei Minuten alle standen auf, sangen spontan, wie sie stieg. Sie waren frei. Die Schlacht war gewonnen. Satan war gebunden. Sie hatten ihre Christus-König! Ihre Gesichter schaute in den Himmel, als sie sang. Sie waren wie die Gesichter von Engeln. Der Gesang war wie der Gesang des Himmels. Ohrenbetäubend, aber süß und andächtig (Overend 1986:36-37).

Das gesamte Curriculum und Ansatz an der Bibelschule für den Bereich geändert.Anstatt traditionelle Klassen und Kurse, würden Lehrer mit der Schule den ganzen Tag arbeiten von Gebetszeiten in den frühen Morgenstunden durch die Lehre der Bibel gefolgt von Diskussionen und Austausch Male während des Tages bis zum Abend Gottesdienst und Dienst. Die Schule wurde eine Gemeinschaft, suche den Herrn zusammen. Christen gelernt, Zeuge und Diener in geistlichen Gaben, beten und die Reaktion auf die Führung des Geistes. Dazu gehörten Unterscheidung der Geister, Befreiung, Worte der Erkenntnis, Zungen, Prophetie, Heilung und Kühnheit in der Evangelisation.

 

Donnerstag 4. August 1988 – Kambaidam, Papua-Neuguinea

Johan van Bruggen, ein Missionar des Lutherischen Evangelist Training Centre in der Nähe Kambaidam Kainantu im östlichen Hochland von Papua-Neuguinea, berichtete in seinem Rundschreiben über die Anfänge der Erweckung, die eine leistungsfähige Evangelisation, Befreiung, wo ganze Dörfer Fetische öffentlich verbrannt und Heilungen und produziert Wunder:

Was waren die Höhepunkte des Jahres 1988? Kein Zweifel, die tatsächlichen Ausgießung des Heiligen Geistes muss zuerst kommen. Es geschah am 4. August, wenn der Geist fiel auf eine Gruppe von Studenten und Mitarbeitern, mit Einzelpersonen erhalten die Taufe des Heiligen Geistes bei mehreren Gelegenheiten später im Jahr. Die Schule hat nie das gleiche wieder. Als direkte Folge fiel uns ein Verlangen nach Heiligkeit, ein Hunger nach Gott = s Wort, das unersättlich war bis bis zum Ende des Schuljahres, und auch einen enormen Drang zu gehen und Zeuge. Immer, wenn sie eine Chance hatten viele unserer Schüler waren in den Dörfern mit Studien und bis Sonntag Dienstleistungen führen.Prayer Leben vertieft, und während Gottesdiensten wir wirklich das Gefühl uns auf heiligem Boden zu sein. … Wir haben fast sprachlos von dem, was Gott tut jetzt durch unsere Studenten. Wir wissen, dass wir bisher geführt haben, auf und sind nun an der Schwelle zu einer Wiederbelebung (Waugh 1998:96).

 

1988 – Madruga, Kuba

Im Jahr 1988 brach Erweckung in einer kleinen Kirche in Madruga, Kuba. “Die Leute würden anfangen zu weinen, wenn sie in die Kirche trat,” sagte ihr Pastor. Mehr als 60 Kirchen erlebten eine ähnliche Bewegung des Geistes unter den 10 Millionen Menschen von Kuba. Die Wiederbelebung produziert mehr als 2.400 Hauskirchen.Obwohl offenen Evangelisation noch verboten ist, wurden die Jugendlichen Beitritt Kinder und Erwachsene, kühn Zeuge in Parks, Stränden und anderen öffentlichen Orten, unabhängig von der Gefahr. Es gibt eine “heilige und glorreiche Unruhe” unter den Gläubigen, sagte ein Pfarrer. “Die einst defensive Stimmung und Haltung der Kirche hat sich zu einer Offensive eine geworden, und Christen der Vision> Kuba Para Cristo verpflichtet = -! Kuba für Christus” (Open Doors, Australian Report, September 1993).

 

1989 – Henan und Anhul, China

Die verfolgte Kirche in China lebt in ständiger Erneuerung. Dies ist lediglich ein Beispiel Konto.

Im Jahr 1989 besuchte Henan Prediger Nord Anhul Provinz und fand mehrere tausend Gläubige in der Obhut eines älteren Pastor aus Shanghai. Bei ihrem ersten Treffen mit 1.000 Nacht derzeit 30 wurden in den eisigen Winter getauft. Die erste getauft war eine Dame, die Krämpfe hatte, wenn sie ins Wasser ging. Sie wurde von diesem und anderen Krankheiten geheilt, und fand das Wasser warm. Ein 12 Jahre alter Junge taubstumm getauft wurde und sprach: “Mutter, Vater, das Wasser nicht kalt ist -. Das Wasser ist nicht kalt” Eine gealterte Dame fast 90, nach einem Unfall in ihrem 20s deaktiviert ist, wurde vollständig in die geheilt Wasser. Mit dem dritten und vierten Nächte über 1.000 wurden getauft. Ein junger Evangelist, Enchuan, 20 Jahre alt im Jahr 1990, hatte sich an die Spitze evangelistischen Teams, seit er 17 war. Er sagte: “Wenn die Gemeinde erste schickte uns aus, um das Evangelium zu predigen, nach zwei bis drei Monaten dienstbare wir in der Regel sah 20-30 Konvertiten. Aber jetzt ist es nicht 20. Es ist 200, 300, und oft 600 oder mehr umgewandelt werden “(Balcombe 1991).

Dennis Balcombe berichtet in einem Newsletter am 27. August 1994 “In diesem Jahr hat die größte Erweckung in der chinesischen Geschichte. Einige Provinzen haben über 100.000 Umwandlungen in der ersten Hälfte dieses Jahres gesehen.

 

1992 – Buenos Aires, Argentinien (Claudio Friedzon)

In den 1980er Jahren drehte Carlos Annacondia, ein Geschäftsmann Evangelist, gewann Tausende zum Herrn in Masse Kreuzzüge durch Zeichen und Wunder, Heilungen (einschließlich Füllung der Zähne) und Befreiungen begleitet. Kirchen wuchs dramatisch.

Andere Pfarrer / Evangelisten wie Omar Cabrera und Hector Giminez gewann Hunderttausende an den Herrn. Alle von ihnen haben mächtige Ministerien in der Evangelisation mit vielen Zeichen und Wunder, Heilungen und Wunder. Omar und Marfa Cabrera entdeckt die Kraft des Gebetes für die Erlösung, und jetzt führen eine Kirche Bewegung von mehr als 90.000 in 120 Städten. Hector Giminez, ehemals drogenabhängige Verbrecher, führen eine Kirche, die bis 1000 in einem Jahr gewachsen und hat heute über 120.000.

Claudio Freidzon, Gründer von Buenos Aires eine Kirche, die bis 4000 Menschen in fünf Jahren wuchs weiterhin mächtige Kreuzzüge in eine weitere Welle der Erweckung seit 1992 führen. Der Durchbruch kam für ihn und seine Frau Betty nach sieben Jahren des Kampfes als Pastoren mit einer Gemeinde von sieben in einem baufälligen Gebäude. Er berichtet:

Manchmal Pfarrer Freunde kamen zu Besuch und würde mich finden allein in der Sitzung. Ich fühlte mich wie zu sterben: Ich wünschte, ich könnte verschwinden.Früher habe ich unter den leeren Bänken gehen und der Teufel lachte und sprang um mich herum und flüsterte mir ins Ohr: “Du bist nicht gut, du wirst nie vorankommen, es wird immer so sein.”

Und leider habe ich ihm geglaubt. Eines Tages dachte ich: “Das ist nichts für mich.Ich werde aufgeben, die Pfarrstelle. Ich werde mein Ingenieurstudium wieder und hole mir einen Job. “Aber tief in mir wusste, dass das nicht Gottes Plan.

Ich ging hin und sah meine Superintendent für die Zwecke der Übergabe in mein Beglaubigungsschreiben. Aber bevor ich ihm sagen konnte, sagte er: “Claudio, ich habe dir etwas zu sagen. Gott hat etwas zu sagen. Er hat etwas Wunderbares für Sie. Sie sehen es nicht, aber Gott wird dich stark zu nutzen. ‘ … Er fuhr fort: “Sehen Sie, ich in einer sehr prekären Haus gestartet und hatte keine Hilfe von niemandem.Manchmal hatte ich nichts zu essen, und ich litt sehr. Aber wir gebetet und Gott sorgte für jeden Tag und wir fühlten uns dankbar. Ich wusste, dass wir Gottes Willen tun. Und wenn ich an dich denke, Claudio, ich weiß, du gehst, nützlich zu sein für Gott und dass Sie sich innerhalb seines Willens. Ich weiß nicht, was Ihre Probleme sind, aber halten Sie auf. By the way, was bringt Sie heute hier? ”

Ich legte meine Anmeldeinformationen zurück in meine Tasche und sagte: “Na ja …, nichts Besonderes, ich dachte, ich würde einfach kommen und teilen einen Moment mit dir.” Es gab nichts, was ich sagen konnte. Wenn ich nach Hause kam Betty weinte, und ich sagte: “Betty, wir gehen weiter.” Ich umarmte sie fest und wir fingen wieder von vorne (Waugh 1998 106).

 

Sonntag, 2. Mai 1993, Brisbane, Australien (Neil Miers)

Pastor Neil Miers predigte in Brisbane Christian Outreach Center am Sonntagabend 2. Mai. Jahr 1993. Darren Trinder, Redakteur ihrer Zeitschrift A New Way of Living (jetzt Outreach), berichtete:

Einige gestaffelt betrunken, andere hatten Gelächter, andere lagen hingestreckt auf dem Boden, immer noch mehr auf den Knien, während andere sich die Hände in einem improvisierten Tanz. Andere, obwohl zeigt keine körperlichen Anzeichen, lobte den Herrn sowieso, zur gleichen Zeit mit dem Versuch, es zu nehmen all in. Die Menschen, die noch nie gebetet hatte öffentlich für andere bewegt unter der Menge und legten die Hände an die Anwesenden.

“Als wir zum ersten Mal sah es in Neuseeland Anfang April waren wir skeptisch”, sagte Nance Miers, Ehefrau von Christian Outreach Centre International Präsident, Pastor Neil Miers. “I = ve den Heiligen Geist bewegen wie diese hier und da über die Jahre gesehen. Aber diesmal war es anders. In der Vergangenheit schien es ein paar Personen betroffen gewesen, aber dieses Mal war es ein Corporate Sache. ”

Neil Miers selbst war physisch betroffen sind, zusammen mit einigen anderen Pastoren, früh in diesem Heiligen Geist Phänomen. Später war er für die Reihe der Ereignisse objektiv. “Es begann in Neuseeland und dann brach in New Guinea, und jetzt ist es hier. Wenn ich den Heiligen Geist wissen, wird es brechen auf der ganzen Welt – überall dort, wo die Menschen wirklich suchen Revival. Für den Moment ist das, was Gott sagt, zu tun, und wir tun es. Es ist so einfach. ”

Doch trotz der informellen Natur der Ereignisse, Pastor Miers, die Annahme seiner Rolle Schäfer, war darauf bedacht, die Situation zu überwachen. “Es gibt einige, die über Bord gehen mit ihm, genau wie wenn jemand auf irdische Wein betrunken für die erste Zeit. Das nächste Mal passiert es, sie werden verstehen, es ein wenig besser “(Waugh 1998 110-111).

Innerhalb von zwei Wochen diese Ausgießung des Heiligen Geistes berührt COC Kirchen in Australien, von Townsville nach Perth. Die Menschen waren überwältigt.Viele fanden Release, Heilung und Salbung unter Gelächter, Tränen, Schütteln oder Stille. Viele sahen Visionen. Einige hatten mit offenen Augen Visionen wie sehen die Herrlichkeit Gottes oder Engel erscheinen in dem Gebäude. Viele waren “betrunken im Geist ‘für Tage oder Wochen.

Das Ergebnis? Die Kirchen erlebt gesalbt Evangelisation und Mission. Die Bewegung hat jetzt über 200 Zentren in Australien und mehr als 450 Zentren in Übersee. Es verfügt über leistungsfähige Kreuzzüge in vielen Ländern, internationalen “Global Care” Erleichterung Einsätze, internationale kirchliche Ministerium Ausbildungsinstitute, Bildung von der Vorschule bis zur tertiären einschließlich Christian Heritage College bietet Abschlüsse in Bildung, Kunst, Wirtschaft und auch im Dienst durch die Brisbane COC School of Ministerien und bietet regelmäßige Teams in Mission, Evangelisation und Seelsorge beteiligt.

 

November 1993 Boston, Amerika (Mona Johanian)

Im November 1993 Wiederbelebung des 450 Mitglied Christian Teaching and Worship Center (CTWC) in Woburn berührt, führte Boston von Mona Johnian und ihr Mann Paul. Revival brach in ihre Kirche, nachdem sie Erweckungsversammlungen durch Rodney Howard-Browne in Jekyll Island Georgia führte im November 1993 besucht. Richard Riss gemeldet:

Anfangs war Mona nicht durch die verschiedenen Phänomene, bemerkte sie dort beeindruckt, aber sie war überrascht, dass ihre eigenen Pfarrer, Bill Ligon von Brunswick, Georgia, auf den Boden fiel, als Rodney Howard-Browne legte seine Hände auf ihn. “Bill ist der Inbegriff von Würde, ein Mann völlig unter Kontrolle”, sagte sie. Das erste Kapitel ihres Buches beschreibt ein Treffen in ihrer Kirche, in der Wiederbelebung brach während Bill Ligon war dort als Gast Minister. Aus der Johnians ‘Kirche, die Wiederbelebung zu anderen Kirchen, darunter Bad Baptist Church of Bath, Maine, von Greg Foster Pastor zu verbreiten.

In einem Video mit dem Titel Revival, produziert in seiner Kirche im August 1994 sagte Paul Johnian: “Wir können nicht abstreiten, das Zeugnis der Kirche. Was … hier stattfindet ist kein Zufall. Es ist nicht der Mensch geboren. Es ist durch den Geist Gottes. … Die letzte Woche im Oktober 1993 ging Mona und ich bis Georgia.Wir gehören zu einer Gemeinschaft der charismatische und Christian Ministries International, und wir gingen dort unten für die jährliche Konferenz. Und Hände waren auf uns gelegt. Und wir waren gesalbt. Und ich werde einfach ganz ehrlich zu sein mit Ihnen. Was ich dort erlebte ich am Anfang gar nicht verstehen. Ich folgerte, dass das, was stattfindet, war nicht von Gott … da war zu viel Verwirrung…. Ich sah etwas, dass ich nicht mit meinem Verständnis könnte endlich zu begreifen. Und es war nur, wenn ich die Schrift gesucht und bat Gott, mir zu zeigen, und die Wahrheit zu mir zeigen, dass ich sah, dass das, was stattfindet, in den Leib Christi war eine souveräne Bewegung des Allmächtigen. Und ich für meinen Teil, wollte mich demütigen und ein Teil des Souveräns Umzug des Allmächtigen. Und ich kam zurück. Ich wusste wirklich nicht spüren jede Veränderung in mir. Aber ich kam zurück, nur zu glauben, Gott, dass er im Begriff war zu tun, etwas anderes in unserer Gemeinde (Riß 1996, 31).

Das ist jetzt in verschiedenen Formen in Tausende von Kirchen durch diesen Strom Erwachen berührt passiert.

 

Donnerstag, 20. Januar, 1994, Toronto, Kanada (John Arnott)

John Arnott, Hauptpastor an der Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship erzählte, wie der “Toronto-Segen” – das nennen sie des Vaters Segen – begann:

Im Oktober 1992 begann Carol und ich geben unsere ganze Vormittage zum Herrn, Zeit anzubeten, zu lesen, zu beten und mit ihm zusammen. Für ein Jahr und eine Hälfte taten wir das, und wir verliebten uns in Jesus alle immer wieder. …

Wir hörten von der Erweckung in Argentinien, so reisten wir es im November 1993 in der Hoffnung Gottes Salbung würde auf uns abfärben irgendwie. Wir waren mächtig in Sitzungen, die von Claudio Freidzon, ein führendes Unternehmen in der Assemblies of God in Argentinien führte berührt. … Wir kamen zurück aus Argentinien mit einer großen Erwartung, dass Gott etwas Neues in unserer Kirche zu tun.

Wir hatten einen Vorgeschmack von dem, was der Herr für uns während unserer Silvester-Dienst geplant, wie wir im Jahr 1994 gebracht. Die Menschen waren für sie gebetet und kraftvoll von Gott berührt. Sie waren alle über dem Boden durch die Zeit der Sitzung beendet. Wir dachten: “Das ist wunderbar, Herr. Jedes jetzt und dann bewegen Sie sich im Macht. “Aber wir haben nicht in Bezug auf die Erhaltung dieser Segen denken.

Wir luden Randy Clark, ein Casual Freund und Pastor der Vineyard Christian Fellowship in St. Louis, Missouri, zu sprechen, weil wir hörten, dass Menschen waren mächtig von Gott berührt, als er diente. Wir hoffen, dass diese Salbung würde ihn in unsere Kirche zu folgen. Doch Randy und ich waren in Furcht und Zittern, in der Hoffnung Gottes auftauchen würde an der Macht, aber unsicher, was passieren würde. Wir waren nicht gerade voll von Glauben – aber Gott war treu sowieso.

Am 20. Januar 1994 fiel des Vaters Segen für die 120 Menschen, die an diesem Donnerstagabend Treffen in unserer Kirche. Randy gab sein Zeugnis und Dienst Zeit begann. Menschen fielen überall auf dem Boden unter der Kraft des Heiligen Geistes, zu lachen und zu weinen. Wir hatten zu stapeln alle Stühle, um Platz für alle zu machen. Einige Leute sogar durchgeführt werden.

Wir hatten zu Gott gebetet, sich zu bewegen, und unsere Annahme war, dass wir sehen, mehr Menschen gerettet und geheilt, zusammen mit der Aufregung, die diese erzeugen würde. Es kam nie zu uns, dass Gott eine große Party, wo die Menschen lachen, rollen würde, weinen und sich so ermächtigt, dass emotionale Verletzungen aus der Kindheit waren gerade aus ihnen empor zu werfen. Die Phänomene können seltsam sein, aber die Frucht ist dies Herstellung ist extrem gut (Waugh 1998 111-112).

Hunderttausende haben ihre Kirche seitdem besucht, die meisten der Rückkehr in ihre Heimat Kirchen mit einem frischen Salbung zum Dienst und Evangelisation.Menschen wurden gerettet und geheilt, mehr in den nächsten zwei Jahren als je zuvor in dieser Kirche.

 

Sonntag, 29. Mai, 1994, Brompton, London (Eleanor Mumford)

Die anglikanische Kirche, Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) in der Nähe Kengsington in London wurde stark von der aktuellen Erwachen betroffen und weit verbreitet in den Medien berichtet. Der berühmte Alpha Evangelisation und Erneuerung natürlich jetzt weltweit verwendet, kommt von ihnen.

Eleanor Mumford, Vikar der West London Vineyard und Ehefrau von John Mumford (der Pfarrer und die Vorsteher der Vineyard Kirchen in Großbritannien), gegenüber einer Gruppe von Freunden von ihrem jüngsten Besuch in der Toronto Airport Vineyard in Kanada. Als sie für sie betete der Heilige Geist ihnen zutiefst betroffen.

Nicky Gumbel, Pfarrer der Holy Trinity Brompton, war da. Er eilte zurück von diesem Treffen mit seiner Frau, Pippa, der HTB Kirchenamt in South Kensington, wo er war zu spät zu einer Teamsitzung. Das Treffen war bereit zu vertagen. Er entschuldigte sich, sagte, was geschehen war, und wurde dann gebeten, den abschließenden Gebet beten. Er betete für den Heiligen Geist, um jeden im Raum zu füllen.

Die Kirche Zeitung, HTB in Focus, 12. Juni 1994 berichtet, das Ergebnis: “Die Wirkung war augenblicklich. Menschen fielen zu Boden wieder und wieder. Es gab bemerkenswerte Szenen wie der Heilige Geist alle Anwesenden berührte in einer Weise nur wenige jemals erlebt hatte oder gesehen. Mitarbeiter vorbeigehen Zimmer waren ebenfalls betroffen. Zwei Stunden später einige der Anwesenden ging an andere in verschiedenen Büros erzählen und betete mit ihnen, wo sie sie gefunden. Viele auf den Boden fallen – auch sie wurden kräftig durch den Heiligen Geist beeinflusst. Gebet war immer noch weiter nach 17.00 “(Riß 1995).

Die Kirchenführer eingeladen Eleanor Mumford zu Holy Trinity Brompton die am kommenden Sonntag, 29. Mai an beiden Dienste zu predigen. Nachdem beide Gespräche, betete sie für den Heiligen Geist, um über das Volk kommen. Einige weinten. Einige lachten. Viele meldeten sich für das Gebet und bald auf dem Boden lag überwältigt.

Kassetten dieser Dienste zirkuliert in Tausende von Kirchen in England. Ein frisches Erwachen begann, durch die Kirchen zu verbreiten. Nicky Gumbel die Alpha-Kurs ist weltweit verbreitet. Sandy Miller betete für Stephen Hill kurz vor seinem evangelistischen Dienst begann um Pensacola. Tausende noch passieren “HTB” Gott suchen und ihn zu finden.

 

Sonntag, 14. August, 1994, Sunderland, England (Ken Gott)

Ken und Lois Gott Gründer von Sunderland Christian Centre (SCC) im Jahr 1987 in den Nordosten von England, fühlte sich trocken und im Jahre 1994 getragen. Ken Gott und vier weitere Pfingstler Holy Trinity Brompton besucht in London. Die Gegenwart Gottes unter den Anglikanern gedemütigt und erstaunt diese Pfingstler.

Andy und Jane Fitz-Gibbon berichtet, dass “Stereotypen wie Ken wurden zerschmettert und die anderen Pfingstler erhielt eine neue Taufe im Heiligen Geist in den Händen von Bischof David Pytches. Die Veränderung war so tief in Ken, dass die Mitglieder bei SCC up nahm ein Angebot geschickt und Ken, Lois und ihre Jugendleiter für eine Woche nach Toronto. Wie die meisten von uns, die den gleichen Wallfahrt gemacht haben, waren sie zutiefst berührt, Einweichen in Gott für eine Woche, um nie wieder dasselbe sein. ”

Am 14. August war der erste Sonntagmorgen wieder aus Toronto, die Wirkung auf die Kirche erschütternd. Praktisch die ganze Gemeinde reagierte auf Ken Appell an die gleiche Berührung von Gott, dass er und Lois erhalten hatte erhalten. Sie beschlossen, sich wieder zu treffen in den Abend, obwohl normalen Sitzungen hatte der Sommerpause verschoben worden. Die gleiche Erfahrung aufgetreten.Sie versammelten sich wieder am nächsten Abend und den nächsten. . . in der Tat für zwei Wochen ohne Nachtabschaltung. Schnell wuchs Zahlen von rund hundert-und 50-600. Wort erreicht die Region und, ohne Werbung, begannen die Menschen die Pilgerfahrt nach Sunderland aus einem Umkreis von rund 70 Meilen.

Bis September ein Muster der nächtlichen Sitzungen (bar montags) gegründet wurde und jeden Abend das gleiche überwältigendes Gefühl von Gott anwesend war. Das Muster hat sich seitdem fortgesetzt, mit monatlichen Leaders ‘Meeting an einem Mittwoch oder Donnerstag Nachmittag (mit in der Regel rund 300 Anwesenden) und ein tägliches “Ort” des Gebets hinzugefügt. Die Wirkung auf die vielen Kirchen und auf Tausende von Menschen haben tiefe Spuren hinterlassen (Waugh 1998 122).

Die Kirche begann zwei Sitzungen pro Tag mit täglich nachmittags Gebetstreffen ab Januar 1995. Viele ehemalige Straftäter wurden gerettet und Kriminalität sank in der Gemeinde.

 

Samstag, 5. November 1994, Berg Annan, Sydney (Adrian Grau)

Christian Life Centre Berg Annan ist eine Assembly of God Church auf 37 Hektar parkähnlichen Grundstück in der Nähe Campbelltown im Südwesten von Sydney.Sie haben erlebt eine nachhaltige Ausgießung des Heiligen Geistes seit dem 5. November 1994 an. Diese bearbeitet Bericht von Pastor Brian Shick, ein Mitglied des Personals an Christian Life Centre Berg Annan, Sydney.

Adrian Gray, der Senior Pastor der Christian Life Centre Berg Annan wurde wieder in die Mitte der 1960er Jahre in einer Zeit der Erweckung in Campbelltown geboren.Diese erste Erfahrung der Leistung und Arbeit des Heiligen Geistes hinterließ einen deutlichen Eindruck auf seinen Geist. Er glaubte, für und arbeitete in Richtung Full-Scale-Wiederbelebung als Schwerpunkt in seiner Beziehung mit dem Herrn und in seinem Dienst.

Ein herausragendes prophetisches Zeichen kam es zu einer kurzen Weile, bevor diese Ausgießung fand statt, als ein Hubschrauber fliegen über die Kirche namens der Feuerwehr berichtet unser Gebäude in Brand. Dreizehn Feuerwehrautos schrie die Kirche Auffahrt auf der Suche nach dem Feuer zu löschen, aber es gab keine sichtbare Feuer. Als wir feststellten, dass es eine spirituelle Feuer gesehen worden war, kam große Ehrfurcht auf die Kirche. Dies geschah am Ende der zehn Tage Gebet und Fasten für Erweckung.

Die Ankunft der Bewegung des Heiligen Geistes am ersten Wochenende im November 1994, konnte nur als souveräne beschrieben. Randwick Baptist Church, die in mehreren zentralen Sydney ist, erlebt die gleiche Ausgießung an genau der gleichen Zeit. Die Zahl der Kirchen auf der ganzen Nation erlebt ein ähnliches Auftreten etwa zur gleichen Zeit.

Seit vielen Monaten hatte die Kirche für eine Heimsuchung Gottes gebetet, ohne vielleicht wirklich zu wissen, was das bedeutete. Eine evangelistische Kreuzzug mit einem “Endzeit Schwerpunkt” hatte für das Wochenende geplant. Der Evangelist, vor kurzem aus Toronto, Kanada zurückgekehrt, predigte seine evangelistische Botschaft und rief die Menschen freuen, die eine frische Note von Gott wollte.Unmittelbar über 300 Menschen reagiert und wie der Evangelist und Pfarrer betete die Gegenwart Gottes kam. Des Vaters Herz der Liebe wurde zu den Menschen offenbart und wie Hände sanft auf sie legte sie auf den Boden fiel unter der Salbung des Heiligen Geistes. Sie lagen dort für eine lange Zeit, und wenn sie aufstand, gab es Dutzende von erstaunlichen Zeugnisse der Heilung und Wiederherstellung und das Leben verändert Transformationen. Am nächsten Tag, Sonntag, kam der Heilige Geist wieder, und dann wieder am Montag und Dienstag und in jeder Sitzung seit dieser Zeit statt. Die Salbung war so stark, dass viele Menschen in diesen ersten Monaten würde auf den Boden, sobald sie durch die Tür kam fallen.

Zwei Wochen später bei der Ankunft wieder aus Toronto, Adrian und Kathy und das Führungsteam, davon überzeugt, dass dies Gottes und die Erfüllung der vielen Prophezeiungen war, eine Entscheidung, die Kirche zu begehen Wiederbelebung.Erneuerung nicht nur ein Anhängsel an das bestehende Programm zu werden, wurde es das gesamte Programm. Der Heilige Geist ist frei, aber bewegen will er in einer der Dienste. Während die meisten Pastoren würde sagen, dass dies der Fall ist, in ihren Kirchen haben viele tatsächlich die Art der Veranstaltung, die charakteristisch für diese aktuelle Bewegung ist begrenzt, um ein oder zwei Fahrten pro Woche und die anderen Sitzungen sind “normal”.

Aufgrund der Zahl von Menschen nur zu Besuch, ist es schwer, wirklich zu bestimmen, wie viele Menschen in jedem Dienst tatsächlich zur Kirche gehören. Es wurden etwa 200.000 Menschen passieren die Kirche Türen da die Ausgießung begann. Die offizielle Mitgliedschaft wurde von 300 vor bis 700 Erneuerung derzeit angebaut. Mit all den Leistungen addiert, sind 1.200 Menschen pro Woche mit viel mehr während Konferenzen dienten.

 

Sonntag, 6. November 1994, Randwick, Sydney (Greg Beech)

Greg Beech, der Minister von Randwick Baptist Church in Sydney, berichtete:

Viele Christen sind über ein bedeutendes Werk Gottes, das Fegen der Kirche ist heute die bekannt geworden als der Toronto-Segen gesprochen hat. Hunderte von Kirchen in Australien wurden bereits berührt, gesegnet und verändert. Christen werden zu signifikanten Veränderung in Ihrem Leben, wunderbare Frucht und einem neuen Eifer für Gott bezeugen. Menschen lachen, weinen, falling down, erleben seltsame Körperbewegungen. Viele, die diese Phänomene gezeigt haben, hatte noch nie solche Erfahrungen vor noch nach eigenen Aussagen, haben sie erwarten. Dienstleistungen sind für Stunden länger als üblich. Viele Pastoren sind Jubel, als sie die geistliche Frucht zu beobachten.

Am Randwick Baptist Church, haben einige dieser Phänomene wurde in geringerem Grade vorhanden für etwa neun Jahren. Sie kamen spontan und ohne Nachfrage oder Diskussion.

Spät im Jahr 1993 und in den ersten sieben oder acht Monaten des Jahres 1994 war eine erhebliche Zeit des Wandels für uns mit schwierigen Entscheidungen, Wechsel der Mitarbeiter, relationaler Spannungen, Verlust einiger Mitglieder und ein Umdenken der kirchlichen Vision. Das “Schiff” der Kirche verlangsamt hatte und machte einen vorsichtigen, aber sicher ändern, in Richtung.

Das Ergebnis dieses Prozesses war ein größeres Gefühl der Einheit in der Kirche, ein wachsendes Engagement im Bereich Corporate Gebet, und der Wunsch, sich mit der Arbeit des Königreichs. Im Nachhinein wissen wir, dass einige der Dinge, die wir durchgemacht haben notwendig waren für Gott in der Lage sein, zu kommen und bewegen sich frei unter uns. Veränderung ist nie einfach, und Raffination ist oft an der Zeit schmerzhaft. Wir sind voller Dankbarkeit, wie wir davon, wie Gott während dieser Zeit arbeiten zu reflektieren.

Wir erkennen und möchte betonen, dass die Ausgießung nicht so sehr das Ergebnis, was wir taten, war aber eine souveräne Bewegung Gottes. Die Ausgießung scheint von der Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship übertragen wurden, und wird an Kirchen auf der ganzen Welt übertragen. Wir wurden begeistert von anderen Kirchen in Sydney auch berührt zu lernen.

Während wir für die Ausgießung des Heiligen Geistes gebetet hatte, ist es noch erwischt uns überrascht! Die schiere Intensität und breiten Schwung das Werk des Geistes ist atemberaubend.

Zur gleichen Zeit die Kritiker wurden schnell zu reagieren. Einige haben Ansprüche veröffentlicht, dass das, was sie glauben, ist der Toronto-Segen in der Tat dämonisch ist. Eine andere Kirche ist zu dem Schluss, dass dies ein Werk von Hypnose ist angekommen. Wieder andere behaupten, es ist nur eine Modeerscheinung für die getäuschten.

Die säkularen Medien fasziniert. Zeitung, Radio und TV sind alle Gottesdienste besucht, um für sich selbst zu sehen. Die Reaktion der säkularen Medien war überwiegend positiv. Wir müssen uns jedoch bewusst, dass die Medien oft Effekthascherei sucht, anstatt eine genaue Darstellung dessen, was geschieht.

Was sollen wir dieses außergewöhnlichen Ausgießung machen? Welchen Platz sollen die Phänomene in unserer Kirche? Wie können wir testen, um sicherzustellen, dass es eine wahre Werk Gottes ist? Wie sollte Sitzungen verabreicht, wo solche Phänomene auftreten werden? Außerdem, was ist die Frucht von all diesen Dingen? Es ist wichtig, dass wir das biblische Gebot zu folgen, um alles zu prüfen, und zu versuchen, biblische Grundlagen für das, was wir sehen, passiert zu etablieren.

Die aktuelle erfrischend ist nicht irgendeine Art von “neuesten und besten” neuen Programm, das eingeführt wurde, um Gottesdienste zu revitalisieren. Die ‘erfrischend’ ist nicht etwas, dass Pastoren zu sehen, wenn neues Leben in ihre Kirche eingeatmet werden einzuführen. Wir glauben, was wir erleben, ist eine souveräne Wirken des Heiligen Geistes. Es war mit erheblichen Erstaunen, dass wir wieder stand da und sah Gott seinen Geist ausgießen im November 1994 bei Randwick Baptist Church. Wir fanden es schwierig, sich mit der schieren Kraft und Intensität des Werkes Gottes kommen.

Wir haben diese Bewegung Pastor betete für Einsicht, diskutiert theologisiert, diskutiert mit unseren Kritikern, durchsuchten die Schrift und sorgfältig beobachtet und untersucht die Frucht. Wir sind überzeugt, das ist eine wahre Werk Gottes.Allerdings erkennen wir, dass jede Arbeit von Gott, der eine menschliche Element beinhaltet, wird sündigen Neigungen, vielleicht dämonischen Angriff zu begegnen, und muss daher sorgfältig behandelt werden. Die Schlussfolgerungen und Positionen, die wir erreicht haben sowohl in Theologie und Praxis kann auch durch andere Kirchen abgelehnt. Wir glauben nicht, dass uns die einzige orthodoxe Position befindet.

 

Sonntag, 1. Januar 1995, Melbourne, Florida (Randy Clark)

Fünf Gemeinden in Melbourne, Florida, eingeladen Randy Clark als Gastredner an der Tabernacle Church am Neujahrstag von 1995. Außergewöhnliche Wiederbelebung brach darunter eine große Zahl falling down, Lachen, Weinen und vielen dramatischen körperlichen Heilungen. Tausende strömten zu Sitzungen statt sechs Tage die Woche. . Pastoren und Musiker aus fünfzehn verschiedenen Gemeinden veranstaltet die Sitzungen in einem neuen Ausdruck der Zusammenarbeit und Einheit Randy Clark berichtete:

Im Jahr 1994 verbrachte ich etwa 150 [Tage] in Erneuerung Sitzungen. Während dieser Zeit war ich nie in einer Sitzung, die ich fühlte, hatte das Potenzial, eine andere Art Toronto Erlebnis werden. Das war, bis ich ging Melbourne, Florida [on] 1. Januar 1995. Eine weitere Belebung ausgebrochen. Viele souveränen Dinge eingetreten, die zeigen, dieser Ort zu sein [der Ort] ungewöhnliche Erneuerung Sitzungen. Ich werde teilen einige von ihnen.

Erstens, dem gemacht, was mich etwas Besonderes erwarten bei diesen Treffen?Ich habe nie mehr als vier Tage Besprechungen planen, aber ich soll 15 Tage für dieses Treffen. Warum? Ich glaubte, es gab Dinge, auf denen ein großer Schritt des Geistes unmittelbar bevorstand angegeben. Die Schwarz-Weiß-Ministerkonferenz Verbänden zusammengeführt ein paar Monate vor meinem gehen. Die charismatische Pastoren worden, welche zusammen zum Gebet für sechs Jahre, und Pastoren aus evangelikalen und charismatischen Kirchen und Pfingstkirchen worden treffen und gemeinsam beten seit über zwei Jahren. Es war eine Einheit gebaut, die in der Lage sein, um den Druck von verschiedenen Traditionen zusammen in einer Erneuerung / Erweckungsversammlung standhalten würde.

Die Sitzungen werden im Tabernakel, die größte Kirche in der Region statt. Es hält 950 komfortabel. Dies war Jamie Buckingham-Kirche, die jetzt von Michael Thompson Pastor. Die Kirche Heiligtum ist von 06.15 Uhr mit den Sitzungen beginnen um 7:00 gefüllt. Über 1.200 in das Heiligtum sind überfüllt, füllt weitere 150 eine kleine Mithörsaal, und ein anderer 200-300 draußen sitzen gerade auf einem großen Bildschirm (Waugh 1998 124-125).

Die Wiederbelebung in Melbourne weiter mit einer erstaunlichen Mischung aus weiß, schwarz, asiatischen, hispanischen und indianischen Menschen, die von Gott berührt, gefüllt mit dem Geist und Zeuge zu anderen.

Der christliche Radiosender WSCF, FM 92 bei Vero Beach, Florida, interviewt eine Autostunde südlich von Melbourne, Randy Clark am Freitag, 6. Januar. Der General Manager des Radiosenders, Jon Hamilton, schrieb einen Bericht, wie diese Erweckung ausbrechen kann von Kirchen in der Gemeinde zeigt. Hier sind einige exceprts aus der Vollversion in Flashpoints von Revival:

Ich hatte beschlossen, ein Pastor aus St. Louis, Randy Clark Interview, dass am Morgen. … Das Interview war harmlos auf den ersten. Das Thema drehte sich zu einer Diskussion des Heiligen Geistes manifeste Gegenwart in einer Sitzung (im Gegensatz zu seiner Gegenwart, die in unseren Herzen wohnt immer dagegen).Vielmehr plötzlich begann etwas in der Leitwarte passieren.

Es begann mit Gregg. Er war hinter mir hören sitzt, und ohne ersichtlichen Grund begann er zu weinen. Seine Tränen wandte sich schaudernd Schluchzen, dass er in seinen Händen zu dämpfen versucht. Es war schwer zu ignorieren, und Randy hielt mitten im Satz zu kommentieren “Man kann ihn nicht sehen, aber Gott ist wirklich mit dem Kerl hinter dir zeigen.” Ich schaute über meine Schulter gerade noch rechtzeitig, um zu sehen Gregg Kontrolle zu verlieren. Er stand auf, nur um auf den Boden direkt vor Absturz der Konsole, wo er lag Schütteln für einige Minuten. … Ich hatte immer gewusst, Gregg, wie ein Profi zu handeln, so dass ich wusste, dass etwas ernsthaft los. Ich tat mein Bestes, um das Interview unter den peinlichen Umständen erholen. Ich dankte dem Gast und wickelte es. (Und dachte an Möglichkeiten, um Gregg später töten!)

Bevor Randy Clark verließ, baten wir ihn um ein Wort des Gebetes zu sagen. Wir bildeten einen Kreis und begannen, für die Mitarbeiter eine nach der anderen zu beten. Meine Augen waren geschlossen, aber ich hörte ein dumpfes Geräusch und öffnete sie, um zu sehen Bart Mazzarella hingestreckt auf dem Boden. Er hatte nach vorn auf sein Gesicht gefallen. Was mich am meisten erstaunte, war, dass Bart bekannt wurde, dass offen skeptisch. Er wollte einfach nicht akzeptieren, solche Dinge. Innerhalb von Sekunden ging noch eine und noch Personalperson unten. Selbst diejenigen, die stehen blieben, wurden deutlich erschüttert.

Wenn sie für mich betete, wusste ich nicht “fallen”. Was ist passiert wurde eine elektrische Sensation abgeschossen meinen rechten Arm und meine rechte Hand begann unkontrolliert zu zittern. Mein Herz hämmerte wie ich bewusst ein starkes Gefühl von dem, was man nur als Gottes manifeste Gegenwart werden wurde.

Ich dachte, die Atmosphäre würde nach ein paar Minuten zu verringern und wieder normal … aber stattdessen wuchs unsere Gebete mehr und intensiver. Das Zimmer wurde berechnet in einer Weise, dass ich einfach nicht beschreiben kann.Nach einer Stunde diese erkannten wir, dass es 10.30 Uhr war, die Zeit, die wir in der Regel teilen unsere Zuhörer die Bedürfnisse im Gebet.

Ich schaltete das Mikrofon, und fand mich gebetet, dass Gott jeden Zuhörer auf eine persönliche Weise zu berühren. Nach dem Gebet, mit großem Zögern fügte ich hinzu “Heute Morgen hat Gott wirklich worden berühren unsere Mitarbeiter, so haben wir damit verbracht am Morgen gemeinsam beten. Wenn Sie in einer Situation zeigen, wo Sie vor einer verzweifelten Notwendigkeit sind, nur durch unsere Studios fallen an diesem Morgen, und wir werden eine Minute Zeit nehmen, um mit Ihnen zu beten. “Dies war das erste Mal, dass wir eine solche Einladung gemacht hatte. …

Innerhalb von ein paar Minuten begann ein paar Zuhörer, um anzukommen. Die erste Person, die ich mit betete war ein großer Mann, der mit mir gemeinsam einige große Bedürfnisse er vor. Ich sagte ihm, ich würde mit ihm im Gebet zu vereinbaren. Als ich für sein Bedürfnis betete, wurde eine Stimme in meinem Kopf sagte: “Es ist eine Schande, dass Sie nicht in eine wirkliche geistige Gabe oder zu betreiben. Hier ist ein Mann, der wirklich braucht, um von Gott zu hören und du hast nichts wert ihm! “Bekam ich weiterhin zu beten, aber ich war zu kämpfen. Ich griff mit meiner rechten Hand auf seine Schulter zu berühren, als er plötzlich schüttelte, und ließ sich auf den Boden. (Er lag ohne Bewegung seit über 2 Stunden.) Ich war schockiert und erschüttert.

Zwei andere hatten an diesem Punkt angekommen, und Mitarbeiter wurden mit ihnen zu beten. Plötzlich begannen sie weinte hemmungslos, und ließ sich auf den Boden. Diese Szene wurde ein Dutzend Mal in den nächsten Minuten wiederholt.Es war egal, wer hat das Beten, wenn wir den Herrn gebeten, er reagierte sofort mit einem sichtbaren Macht, und die gleichen Symptome aufgetreten. …

Ziemlich früh in alles, rannten wir aus dem Zimmer. Der Radiosender Boden war von Wand zu Wand Körper … manche weinen, manche Schütteln, einige völlig still.Menschen berichtet, dass sie wie schwere Bleischürze hatte über sie gelegt worden war. Sie waren nicht in der Lage aufzustehen. Alles, was sie tun konnte, war, Gott anzubeten.

Glücklicherweise sind unsere Büros im Inneren des Komplexes an der Central Versammlung, so dass, wenn das Publikum zu wachsen begann, zogen wir hinüber in die Kirche, so dass die Radiosender buchstäblich Wand an Wand mit Suchenden. …

Irgendwann habe ich blickte auf und sah einen lokalen Baptist Pastor zu Fuß in der Tür. Ich muss gestehen, dass mein erster Gedanke war: “Oh Boy … Ich bin in Schwierigkeiten!” Während ich diesen Bruder wusste, dass ein echter Mann Gottes zu sein, doch ich darüber, wie eine grundlegende, no-nonsense Baptist könnten diese alle betraf Treiben. (Abgesehen davon, habe ich nicht eine Erklärung zu bieten!) Ich ging auf ihn zu begrüßen. Er hat nur schweigend den Raum vermessen und mit einem Ton der Stimme nur ein Flüstern sagte: “Das … ist … Gott. Seit Jahren habe ich für Erweckung gebetet … Das ist Gott. ”

Innerhalb weniger Minuten mehr lokalen Pastoren begann, um anzukommen.Lutheraner, Independent, Assembly of God … Das Wort von dem, was geschehen war wie ein Lauffeuer verbreitet. Als die Hirten kamen, waren sie vorsichtig auf den ersten, aber innerhalb von wenigen Minuten, würden sie beginnen oft in der gleichen Ministerium fließen. Die Menge wuchs und Pastoren begann, die Hände auf den Suchenden, wo noch einmal die Kraft Gottes manifest und der Suchende oft würde auf den Boden legen zusammenbrechen.

Es schien nicht darauf an, wer hat das Beten. Dies war eine namenlose, gesichtslose, spontane Bewegung Gottes. Es gab keine Sterne, keine Führer, und ehrlich gesagt, es gab keine Organisation. (Es ist schwer, für etwas, das Sie haben keine Ahnung, vielleicht geschehen planen!) …

Erstaunlicherweise wurden unchurched, unerlösten Menschen auftauchen. Ich bekam einen frischen Blick auf die Macht des Radios als Person nach der anderen erzählte uns: “Ich bin nicht wirklich ein Teil einer Kirche …” Ein paar waren anfangs skeptisch, später fanden sich kniend in tiefen Glauben.

Manchmal sind die Leute würden aufstehen, nur um verzweifelt zu uns bekanntzugeben, dass sie von einigen physikalischen Problem geheilt worden war.Eine Frau arthritischen Händen gefunden Erleichterung. Nackenschmerzen, Kiefer Probleme, Magenbeschwerden und mehr wurden alle an uns gemeldet als geheilt.

Wir haben mindestens ein Dutzend bestätigt, glaubwürdig, zuverlässig Kommentare von Leuten, die uns sagten, dass, wenn sie das Radio eingeschaltet, waren sie plötzlich, unerwartet von der Gegenwart Gottes (auch wenn sie nicht hören uns nichts sagen) überwältigt erhalten. Mehrere erzählte uns, dass die manifeste Gegenwart Gottes so stark in ihren Autos, die sie nicht in der Lage zu fahren waren, war, und waren gezwungen, sich von der Straße ab.

Die “fallende” Aspekt dieser Visitation war die sichtbarste Ausprägung, aber es fiel nicht, dass war wichtig. Was wichtig war, war die Tatsache, dass die Menschen stiegen mit mehr Liebe zu Gott in ihrem Herzen als je zuvor. Sie wurden geändert, und ihre Herzen in Brand gesetzt. Ich habe Graf von der Anzahl der Leute, die mich von der Änderung Gott in ihrem Leben gearbeitet erzählte verloren. …

Christlichen Geschichte ist voll von Berichten jener Zeit, als Gott zu “besuchen” Sein Volk gewählt. Wenn Er hat, haben ganze Nationen manchmal betroffen. Ich glaube, Sie werden mir zustimmen, ist unsere Nation reif für eine solche Wiederbelebung. Für eine Zeit wie diese, lassen Sie uns zu Gott aussehen mit Lebenserwartung (Waugh 1998 125-132).

 

Sonntag 15. Januar 1995, Modesto, Kalifornien (Glenn & Debbie Berteau)

Glenn und Debbie Berteau, Pastoren der Calvary Temple Worship Center in Modesto, Kalifornien, ab Januar 1994 stark spürte der Herr würde ihnen Wiederbelebung gibt. Anfang 1994 forderte sie ihre Gemeinde mit dieser Vision.Nach der Vision am Sonntag, engagierte Menschen sich schnell an bestimmten Tagen wie die Gemeinde beteiligt in einem Zeitraum von 40 Tage Gebet und Fasten wurde. Anfang Januar 1995 hatte sie eine dreitägige schnell. Das Kirchengebäude blieb offen für das Gebet, und die Menschen beteten über Namen auf den Karten auf dem Altar gelassen. Wer in der Lage zu tun, so trafen sich täglich zum Gebet am Mittag. Viele Pastoren in der Gegend begann Treffen jede Woche, um für die Stadt zu beten.

Am Sonntag, 15. Januar 1995 begann die Kirche, die Aufführungen des Stücks, des Himmels Gates und Hells Flames. Es wurde ursprünglich für drei Tage geplant, aber weiterhin für sieben Wochen mit 28 Aufführungen.  

Jann Mathies, pastoral Sekretär der Calvary Temple im April gemeldet:

Während ich dies schreibe, haben rund 81.000 die Leistung mit 90% besucht jede Nacht sehen sie für die erste Zeit. Zum Zeitpunkt der Drucklegung 33.000 Entscheidung Pakete wurden ausgeteilt, und dass (bestätigt) 20.000 kehrte mit unterzeichnet Entscheidung Karten. Über 250 Kirchen haben mit Hunderten von Menschen hinzugefügt, um die Kirchen in unserer Stadt und den umliegenden Gemeinden in weniger als einem Monat vertreten. Die Leute kommen so früh wie 3.30 für 7.00 Leistung. Es gibt mehr als 1.000 Menschen warten, um in um 5 Uhr zu bekommen, und von 05.30 Uhr das Gebäude ist voll. Tausende von Menschen wurden abgewiesen, einige von über 100 Meilen entfernt. Ehemänner und Ehefrauen … werden durch Heil versöhnen; Jugendliche bringen ihre Eltern nicht gespeicherte, über 6.000 junge Menschen wurden gerettet, darunter Bandenmitglieder, die zur Festlegung sind gang Zugehörigkeit und Drehen in Gang Utensilien. . . . Die Wiederbelebung kreuzt jedes Alter, Religion und sozio-ökonomischen Status. . . . Wir haben viele Freiwillige, die wir jeden Tag, und durch den Abendstunden auf 500 bis 600 neue Gläubige per Telefon kontaktieren, spezielle Klassen haben auch festgestellt, so dass die neuen Gläubigen im Glauben sein kann (Waugh 1998, 133).

Das Spiel wurde zu einem Schwerpunkt für Erweckung in der Gegend. Einige Kirchen schlossen ihre Abendgottesdienst so ihre Leute könnten ihre gespeicherten Freunde dort. Ein Ergebnis ist, dass viele Kirchen in der Region erhalten neue Verstecke und finden ihre Leute fangen die Feuer der Erweckung in ihrem Gebet und Evangelisierung begann.

Eine Kirche um eine dritte Gottesdienst am Sonntagmorgen, um die Menschen unterzubringen. Eine andere Kirche bat ihre Mitglieder zu geben, ihre Plätze für die Besucher. Bibel Buchhandlungen verkauft mehr Bibeln als üblich. Eine lokale Psychologen auf tiefe Heilungen in das Leben vieler Menschen, die das Drama nahm gemeldet.

Das Spiel geht weiter, um effektiv auf der ganzen Welt verwendet werden. Zum Beispiel haben Kirchen in Australien das Spiel mit Hunderten in lokalen Kirchen umgewandelt durchgeführt. Gehärtete Ungläubigen mit keinen Platz für Kirche in ihrem Leben wurden gerettet und für Gott leben.

 

SONNTAG, 22. JANUAR 1995, Brownwood, Texas (Chris Robeson)

Richard Riss sammelte diese Konten der Wiederbelebung berühren Hochschulen in ganz Amerika zu Beginn mit Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas.

Am 22. Januar 1995, beim Coggin Avenue Baptist Church in Brownwood, Texas, zwei Studenten aus Howard Payne University, eine christliche Institution, stand auf und gestand ihre Sünden. Als Folge dieses Vorfalls begannen viele andere, ihre eigenen Sünden vor der Gemeinde bekennen. Am 26. Januar fand eine ähnliche Veranstaltung auf dem Campus der Howard Payne. Wort schnell auf andere Hochschulen verteilt, und Howard Payne Studenten wurden bald auf andere Universitäten, die ähnliche Revivals erlebt eingeladen. Von diesen Schulen wurden mehr Studenten noch andere Schulen eingeladen, wo es weitere Revivals. …

Einer der ersten beiden Studenten aus Howard Payne seine Sünden bekennen war Chris Robeson. Als er über sein eigenes Leben und dem geistigen Zustand seiner Klassenkameraden sagte: “Die Menschen gerade erst begonnen Streaming durch die Gänge”, um zu beten, ihre Sünden bekennen und wiederherstellen scheinbar verurteilt Beziehungen, nach John Avant, der Pfarrer von Coggin Avenue Baptist Church . Von dieser Zeit an begann die Kirche, die drei-und-ein-halb-Stunden-Service. Avant sagte: “Dies ist nicht etwas, was wir versuchen zu fertigen sind. Es ist die schönste Sache, die wir je erlebt habe. “…

Bei Howard Payne, brach während einer Wiederbelebung 26. Januar “Feier”-Service, als Studenten pries Gott in Lied und teilten ihre Zeugnisse. Studenten begann dann die ganze Nacht Gebet Treffen in Schlafsälen zu planen. …

Dann am Februar 13-15, während fünf Sitzungen am Howard Payne, Henry Blackaby ein Southern Baptist Wiederbelebung Führer an einer Serie von fünf Gottesdienste diente, besuchte von Gästen aus bis zu 200 Meilen entfernt. Am Dienstag, 14. Februar an mehr als sechshundert und Studenten Führer ging bis zu der Plattform öffentlich zu bekennen ihre Sünden Geheimnis. Über zweihundert blieben danach weiter beten. Einer der Studenten, Andrea Cullins, sagte: “Als wir sahen, den Geist bewegen, haben wir nicht mehr verlassen möchte.” …

Nach Howard Payne, einige der ersten Schulen, die betroffen sein werden Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Forth Worth, Texas, Beeson School of Divinity in Birmingham, Alabama, Olivet Nazarene University in Kankakee, Ill., The Criswell College in Dallas, Moorehead State University in Moorehead, Kentucky, Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky, Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, Louisiana, Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts, und Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. In jedem Fall ging vorwärts Studenten während der langen Dienste von Stolz, Lust, Knechtschaft Materialismus, Bitterkeit und Rassismus zu bereuen.

Diese Revivals fuhr während und nach 1995. Wheaton College 1995 von Timothy Beougher und Lyle Dorsett (Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1995) bearbeitet:Details werden in den Konten eines Campus Revival gegeben.

 

Freitag, 24. März, 1995, Pasadena, California (Che Ahn)

Von Januar 1995, John Arnott der Toronto Airport Vineyard und Wes Campbell von New Life Fellowship Vineyard in Kelowna, British Columbia begann sprechen für zwei oder drei Tage jeweils am Mott Auditorium auf dem Campus der US-Zentrum für Weltmission. Bis 24. März Personen für Tagungen versammelt fünf Abenden in der Woche, in der Regel geht sehr spät.

John Arnott durchgeführt mächtig Treffen dort am Freitag-Sonntag 24-26 März, von Ernte-Rock Church, eine Vineyard Fellowship gehostet. Dann wurden die vereinigten Kirchen in der Region weiterhin mit nächtlichen Sitzungen von Montag 27. März. Später ließ den Sitzungen von Mittwoch bis Sonntag pro Woche. Dann Mittwochs wurden Zellgruppen reserviert und Sitzungen Fortsetzung von Donnerstag bis Sonntag Nächte.

Che Ahn, Senior Pastor der Ernte Rock Church schrieb in ihrer MonatszeitschriftWine Press im August 1995:

Ich bin absolut, was Gott getan hat in den vergangenen fünf Monaten erstaunt. Nach John Arnott explodierte auf die Szene mit drei herrlichen und unvergesslichen Erneuerung Meetings, ermutigte er die Pastoren unserer Kirche auf nächtlichen langwierigen Sitzungen beginnen. Mein Verstand sofort verwarf die Idee. Ich dachte bei mir: “Die Sitzungen waren großartig, weil du hier warst, aber wie können wir nachhaltig nächtlichen Sitzungen ohne jemanden wie John Arnott, um die Menschenmenge zu ziehen?”

Die Antwort auf meine Frage war offensichtlich ein. Jemand größer als John Arnott auftauchen würde jede Nacht in den Sitzungen – Jesus. Und jede Nacht, da wir 27. März 1995 begann, hat Gott sich zu heilen, zu speichern und zu Tausenden von Leben berühren gezeigt. Es gibt keine genaue Methode, um die Auswirkungen, die die Erneuerung Treffen in unserer Stadt sind mit messen. Ich glaube, dass wir hier Kirchengeschichte, und wir sind in der Mitte der anderen Bewegung des Heiligen Geistes, der die Welt erobert ist. Vom 27. März bis 27. Juli hatten wir 99 nächtlichen Sitzungen Erneuerung. Wir haben etwa 300 Personen pro Nacht, einige Nächte mit mehr als 1200 Personen und andere mit einer kleinen Menge von 120 gemittelt.

Mehr als 25.000 Menschen haben durch die Türen des Mott Auditorium, viele von ihnen glücklich, Stammkunden ging. Wir haben gesehen, mehr als 300 Menschen nach vorne kommen, um ihr Leben zu weihen oder geben ihre Herzen zu Jesus Christus. Diese Statistik nicht nahe kommen, was andere evangelistische Frucht diejenigen, die die Sitzungen teilgenommen haben. Zum Beispiel hatten zwei Mitglieder der Kirche, Justine Bateman und Jeff Eastridge, eine Reichweite bei Arroyo High School und mehr als 60 junge Leute gaben ihre Herzen dem Herrn!

Wir haben wunderbare Heilungen von der Hand des Herrn gesehen, viele von ihnen spontan, ohne dass jemand speziell beten für die Heilung. Ich wünschte, ich hätte die Zeit und Raum, um all die schönen Früchte ich an den Sitzungen Erneuerung gesehen haben teilen. Sehen Sie die Notwendigkeit zu teilen, was Gott tut, fühlte ich, dass wir produzieren diese Kirche Newsletter diese Zeugnisse von Leben, von Gott während dieser aktuellen Ausgießung des Heiligen Geistes (Waugh 1998 133-134) beeinflusst zu teilen.

 

Sonntag, 18. Juni, 1995, Pensacola, Florida (Steve Hill)

Über 26.000 Umwandlungen wurden im ersten Jahr der “Pensacola Revival ‘eingetragen. Über 100.000 Umsätze wurden in den ersten zwei Jahren registriert worden. Es geht weiter.

Am Vatertag, Sonntag, 18. Juni 1995 sprach Evangelist Steve Hill bei Brownsville Assembly of God, in der Nähe von Pensacola, Florida. Auf dem Altar rufen tausend Menschen strömten nach vorne, wie der Heilige Geist auf sie bewegt. Deren Pastor John Kilpatrick, fiel unter der Kraft Gottes und wurde mit überwältigender Mehrheit für vier Tage beeinflusst.

An diesem Morgen Service, normalerweise Finishing am Mittag, dauerte bis 16.00 Uhr. Der Abendgottesdienst dauerte weitere fünf und eine halbe Stunde. Also die Kirche gebeten Steve Hill zu bleiben. Er abgesagt Termine, weiterhin mit nächtlichen Sitzungen und verlegt, dort zu leben, wo er zum Minister in Wiederbelebung fort.

John Kilpatrick, Pastor der Brownsville Assembly of God Church, auf ihre Wiederbelebung im Jahr 1997 gemeldet:

Die Seelen, die zu Christus kommen, bereuen und bekennen ihre Sünden, die Ehen, die wiederhergestellt werden, die vielen Menschen, aus der Knechtschaft, die lange gehalten hat sie gefangen befreit werden – das sind die Kennzeichen der Erweckung und die Trophäen der Herrlichkeit Gottes. Nein, ich spreche nicht von einer Belebung, die einen herrlichen Wochenende, eine Woche, einen Monat oder auch nur ein Jahr gedauert! In diesem Schreiben hat die ‘Brownsville Revival’ ungebrochen, mit Ausnahme kurzer Urlaub Pausen, da Vatertag, 18. Juni 1995!Wie? Nur Gott weiß. Warum? Erstens, weil es Gottes Wohlgefallen, und zweitens, vielleicht, weil der Boden unserer Herzen im Gebet wurde lange vorbereitet, bevor Wiederbelebung stieg auf uns so plötzlich.

An diesem ganz normalen und gewöhnlichen Sonntagmorgen im Juni 1995, wurde ich zum Minister zu meiner Gemeinde geplant, aber ich fühlte mich müde. Ich war immer noch versuchen, auf den jüngsten Verlust meiner Mutter einzustellen, und meine langjährigen Wunsch nach Wiederbelebung in der Kirche schien an diesem Morgen so weit weg zu sein. Also fragte ich meinen Freund, Evangelist Steve Hill, um die Kanzel an meiner Stelle zu füllen. Obwohl er war geplant, nur sprechen am Abend Service stimmte Steve zu den Vatertag Botschaft zu predigen. Wir wussten nicht, es dann aber Gott war bei der Arbeit in jedem Detail des Treffens.

Der Gottesdienst war ordentlichen (unser Anbetungsleiter, Lindell Cooley wurde noch dienstbare auf Missionen Reise in die Ukraine in Russland), und auch Bruder Hill Botschaft schien nicht jede Funken entzünden an diesem Morgen – bis die Mittagsstunde geschlagen. Dann gab er einen Altar Anruf und plötzlich Gott besucht unsere Gemeinde in einer Weise, die wir nie zuvor erlebt hatte. Tausend Menschen kamen nach vorne zum Gebet nach seiner Botschaft. Das war fast die Hälfte unserer Gemeinde! Wir wussten nicht, es dann aber unser Leben war im Begriff, in einer Weise, die wir nie hätten vorstellen können ändern.

Wir wussten es besser, als wie eine mächtige Bewegung Gottes zu behindern, so Dienstleistungen einfach weiter Tag für Tag. Wir mussten mit unglaublicher Geschwindigkeit anzupassen. Während des ersten Monats der Wiederbelebung, ging Hunderte von Menschen die Inseln, um ihre Sünden zu bereuen. Mit dem sechsten Monat hatte Tausende auf nächtlichen Altar Anrufe reagiert. Mit der Zeit erreichten wir den zwölften Monat hatte 30.000 zum Altar kommen, um ihre Sünden zu bereuen und sich Jesus der Herr ihres Lebens.

In diesem Schreiben, 21 Monate und über 470 Dienstleistungen Wiederbelebung später, haben mehr als 100.000 Menschen ihr Leben Gott in diesen Sitzungen verpflichtet – nur ein Teil der 1,6 Millionen Besucher, die aus allen Ecken der Erde gekommen sind …

Wenn die Prophezeiung von Dr. David Yonggi Cho [1991 gegeben] Jahren ausgeliefert, bevor es geschah richtig ist, wird diese Wiederbelebung, die er richtig als beginnend bei Pensacola, Florida, platziert aufkehren der Ostküste und in den Vereinigten Staaten, um die West Coast, und Amerika sehen eine Ausgießung Gottes, die allen, die wir bisher gesehen haben, übersteigt. Ich bin überzeugt, dass Sie, und jeder Gläubige, für mehr von Gott sehnt, einen Teil in diesem großen Erwachen aus Gott (Waugh 1998 137-138) spielen.

Pastoren, Leiter und Christen haben ihre Kirchen mit einer neuen Leidenschaft für den Herrn und für die Verlorenen gezündet worden Rückkehr. Das ehrfürchtige Gegenwart Gottes in Pensacola erlebt weiterhin Tausende aus der ganzen Welt auswirken.

 

Freitag, 27. Oktober, 1995, Mexiko (David Hogan)

David Hogan, Gründer von Freedom Ministries, eine Mission zu entfernten Bergvölker in Mexiko sagte in einer Predigt über die Ausgießung des Heiligen Geistes gibt. Dies ist Teil von seinem Konto:

Ich besuchte einen abgelegenen Dorf. Es dauerte vier Stunden in einem 4-Rad-Antrieb und dann zwei Stunden zu Fuß, bergauf – sehr gering. Es gibt kein Radio, kein TV, keine Einflüsse von außen. Ich sitze dort oben in dieser kleinen Hütte auf einem Stück Holz gegen den Bambus-Wand auf dem Lehmboden. Hühner herumlaufen drin. Und dieser Pastor geht auf mich zu. Er ist ein kleiner Kerl, und er zitterte. Er sagt: “Bruder David, ich fürchte, ich habe einen Fehler gemacht habe.”

Ich hatte nicht eventuelle Fehler gehört. Ich frage mich, was in den letzten Tagen passiert ist. Er hat vier kleine Kirchen in seinem Bereich. Er sagte: “Mann, es ist nicht meine Schuld. Ich entschuldige mich. Ich habe alles richtig gemacht, wie du mich gelehrt. Ich bete jeden Tag. Ich lese die Bibel. Ich mache es richtig. Was passiert ist, ist nicht meine Schuld. ”

Ich sagte: “Was ist passiert? Komm schon, sag mir, was passiert ist. “Er zitterte.Tränen liefen aus seinen Augen. Er sagte: “Bruder David, ich aufstand in unserer kleinen Kirche. Ich öffnete meine Bibel und ich begann zu predigen und die Menschen begannen nach unten fallen. Die Menschen fingen an zu weinen. Die Menschen fingen an zu lachen. Und es machte mir Angst. Ich rannte aus der Kirche. ”

Das ist, was ich suchte. Das ist, was ich wartete, wenn Gott kam in unsere Arbeit, nicht weil jemand kam und predigte er, nicht weil ich es war okay oder nicht okay, weil ich neutral darüber gesagt wurde. Ich wusste, es war alles in Ordnung, aber ich wollte es in unserer Arbeit nicht sehen, weil ich es läutete, sondern weil der Heilige Geist führte sie in. Und das tat er.

Nachdem ich durch alle Abschnitte gewesen, die Einführung dieses leise, kam es schließlich Zeit, um alle Pastoren zusammen rufen aus der ganzen Arbeit. Ein paar hundert unserer Pastoren kamen. Ich wünschte, du hättest es zu sehen, was wir sahen, war! Es war erstaunlich.

Am ersten Tag, Mittwoch, 25. Oktober 1995 gab es etwa 200 Pastoren gibt, und die ganze Kirche, die uns Hosting wurde. Das machte etwa 450 Personen. Der erste Tag war super. Gott traf uns mächtig. Es gab Heilungen. Ich war glücklich. Die Menschen wurden ermutigt.

Der zweite Tag, Donnerstag, war sogar noch besser. Es war stärker. Ich dachte, wir Höchststand am zweiten Tag. Ich kam um acht Uhr morgens und hinterließ einen zehn Uhr abends, und es gab den ganzen Tag Dienst. Wir waren das Beheben von Problemen, und Gott wurde durch den Dienst arbeiten. Es war wunderbar. Aber ich sage Ihnen, ich war nicht für den dritten Tag bereit.

Ich habe keine Worte, um zu beschreiben, was mit uns passiert, wenn der Heilige Geist fiel auf uns am Freitag, 27. Oktober 1995. Wir waren in aus verschiedenen Bereichen kommen. Die Indianer waren alle da. Ich wusste nicht, sie hatten in einer Nacht alle Gebetstreffen gewesen. Ich wusste nicht, dass der Heilige Geist war auf sie gefallen, und sie konnte nicht mehr aufstehen. Ich wusste nicht, dass sie hatte sich durch den Heiligen Geist die ganze Nacht lang, ganz über dem Platz, steckte auf den Boden geheftet. Einige von ihnen hatten auf ant Betten gefallen, aber nicht eine Ameise biss sie.

Ich war etwa 45 Minuten bleiben weg. Ich habe in meinem 4-Rad-Antrieb und als ich dort fuhr ich begann zu hören auf dem Zwei-Wege-Radio. Einige unserer Missionare waren schon da, und wurden auf dem Zwei-Wege-Radio sagte: “Was hier passiert reden. Ich kann nicht gehen. ”

Als ich sie im Radio hörte fühlte ich die Kraft auf mich kommen. Und je näher ich kam, desto mehr Wärme Ich fühlte er sich auf mich. Ich spürte, wie Hitze, und ich hatte meine Klimaanlage geht! Als ich in die kleine Kirche bekam, öffnete ich die Tür des Wagens und wurde sofort heiß. Sweat abgegossen mich. Ich war etwa 300 Meter von der Kirche. Je näher ich kam, desto intensiver war die Hitze. Ich konnte kaum durch sie hindurchgehen, es war so dick. Ich freue mich über die Anwesenheit von Gott reden. Das war 7.30 Uhr am Morgen!

Ich ging um die Ecke des Gebäudes. Die Leute waren alle über dem Platz. Einige wurden ausgeschlagen. Einige waren auf dem Boden. Einige waren Stöhnen und Jammern. Es war sehr ungewöhnlich. Mit der Zeit bekam ich an der Vorderseite der Kirche, wo die Ältesten waren konnte ich kaum laufen. Ich hielt an, um Dinge zu erhalten. Ich konnte kaum atmen. Die Hitze der Gegenwart Gottes war erstaunlich.

Die Menschen hatten für zwei Stunden gesungen, bevor ich dort ankam. Um 8.15 am Morgen des 27. Oktober 1995, ging ich dort oben und legte meine Bibel unten auf dieser wenig wackelig Indian Tisch. Hunderte sahen mich an. Einige wurden, klopfte auf dem Boden liegend. Ich konnte kaum sprechen.

Ich rief die Ältesten neun nach vorne und sagte ihnen der Heilige Geist war da und wir mussten einen Bund machen zusammen, bis zum Martyrium. Wir machten einen Bund gibt, dass das ganze Land von Mexiko gerettet werden würde. Sie bat mich, sie in diesem Pakt beizutreten. Wenn wir unsere Hände hob im Einvernehmen aller neun fiel auf einmal. Ich wurde nach hinten geschleudert und fiel unter den Tisch. Als ich aufstand, die Menschen vor umgefallen. In weniger als einer Minute jeder Pastor dort wurde ausgeschlagen.

Wir waren mit den Ungläubigen umringt, kommen, um zu sehen, was los war. Die Salbung Gegenwart Gottes kam und schlug sie alle aus, Dutzende von ihnen. Jeder Ungläubige außerhalb, und jeder auf dem Zaun wurde ausgeknockt und fiel zu Boden. Es gab Dutzende von ihnen. Von der Kirche an der Spitze des Hügels konnten wir sehen, wie Menschen im Dorf unten läuft schreiend aus ihren Hütten und fallen unter den Heiligen Geist. Es war erstaunlich.

Wir haben immer einen Abschnitt für die Kranken und Leidenden. Sie bringen sie in von den Meilen herum, einige auf Bahren. Es wurden 25-30 von ihnen gibt. Jedes kranke Person in der Sitzung geheilt wurde: die Blinden, die Krebs, Lupus, Tumoren, Epilepsie, Besessenheit. Niemand berührte sie aber Jesus. Es war sofort Versöhnung zwischen Menschen, die gegeneinander gewesen war. Sie wurden auf der jeweils anderen liegen, schluchzend und Buße.

Ich hatte Angst, wenn ich all das los sah. Ich blickte zum Himmel und sagte: “Gott, was bist du -?” Und das war das Ende. Er wollte nicht, alle Fragen zu hören. Bang!Ich war etwa drei oder vier Meter von dem Tisch. Als ich aufwachte, einige Stunden später, war ich unter dem Tisch. Als ich endlich aufgewacht meine Beine nicht funktionieren würde. Ich rutschte mich um zu schauen, was los war. Es war Chaos! Wenn einige Leute versuchte aufzustehen, würden sie fliegen gehen. Es war fantastisch.

“Und er zeigte mir einen Strom von Wasser des Lebens, klar wie Kristall, der ausgeht von dem Thron Gottes und des Lammes” (Offenbarung 22,1). Ich sah, dass Fluss. Ich sah wirklich den Fluss, es ist reine Wasser des Lebens aus Gottes Thron. Wenn ich es könnte wieder zu sehen, ich würde es wissen, ich habe es gesehen, ich habe es erlebt, schmeckte ich es.

Wir hatten fünf offenen Augen Visionen. Ein kleiner Pfarrer wurde auf einer Stange hängen sich aufrecht zu halten. Er war da, aber er war nicht da. Er sagte zu mir: “Bruder David, um ihn anzusehen. Seht ihn euch an, Bruder David! Wer ist es?Schauen Sie, wie groß er ist! Oh, er hat sein weißes Gewand auf. Er hat einen goldenen Gürtel. “Es war Jesus. Er sagte: “Bruder David, wie haben wir in diesem großen Palast zu bekommen?”

Ich sah mich um. Ich war noch auf dem Lehmboden. Ich hatte noch ein Grasdach über mich, aber er war in einem Marmor-Palast, reinweiß. Ich kroch zu ihm um. Er sah Dinge, die wir nicht sehen konnten. Ein weiteres von den Ältesten, ein Prophet aus Amerika, die mit mir gearbeitet hatte dreizehn Jahre lang, kroch vorbei und wir sahen diesen Pastor, der in Trance war. Es war erstaunlich.

Die drei von uns waren in so etwas wie ein Kraftfeld von Energie. Wer in sie kommen versucht wurde ausgeschlagen. Es war beängstigend. Der Pfarrer sagte: “Er ist eine Liste einsehen, Bruder David.” Und der Pastor begann laut vorzulesen aus der Liste. Ich war rund um uns, und als er aus der Liste Leute gingen durch die Luft fliegen zu lesen, immer geheilt und befreit. Es war phänomenal, was Gott tat.Und er hat es in jedem Service in unserer Arbeit, dass ich in seitdem getan. Es ist über ein Jahr her. Es ist erstaunlich. Wunderbar.

Zwischen 150 und 500 Personen pro Monat werden, weil es nur durch das, was die nordamerikanischen Missionare tun (Waugh 1998 139-144) gespeichert.

 

Sonntag, 24. März, 1996, Smithton, Missouri (Steve Gray)

Wie Tausende von Pastoren in Amerika, wurde Steve Gray entmutigt und enttäuscht. Er wurde sogar erwägen, das Ministerium. Zwölf Jahre lang hatte er die Smithton Community Church in dem verschlafenen Städtchen Smithton, Missouri, unter den Weizen eingebettet Pastor. Steve Gray war entmutigt und enttäuscht. Er wurde sogar erwägen, das Ministerium. Steve Gray war bereit zu beenden.

Zu wissen, er musste weg von der Kirche für einige “R und R”, wählte er Wiederbelebung über Entspannung. Im März 1996 fuhr er von Missouri nach Florida, um die Ausgießung Brownsville in Pensacola, die dann in ihrer ^37. Woche war zu besuchen. Grau nahmen die Dienste jede Nacht und verbrachte die Tage in seinem Motelzimmer, beten und Gottes Angesicht zu suchen.

Während der Dienstag Abend Gebetstreffen, während Hunderte rund um den “Pastor Banner”, um für die Nation Hirten beten versammelt, war grau vor allem für einen Pfarrer beten, sich. Er wusste, wenn er in das Ministerium weiter, er restauriert werden musste. Nach etwa drei Tagen fühlte er sich etwas erholt und seinen Fokus zu verändern begann. Gott wurde die Wiederherstellung seiner Hoffnung und er fand, dass dies das erste Signal von seiner persönlichen Wiederbelebung sein.

Vor dieser Änderung im Fokus, hat Grau nicht einmal wissen, was sie von Gott erbitten. Grau sagt, er kam nach Brownsville nicht auf “sich etwas”, sondern “etwas sehen”, wie Moses ging zu “sehen” die brennenden Dornbusch. Nach mehreren Tagen wurde Gray “Sehen” wieder. Eine Nacht, in Grau, was beschrieben als eine “perfekte Atmosphäre,” Gott sprach zu ihm und sagte: “Ich möchte, dass eine Wiederbelebung zu haben.” Der Gedanke war zu viel, zu akzeptieren. Smithton, Missouri, ist nicht Pensacola, Florida, und Grau konnte mir nicht vorstellen, selbst in die Rolle der Erweckungsbewegung. Und Gott sprach wieder: “Ich habe nicht gesagt, ich will, dass du eine Wiederbelebung sein, sagte ich, ich will, dass du eine Wiederbelebung zu haben.”

Am Sonntagmorgen, den 17. März 1996 teilte Pastor Kilpatrick Teil seiner persönlichen Zeugnis, wie Wiederbelebung kam nach Brownsville. Grau erreichte den Ort des Glaubens und glauben konnte, “es ist ein Ort für mich in Erweckung.” Er beobachtet Kilpatick als er “aufpassen, Führung und Pastor einer wirklich souveränen Bewegung Gottes, die die Welt verändert haben.” Kilpatrick Worte und Beispiel Grau zeigte, dass “Erweckung Pastor und kann Pastor werden muss.”

Nach Sonntagsgottesdienst, Grau seiner Frau Kathy genannt, und sagte: “Ich habe gerade in der besten Gottesdienst am Sonntagmorgen gewesen, die ich je in. Sagen unserer Kirche gewesen.” Kurz vor dem Ende seiner zweiten Woche in Brownsville, geleitet Grau für Zuhause , reuig und auf dem Weg zur Wiederbelebung und Restaurierung.

Während Gott zum Gray arbeitete, wurde er arbeitet auch an die Mitglieder des Smithton Community Church. Für zwei und einem halben Jahre hatte die Kirche einen Dienstag Abend Gebetstreffen statt, sondern als Gott bereitete die Kirche für Wiederbelebung, wurden die Gebete intensiver. Mitarbeiterin Elder Randy Lohman sagt, es sei “viel Gebrochenheit” in den Monaten unmittelbar vor dem Ausgießen.

Als der Pfarrer suchte Gott in Florida, suchte die Gemeinde ihm zu Hause. Am Sonntagabend, 17. März weitergeleitet Kathy Grau des Pastors Nachricht über den großen Gottesdienst am Sonntagmorgen in Brownsville. David Cordes, einer der Ältesten, war zutiefst verurteilt. Weinende, fragte er die Versammlung: “Warum sollte unser Pastor, tausend Meilen reisen, um in den besten Service, die er je in gewesen sein?” Er fiel auf den Boden in Reue. Bald wurde er von mehreren anderen Männern in der Kirche gefolgt, Buße zu tun für ihren Mangel an Unterstützung und schreit zu Gott um die gleiche Sache zu tun Smithton, dass er für den Pfarrer in Florida zu tun. Gott setzte seine Arbeit am Mittwoch Abend als fünf Jahre altes Mädchen prophezeit und sagte: “Es kommt! Es kommt! “Der Herr hatte ihre Gebrochenheit gesehen.

Als der Pastor am Sonntagabend angekommen, fiel der Herrlichkeit. Um genau zu sein, um 6:12 Uhr am 24. März 1996 Gott der Heilige Geist kam in seiner großartigen Leistung bei Smithton Community Church. Sie wird nie mehr dieselbe sein. Unmittelbar fügten sie Dienstleistungen für ihre Kirche Zeitplan. Nun hat die Ausgießung für zwei Jahre mit fünf Dienste weiterhin jede Woche. Besucher haben von allen fünfzig Staaten und vielen anderen Ländern kommen, die oft in Zahlen, die weit mehr als die Bevölkerung der Stadt.

Tausende von Menschen haben ihr Leben verändert. Kranker Körper geheilt worden. Besuch Pastoren haben das Feuer zurück in ihre Gemeinde gemacht.Steve, Kathy und Teams aus der Kirche nehmen die Wiederbelebung der ganzen Welt. Was die Zukunft der Wiederbelebung, sagte Lohman, “Gott begann es und wir gehen zu lassen, ihm nicht, was er tut.”

 

Umzug nach Kansas. Smithton Community Church (SCC) in der kleinen Stadt Smithton wird nach Kansas City verlagern, damit die fast vier Jahre “Ausgießung” weiter zu verbreiten. Bevölkerung um 500 – – Wöchentliche Wiederbelebung Treffen an der Kirche in Smithton stattgefunden Seit März 1996.

Dienstleistungen dauern drei oder mehr Stunden, mit intensivem Gebet für die Besucher. Viele haben von Heilungen und Erneuerung ihrer Liebe zu Gott bezeugt.Ähnliche Revivals haben in anderen Kirchen wurden als Ergebnis der Besuche auf der Smithton Kirche ausgelöst.

Jetzt Steve Gray und sein kleiner Stab sind 90 Minuten entfernt Bewegung zu übernehmen, den ehemaligen Besitz Raytown Baptist Church, in einem Vorort von Kansas City. Das Gebäude bietet Platz für 1.400 und andere Einrichtungen, die besser auf die Nachfrage nach Flächen von den Besuchern der Smithton Kirche, die sogar aus Übersee kommen erstellt.

Die letzten Wiederbelebung Dienstleistungen wurden in Smithton am Thanksgiving-Wochenende stattfinden wird, mit einer Übergangszeit bis zu den ersten Dienst an der neuen Kirche im Januar 2000. Gray sagte, dass viele SCC 300 lokalen Mitglieder erwägen den Umzug in einen anderen Teil des Staates.

“Ich habe keine Zweifel, dass die Herrlichkeit Gottes wird zeigen, weil es die gleichen Leute, die gleiche Personal, alles ist gleich. Wenn wir in eine andere Stadt oder ein anderes Land zu gehen, es ist nicht wie es passiert nichts. Immer etwas passiert “, sagte er. “Aber vielleicht ist die Stadt nicht für diese Art von Engagement bereit. Das ist, was das ist, es ist eine Wiederbelebung in your heart “.

Gray sagte er aus heiterem Himmel von den Staats-und Regierungschefs bei näherte Raytown Baptist und überlegte, ob er ihr früheres Eigentum nutzen könnten. Revival Dienstleistungen wird freitags und samstags an der neuen Kirche statt. Andere Dienste werden auf der örtlichen Gemeinde zu konzentrieren. Die neue Eigenschaft für eine TV-Dienst ausgestattet ist, was kann das Radio-Programm zu folgen “den Weg bereiten”, begann auf einer christlichen Sender in der Stadt im Laufe des Sommers.

“Wir fühlen, dass wir hoffentlich immer bereit für die nächste Bewegung Gottes in den Vereinigten Staaten, die ein großes Erwachen”, sagte Gray. “Wir haben nie damit dies geschehen soll, aber aus irgendeinem Grund fühlen wir uns das Anheben und Bewegen.”

Quellen: http://members.aol.com/azusa/index.html f rom Der Internationale Remnant; Daily News Update von Charisma Magazin, den 29. Oktober, 1999.

 

Sonntag, 28. April, 1996, Hampton, Virginia

Bethel Temple Assembly of God hat erlebt eine Bewegung des Heiligen Geistes Seit April 1996. Mitgliedschaft in der Kirche ist 2200. Revival Treffen Mittwoch, Donnerstag und Freitag statt.

Während 1-6 April des Dramas Himmels Gates, zog Hells Flames große Menschenmengen mit fast 3.000 Antworten auf dem Altar Aufruf zur Rettung.Später wurden 75 in einem Outdoor-Taufgottesdienst getauft.

Während der Woche reiste 22-27 April, mehrere Pastoren nach Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, zu einer Wiederbelebung Konferenz.

Am Samstag, ^27., auf ein Frauen Ministerium Outreach brach Wiederbelebung out auf dem Parkplatz und in einer Sitzung. Menschen ruhte im Geist, und Wunder mit dem prophetischen Gaben von Pfarrer Don Rogers aufgetreten. Er öffnete das Heiligtum für ein Gebetstreffen, die bis Mitternacht verlängert.

Am 28. April begann der Sonntag 7.30 Service und nicht bis 03.24 Uhr, die umgangen den 10.30 Dienst beenden. Mitglieder der Kirche wurden bereuen, zahlreiche Menschen zu Christus bekehrt, und viele wurden von bösen Geistern ausgeliefert. Die Pastoren angezeigt Manifestationen ähnlich denen in den vergangenen historischen Bewegungen Gottes. Leistungsstarke Überzeugung fiel auf die Menschen, mit vielen überwältigt.

Hampton, Virginia ist die älteste englischsprachige Siedlung in Amerika. Bethel Temple Church ist rassistisch vielfältig: 40% Afro-Amerikaner, 50% weiß, 10% Hispanic und asiatischen.

Im Jahr 1996 Senior Associate Pastor, Don Rogers, hatte eine offene Vision des Heiligen Geistes kommen zu Hampton. Er sah den Geist des Herrn kommt wie ein Sturm, und es blies in ihre Kirche. In seiner Vision, als dies geschah es blies ein Glasfenster in der Kirche.

Vierzehn Monate später, am 1. Juni 1997, wurde der Gottesdienst in Bethel Temple ab. Ältere Pastor Ron Johnson betete und bat Gott zu kommen “wie ein aufgestaute Flut”. Plötzlich Pastor Johnson schaute auf seine Hände und Öl wurde aus seinen Händen tropft. Der Pfarrer begann die Gemeinde, was mit seinen Händen passiert erzählen. Der Kopf Usher erzählte dem Pfarrer die Frontscheibe der Kirche gerade blies.

Der Pfarrer begann erzählt die Gemeinde von dem, was passiert ist. Menschen rannten zum Altar. Viele öffentlich von Sünden bereut. Gottes manifeste Gegenwart erfüllte das Gebäude. Ehen restauriert werden, sexuell zerbrochenen Menschen geheilt, unzähligen Umbauten zu Christus, und viele mit dem Heiligen Geist erfüllt.

Die Vision begann, erfüllt werden. Ein Teil der Interpretation der Glasbruch bedeutete den Geist des Herrn weht in Bethel Kirche und Ausblasen. Die Mission der Kirche Bethel ist zur Ehre Gottes an die Nation verkünden. Das Brechen des Glases Fenster ist ein prophetisches Symbol der Macht Gottes, die Kirche zu lösen, um das Evangelium zu den Nationen zu tragen. Auch in dieser Woche, mehrere “Zeichen und Wunder” geschehen. Eine ungeklärte Erdbeben Tremor und kreisförmigen Regenbogen 360 Grad erschien über der Stadt.

Einheit der Kirchen in der Region Hampton wächst. Zwanzig Kirchen für Ostern Dienstleistungen versammelt in diesem Jahr in der Stadt Kolosseum. Laut Pastor Don Rodgers es ist beispiellos zu zwanzig Kirchen erhalten, legen die wichtigsten Service des Jahres. Elf tausend Menschen besucht.

 

Sonntag, 29. September, 1996, Mobile, Alabama (Cecil Turner)

Joel Kilpatrick beschrieben Wiederbelebung in Mobile, Alabama:

Cecil Turner war ein schüchterner Mann mit einem Stottern – ein Rohr-Monteur ohne Bibel College-Ausbildung – wenn Gott ihn rief zum Kalvarienberg Assembly of God in Mobile, Alabama, im Jahr 1963 führen. Auch Familienmitglieder befragt, ob Turner konnte den jungen Pastor Gemeinde.

Jetzt, 34 Jahre später, die Kirche buchstäblich überläuft und die Leute kommen, um zu sehen, was seit Sonntag, 29. September 1996, als die Gegenwart Gottes in Macht kam während des kirchlichen Jahres passiert ist “Camp Meeting.”

“Ich habe gedacht, dass wir in der Nähe eine Reihe von Zeiten”, sagt Turner. “Aber der Heilige Geist sagt, wir gehen weiter.”

Die Kirche hat in kontinuierlichen Wiederbelebung von Woche zu Woche gewesen, Treffen dienstags für Fürbitte und mittwochs bis freitags für Dienste, die 250 bis 300 Menschen zu ziehen. Sonntagmorgen draw 400, die maximale Zahl, die sie in das Heiligtum packen kann.

Einige Dienste sind üppig und intensiv, andere so schwer, alles, was sie tun können, ist “auf dem Boden lag.” Manchmal ist der Geist so stark, während Lobpreis und Anbetung, die sie öffnen die Altäre zu werfen ist. “Wir kommen in jedem Nacht und weiß nie, was passieren wird”, sagt Cecil, einen Moment innehalten. “Ich mag es.”

Die Kirche begann zu beten für Erweckung in 1992 sagt Cecil Sohn Kevin, der auf die Mitarbeiter für 11 Jahre gewesen ist. “Zeitweise haben wir wenn Wiederbelebung würde passieren, fragte sich,” sagt Kevin. “Aber wir sahen die Intensität und der Hunger wächst.”

Nach fünf Jahren des Gebets und einigen trockenen Strecken kam Gott mächtig, wenn ein reisender Evangelist Wayne Headrick, zu predigen kam. Gott sprach zu Headrick dass, wenn sie ausstieg aus dem Weg, Gott würde etwas geschehen.Dieses “Etwas” hält am geschieht.

“Es scheint, wie es beschleunigt hat”, sagte die Mobile Headrick Register Mai 1997.”Jeder Dienst gibt es mehr. . . Salbung und mehr von der Kraft Gottes. ”

Unchurched Menschen in Scharen kommen, um diese Kirche, die zu einem 3-Wege-Haltestelle an der westlichen Stadtgrenze von Handy sitzt. “Sie kann es nicht verstehen”, sagt Pastor Kevin Turner Musik, Cecil Sohn, “aber sie wollen mehr davon.”

Viele kommen aus anderen Konfessionen: Nazarener, katholische, methodistische, um nur einige zu nennen. “Wir einigten uns von Anfang an, dass dies nicht eine Assembly of God Wiederbelebung – es war für die ganze Kirche”, sagt Cecil.

Menschen in jedem Service werden gespeichert – und rund 150 wurden in den letzten zwei Monaten allein gerettet, sagt Kevin. Manche sagen hinterher, dass sie ein Bedürfnis zu spüren, und mehrere bezeugen, dass sie in wie zu einem Leuchtfeuer gezogen wurden. Ein Mann zog in den Parkplatz, nicht vollständig verstehen, warum er dort war. Die Gemeinde betet regelmäßig, dass die Menschen durch die Gegenwart des Herrn gezogen werden.

Der Mobile Wiederbelebung ist die Neudefinition von Golgatha Konzept der pastoralen Führung, Lenkung sie weg vom Menschen erzeugten Struktur und lehrt sie, gemeinsam Gott zu begegnen.

“Es ist wie Gott sagte:” Ich habe versucht, sich zu bewegen. Jetzt raus aus dem Weg ‘”, sagt Kevin. “Es ist befreiend für beide Pastoren und die Menschen.”

Kevin, aufgewachsen das Kind eines Pastors, bezeugt, dass die Bewegung von Gott jetzt Kuvertierung ihrer Kirche hat ihn auf eine neue Ebene des Glaubens gebracht. “Ich habe immer den Herrn geliebt, aber das hat mein Leben verändert”, sagt Kevin. “Ich möchte, intim zu sein mit ihm.”

Revival wurde auch neu sein Ministerium. Kevin und seine 10-teilige Musik-Team halten ein greulling Zeitplan, manchmal singen für 3 Stunden am Stück. Vor Wiederbelebung begann, Kevin würde seine Stimme nach einer Woche von Dienstleistungen verlieren, sagt er. Aber er bat Gott, ihn zu erhalten, und ist gegangen 10 Monate mit einigen Problemen.

Revival hat auch ihn gezwungen, mehr im Einklang mit dem Heiligen Geist vor führenden Anbetung. “Ich mache einen Song-Liste, aber oft wird sie hinausgeworfen”, sagt er. “In manchen Nächten ist es wie über eine Klippe statt. Ich weiß, dass Gott will, etwas zu tun, und ich frage: “Was ist das? ‘ Ich musste sich bequem mit Schweigen. Manchmal sagt er nur zu warten. ”

Die Wiederbelebung ist nicht Persönlichkeit-driven. Headrick wird oft für Wochen zu einer Zeit gegangen, und der Fluss fließt weiter. Die Pastoren sagen, dass die Bewegung Gottes hält wechselnden Farben als Gott nimmt die Kirche zu verschiedenen Orten in ihm.

Glenn McCall, Pastor der Evangelisch-methodistischen Kirche Crawford, erfolgt häufig Mitglieder seiner Gemeinde zum Kalvarienberg für Erweckung Dienstleistungen. “[People] nach etwas suchen, und nur Gott kann diesen Bedarf in ihrem Geist zu erfüllen”, sagt er. “Ich fühle mich wie es eine bundesweite Sache.Ich habe eine Menge von Aussagen aus dem ganzen Land und der ganzen Welt gehört. Es gibt einige phänomenale Dinge in der Kirche weltweit. ”

McCall glaubt, dass die Tatsache, dass Kalvarienberg aus anderen Konfessionen Zeichnung bedeutet, dass Amerika bereit für Erwachen ist. “Ich glaube, die Leute wollen eine Wiederbelebung unabhängig davon, was der Name ist auf der [Kirche] Türpfosten. Sie sind bereit, durch Hindernisse zu kriechen, um einen Hauch von Gott zu bekommen “, sagt er.

 

Sonntag, 20. Oktober, 1996, Houston, Texas (R Heard)

Dr R Heard führte Christian Tabernacle in Houston in Wachstum von 250 auf 3.000 Mitglieder. Am Sonntag, 20. Oktober 1996, explodierte eine Bewegung Gottes in der Kirche.

Im Vorjahr hatte die Kirche eine starke Betonung auf Erkenntnis Christi innig. Dass August 1996 Hector Giminez aus Argentinien diente dort mit großer Kraft und viele bedeutende Heilungen. Das Bewusstsein für das Vorhandensein und die Herrlichkeit des Herrn stieg im Oktober, vor allem mit dem Ministerium eines Evangelisten Freund von Richard, Tommy Tenny, die zu sprechen an diesem Morgen war. Richard sich anschickte, ihn zu begrüßen und hatte gerade über Gottes Verheißung der Wiedergeburt von 2 Chronik 7:14, wenn Gottes Macht den Ort sogar Aufspaltung des Plexiglas Kanzel getroffen zu lesen.

Er sprach darüber per Telefon im November 1996 mit Norman Papst von New Wine Ministerien in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, die das Protokoll von der Diskussion über die Awakening E-Mail stellen Die folgende Darstellung ist eine bearbeitete Auswahl von Richard Heard Kommentare.:

Ich fühlte die Gegenwart des Herrn auf mich kommen so kraftvoll ich das Podium, die Kanzel ergriff, um nicht umzufallen, und das war ein Fehler. Sofort war ich eine Reihe von Füßen in eine andere Richtung geschleudert, und die Leute sagten, es war wie jemand nur warf mich über die Plattform. Die Kanzel fiel, dass ich für die Unterstützung worden halten, und ich war für eine Stunde und eine Hälfte. … Ich konnte mich nicht bewegen. Und ich sah einen Manifestation der Herrlichkeit Gottes. … Es gab dicke Wolken, dunkle Wolken, eingefasst in golden white und die Wolken würden – gäbe es Ausbrüche von Licht, das durch die kommen würde, wäre das nur über mich ergehen lassen absolut wie Strom. … Es war buchstäblich ein pulsierendes Gefühl – als ob ich durch die Anwesenheit von der Herrlichkeit Gottes aufgefächert wird. Es gab … engelhaft Manifestationen, die die Herrlichkeit umgeben, und ich wusste nicht, wie lange ich weg war. Sie sagte später, dass ich dort war für eine Stunde und eine Hälfte.

In der Zwischenzeit, auf der ganzen Gebäude Menschen, sie sagen mir, wurden unter der Gegenwart Gottes zu fallen. Das ist nicht etwas, das viel hat sich in unserer Kirche passiert ist, aber die Leute wurden überall gestreckt und auf dem Altar. Wir haben drei Dienste am Sonntag und die Menschen würden die Flure, die in das Foyer führen und dann in den Zuschauerraum betreten und sie würden die Flure betreten und beginnen zu weinen. Es war so eine Ehre Gottes, und sie würden in das Foyer kommen und nicht aufhören – sie würden nur geradeaus gehen zum Altar – Menschen ausgestreckt überall. … Es gab alle Arten von Engelerscheinungen, dass die Menschen erlebt hatte. Ärzte, Professoren, ihre Körper waren überall verstreut – und wir haben professionelle Leute in unserer Gemeinde haben.

Als ich die Herrlichkeit Gottes Aufzug fühlte, versuchte ich aufzustehen und konnte es nicht. Es war, als ob jedes elektrische Mechanismus in meinem Körper hatte kurzgeschlossen. Ich konnte nicht meine Hände oder meine Füße zu dem, was ich habe versucht, ihnen zu sagen, zu tun, zu reagieren. Es war, als wäre ich gelähmt war. … Und wir hatten einen Dienst an diesem Tag, und der Service buchstäblich nie zu Ende – es ging den ganzen Weg durch den Tag bis 2:00 am Morgen. Es war um 8.30 Uhr gestartet, und wir beschlossen, in die Kirche haben die nächste Nacht, und ich wollte nicht anmaßend sein, aber wir gingen auf einer nächtlichen Basis dieser Reihenfolge, nur die Ankündigung eines Nachts in einer Zeit, und wie wir immer tiefer in die Woche konnte ich beginnen, um zu sehen, dass Gott tat ​​etwas, das wahrscheinlich im Begriff war, sein mehr erweitert. …

Es wurden zahlreiche Heilungen. Der Evangelist überhaupt nicht jenem Sonntag sprechen. In der Tat, die ganze Woche sprach er vielleicht zwanzig Minuten. Es war eine wirklich tiefe Ruf Gottes zur Umkehr. Menschen kommen und sie nur auf ihre Gesichter fallen. …

Wir hatten einen tollen Chor. Wir sind eine multi-ethnische Gemeinde. A Brooklyn Tabernacle Art von Sound, wenn Sie nicht vertraut sind mit dem. Große Anbetung und Lobpreis. Sonntagmorgen gab es nicht einen Chormitglied stehend auf der Plattform. Sie waren alle wie die Murmeltiere auf der ganzen Plattform verstreut.Und wir gehen in – [Musiker] beginnen zu spielen, um uns in der Gegenwart des Herrn zu führen, und sie spielen sehr leise. Aufgrund unserer Hintergrund, in der Regel unsere Anbetung ist sehr stark, sehr dynamisch, sehr viel Energie. Nicht mehr. Es ist, als wärst du Angst, auch heben Sie Ihre Stimme. …

Wir haben alles, was wir geplant hatten abgesagt. Wir haben eine Menge von Aktivitäten im Freien. Wir haben 122 Ministerien innerhalb der Kirche, die dazu beigetragen unsere Kirche zu wachsen haben, und diese Ministerien waren in erster Linie entweder für immer oder Leute hier halten die Menschen, wenn sie umgesetzt haben. … Ich erzählte unsere Mitarbeiter – sie fragten: “Sind wir Weihnachten Musicals und Kinder-Festzüge jemals haben?” Und wir machen eine große Leidenschaft spielen jedes Jahr, dass in Tausenden und Abertausenden von Menschen bringt. Und ich fragte sie: “Warum tun wir das alles?”, Und sie sagte: “Nun, wir Menschen, hierher zu kommen, so dass sie Gott begegnen wollen.”, Sagte ich, “Schau, was passiert. Wir haben Menschen stürmen in hier, dass wir noch nie gesehen, nie gehört, nie gesprochen. Und Gott tut es in einer Weise, die so weit überlegen ist, was wir tun könnten, dass alles, was wir haben los, wir Cancelling alles. “Und das ist wörtlich das, was wir getan haben. … Und es war nicht ein einziger Einwand. Das ist, was mich wundert.

Ich denke, dass dies wahrscheinlich zu landen – was auch immer in dieser Saison ist, dass der Heilige Geist bringt uns durch in Bezug auf unser Engagement für Ihn und die tiefe Suche unseres eigenen Herzens, hat sie das Gefühl, an dieser Stelle, wie es sich auf – wie es das Gebäude zu noch größerem evangelistischen Ausgießung. …

Es gibt einen großen Unterschied in der Erneuerung und Erweckung. Ich hatte das gleiche Skepsis des Lachens. Ich war in einem klassischen Pfingstkirchen Hintergrund angehoben. Ich sah, dass von Zeit zu Zeit, aber der letzte Schrei – ich – etwas in mir hatte gerade eine schwierige Zeit mit ihm. Und es gibt Menschen, die wie verrückt lachen jetzt, und, wie ich meine, all diese Sachen, die ich gesagt, dass ich Bedenken hatte und nicht besonders interessiert zu sehen – ich meine, es ist so, als ob Gott hat gesagt: “Das ist mein Kirche. Es ist nicht deine. “Und ich sehe die Realität es jetzt. Ich denke, es wird bis zum Ende drehen stark evangelistische.Er hat das Gefühl und eine Menge Leute kommen und gerettet jede Nacht. Es gibt viele gerettet werden, und es ist nicht einmal wirklich ein Altar rufen hergestellt, die zwischen Menschen, die bereits gespeichert sind, unterscheidet – das müssen nur diejenigen, die Erneuerung und Umwandlung müssen [weil] es ist nur so stark, jetzt (Waugh 1998 144-147) .

Ein Jahr später wurden die Menschen immer noch umgewandelt, oft 30-40 pro Woche. Richard Heard kommentierte, dass überall in der Kirche der Teppich mit den Tränen der Menschen, die von Gott und Reue berührt wird gefärbt.

Sonntag, 19. Januar, 1997, Baltimore, Maryland (Tommy Tenny)

Elizabeth Moll Stalcup interviewt Bart Pierce und Tommy Tenny in Baltimore, als in Charisma, Juli 1998 gemeldet:

Wenn Baltimore Pfarrer Bart Pierce schrie nach mehr von Gott im Januar 1997, hatte er keine Ahnung, der Heilige Geist sein Leben verändern würde, und seine Gemeinde, für immer. Bart Pierce wird nie den Tag vergessen, fiel der Heilige Geist in seiner Kirche in den sanften Vorort von Baltimore, Maryland. Es war nicht schrittweise, noch war es subtiler. Gott zeigte sich während der Gottesdienst am Sonntagmorgen am 19. Januar, 1997.

Pierce, der Pfarrer von Rock Church in Baltimore, und seine Frau, Coralee, war gerade von einer Pastoren ‘Rückzug in St. Augustine, Florida zurückgekehrt. Pierce sagt, er ging an den Rückzug mit “einem verzweifelten, tiefen Hunger nach mehr von Gott.”

Dort hörte er Tommy Tenney erzählen ein Ereignis, das in einer Kirche aufgetreten Houston ein paar Monate früher. Ohne Vorwarnung in den frühen Morgen-Service am 20. Oktober 1996, hatte Gott souverän eine Plexiglas Kanzel in zwei vor dem staunen Gemeinde aufgeteilt. Danach brach eine ungewöhnliche Bewegung der Reue bei den Houston Kirche.

Tenney, in der dritten Generation unterwegs Evangelist, sagte den versammelten Pastoren, dass das Drama des geteilten Kanzel war total im Schatten der genial Gegenwart Gottes, die das Heiligtum unmittelbar nach dem übernatürliches Ereignis gefüllt. “Die Wiederbelebung”, Tenney erzählte ihnen, “wurde von einem tiefen Gefühl der Demut, Gebrochenheit und Reue geprägt.”

Während Tenney sprach, fielen viele der Pastoren, darunter Pierce, auf ihren Gesichtern Weinen. Pierce verbrachte einen Großteil seiner Zeit auf dem Rückzug Boden liegenden und weinend vor dem Herrn. Als es endete, fragte er Tenney, wieder nach Baltimore mit ihm für das Wochenende. Auf der 18-Stunden-Fahrt nach Hause, Pierce, seine Frau und Tenney hatte “eine Begegnung Gottes, wie wir über das, was Gott tut und was wir glaubten, gesprochen”, sagt Pierce. “Wir würden in dem Auto sitzen und weinen”, erinnert sich Tenney. Sie erreichten Baltimore am Samstagabend, gefüllt mit einem Hunger nach mehr von dem Herrn.

Am nächsten Morgen Pierce wusste, dass etwas, sobald er in die Kirche Gebäude bekam. “Zwei meiner Ältesten in der Tür und weinte”, sagt er. “Wir begannen verehren, dann begannen die Menschen aufstehen ganzen Gebäude crying out loud.” Einige kamen nach vorne zum Altar, andere würden “für den Altar und Knautschzonen in den Gang zu starten.”

Selbst diejenigen, außerhalb des Heiligtums waren betroffen. “Zurück in den Fluren wurden Menschen hinunter unter der Macht Gottes. Wir nie wirklich zu predigen “, sagt Pierce. Tenney und Pierce sollten werden, was den Service, aber beide wurden auch durch die intensive Gegenwart Gottes, alles andere als Schrei tun überwinden.

“Es war ein tiefes Gefühl der Reue, die zunehmend intensiver wuchs”, erzählt Pierce. Um 4 Uhr nachmittags gab es noch Leichen in der ganzen Kirche Etage.Pierce und Tenney mehrmals versucht zu sprechen, aber jedes Mal wurden sie von Tränen überwältigt.

“Endlich”, sagt Pierce, “wir unser Führungsteam gesagt, ‘Wir gehen nach Hause, um sich umzuziehen.” Wir waren ein Durcheinander von auf dem Boden liegend und weinte. “Die beiden Männer gingen nach Hause und geändert werden. Als sie wieder in die Kirche um 6 Uhr kam, waren die Leute immer noch da, und mehr kamen. Das erste “Service” fortgesetzt, bis 2 Uhr morgens.

Montag Abend kehrte Menschen, und das gleiche passierte. Es geschah wieder Dienstag Abend. “Viele Leute einfach kroch unter den Bänken zu verstecken und weinen und weinen”, erinnert sich Pierce. “In Zeiten der Schreien war so laut, es war unheimlich.”

Pierce aufgefallen neue Gesichter in der Gemeinde. “Wir haben keine Ahnung, wie sie wusste über den Service, weil wir überhaupt nicht werben”, sagt er. Als er fragte, erzählte einige der Besucher erstaunliche Geschichten.

Ein Mann sagte, er fuhr die Straße hinunter, als Gott sagte zu ihm: “Go to Church Rock.” Eine andere Frau sagte, sie sei an ihrem Küchentisch sitzen, wenn sie die gleiche Nachricht bekam. Sie wusste nicht, was ein “Rock Church” war, aber sie fand einen Eintrag im Telefonbuch. Nach dem Gottesdienst unter Tränen gestand sie, dass sie geplant hatte, um ihren Mann zu verlassen am nächsten Morgen.”Gott hatte ihr Herz völlig gedreht”, sagt Pierce. “Sie und ihr Mann wurden komplett restauriert.”

Für die ersten paar Wochen, Pierce sagt, “jeder Dienst an der Kirche wurde auf den Kopf gestellt.” Die Kirche hat immer für seine Barmherzigkeit Ministerien bekannt – seine Obdachlosenheim für Männer, die zu Hause für Frauen in der Krise, die die Verteilung von Nahrungsmitteln Programm, was bewegt 7.000.000 £ von Lebensmitteln im Jahr, und ihren Dienst zu Baltimore Innenstadt wieder zu beleben.

Aber wenn die Wiederbelebung begann, nahm alles einen Rücksitz, was Gott tat.Pierce finden würde seine Mitarbeiter auf dem Boden liegend in den Fluren oder hören einen dumpfen Schlag gegen die Wand und jemanden finden, der auf dem Boden liegend in den nächsten Raum, weinen hemmungslos.

Menschen berichtet übernatürliche Ereignisse in ihren Häusern, auch. Eine Frau, die nicht gespeicherte Mann hatte einen Traum, in dem alle sprachen Chinesisch.Er kam die Treppe herunter und fand seine Frau auf dem Boden liegend sprechen Chinesisch. Sein Sohn, der angeblich zu sein, immer bereit für die Schule war, wurde auf dem Boden liegend im Wohnzimmer und weinte und weinte. An diesem Tag habe der Mann gerettet.

Eines Nachts ein Junge aus einer lokalen Bande trat weinend während Tenney noch predigte. “Er kam nach vorne, sah mich an und sagte:” Du musst mir helfen, weil ich einfach nicht mehr aus ‘”, erinnert sich Tenney. “Diese Art von Gebrochenheit ist, was zieht die Gegenwart Gottes”, sagt er. “Gott wird nie wieder weg von einem gebrochenen Herzen und zerbrochenen Geistes.”

Pierce stimmt. Er glaubt, die Gemeinde hat “die Himmel irgendwie von unseren Weinen für ihn geöffnet. Er hat sich zu unserem Vergnügen. “Sowohl er als auch Tenney sagen, sie haben” drehte sich zu seinem Gesicht zu suchen, von der Suche nach seinen Händen “, dh sie sind bestrebt, Gott innig lieber wissen, als suche er für seine Leistungen.

“Wir haben keine Agenda”, sagt Pierce. “Wir kommen und anfangen zu beten, und seine manifeste Gegenwart kommt in. Es ist überwältigend. Manchmal gibt es nichts jeder von uns tun kann. Wir haben von dem Versuch, das Treffen ließ ihn die Aufgabe, warum wir gekommen sein Steuerung eingeschaltet. ”

Tenney nennt es “Präsenz Evangelisation.” Er erklärt: “Wir verstehen ‘Programm Evangelisation”, wo man ohnmächtig Traktate oder setzen auf eine evangelistische spielen oder Host-Alpha-Klassen. John Wimber half uns zu verstehen “Macht Evangelisation,” wo die Menschen begegnen die Macht Gottes, wie Sie für die Bedürfnisse in ihrem Leben zu beten.

“Aber was passiert in Houston und was geschieht in Baltimore nennen wir ‘Anwesenheit Evangelisation.” Die Gegenwart Gottes wird unglaublich stark, wo Menschen sind buchstäblich überwältigt. Sie werden, um seine Anwesenheit gezogen. Sie sind nicht durch die Predigt gezogen, sie sind nicht von der Musik gezogen, sie werden durch die Anwesenheit von Gott gezogen. Es ist schwer, darüber zu sprechen, ohne zu weinen. ”

Die Kirche hält nicht Zahlen über die Zahl der Menschen, die zum Glauben an Jesus gekommen, da die Wiederbelebung begonnen, weil sie die Menschen zu gehen zurück in ihre Heimat Kirchen zu fördern. Viele Pastoren bringen ihre Leute auf die Dienste in Baltimore, weil sie wissen, dass Rock Church nicht stehlen ihre Herde.

Im Gegensatz zu den Toronto-Segen Dienstleistungen, die Menschen gezogen wurden durch die Tausende aus der ganzen Welt auf die Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship in Kanada, die meisten der Menschen, die zu den Baltimore Wiederbelebung Dienstleistungen gekommen sind aus der Region, darunter Pastoren aus gewesen anderen Kirchen. “Jeden Abend haben wir 12 bis 20 Pastoren haben aus der Gegend von Baltimore”, sagt Pierce.

Dennoch haben einige lange Strecken kommen. Eines Nachts sah sie aus und sah 47 Koreaner, die ein Flugzeug gechartert, um gekommen war. Ein anderes Mal eine Gruppe aus Island war. Sie hatten Besucher aus Großbritannien, Deutschland, der Ukraine und in ganz Amerika.

Vor Ostern, legte die Kirche auf einem Theaterstück über Himmel und Hölle genannt Eternity. Crowds füllte die 3.000-Sitz Heiligtum. An manchen Abenden mehrere hundert Menschen mussten abgewiesen werden, weil es keinen Platz mehr. Und während einer zwei-Tage-Frist, kamen mehr als 700 nach vorne, um ihr Leben Christus zu geben. Die Kirche ursprünglich geplant, um das Spiel für zwei Wochen aufnehmen, aber sie setzte eine zusätzliche Woche aufgrund der großen Resonanz.

Tenney glaubt, dass es “eine Verbindung zwischen dem, was die Rock Church traditionell getan” – also der Kirche stark Ministerien zu verletzen Menschen außerhalb der Kirche – und die Art und Weise der Himmel in Baltimore geöffnet haben.

Heute sind Dienstleistungen in Baltimore leiser und sanfter, als sie während der ersten Monate der Erweckung waren. Aber der Worship-Musik ist kraftvoll, und der Gesang zieht die Gemeinde zu Jesus. Die meisten Songs wurden von Menschen in der Kirche geschrieben, nachdem die Wiederbelebung begann.

Nach einer Stunde oder so der Anbetung, nimmt Tommy Tenney das Mikrofon und beginnt zu predigen. Er bittet das Publikum zu Jesus in einer Art, wie sie noch nie zuvor anzubeten – anbeten, ihm den Weg Mary tat, wenn sie die Alabastergefäß brach, goß die Salbe auf die Füße Jesu und trocknete seine Füße mit ihrem Haar.

Wie Tenney weiter zu sprechen, beginnen die Menschen zu weinen, die meisten ruhig, aber einige mehr offen. Er lädt die Menschen nach vorne zu kommen. Fast jeder tut. “Nur für eine Nacht in Ihrem Leben, ihn anbeten,” Tenney ermutigt sie. “Er will manifestieren sich seinem Volk. Zum ersten Mal in Ihrem Leben beiseite, was Sie wollen von Gott, und ihm die Ehre geben. ”

Diejenigen, die nach dramatischen übernatürlichen Displays finden sie nicht hier.Aber sie werden das Gefühl der intensiven Gegenwart Gottes. Die Auswirkungen der Wiederbelebung wird im Leben, die für die Ewigkeit verändert wurden gesehen.Es gab körperliche Heilungen, geheilt Ehen, ausgebrannte Menschen befähigt, Gott zu folgen, kehrte prodigals und Hunderte von Menschen, die Jesus gefunden haben, für die erste Zeit.

“Es ist für uns nicht den Weg in eine verlorene Welt zu zeigen. Es ist für uns den Weg zu führen. Wenn die Kirche beginnen, in Demut und Reue zu gehen, dann wird die Welt sehen, seine Herrlichkeit. ”

 

Juni 1997 – Kawana Waters, Queensland, Austrtalia (Peter Barr)

Australian Evangelist Jeff Beacham beschreibt ein Wochenende in Kawana Waters, Queensland, die erlebt hat Segen Wiederbelebung Seit Juni 1997:

In den letzten Tagen habe ich bei Living Waters Christian Centre, eine Kirche, die Bewegung stark in Wiederbelebung worden dienstbare. Revival begann hier im Juni 1997 mit einem Besuch von Darrell Stott und einem Team aus Seattle, USA.Darrell wieder hier im September und blieben bis Ostern 1998. Seit Oktober 1997 ist sie im Einklang mit längeren Sitzungen, teilweise bis zu 12 Sitzungen pro Woche.

An einer Stelle wurden sie mit 3000 durch mehrere Wochen in einer Reihe zu kommen. Allerdings haben sie eine kluge Pfarrer Peter Barr, der Wiederbelebung verpflichtet ist aber bewusst, dass eine gute Seelsorge und Jüngerschaft zu erhalten und entwickelt werden, wenn diese Kirche wird, wo es bestimmt zu sein bekommen müssen.

Sie haben Gastredner in jeder zweiten Woche oder so mit einigen prominenten internationalen, nationalen und lokalen Lautsprecher, der ein Herz für Erweckung haben. Menschen aus vielen Teilen Australiens wurden kommen, mit tollen Zeugnissen der Heilung, Wiederherstellung, Versöhnungen, re-Richtung von Leben und Rettungen. Viele haben von einer frischen Begegnung mit Gott und eine neue persönliche Intimität mit ihm bezeugte.

Es ist sicherlich kein Mangel an Leben hier. Es ist nicht nur emotional Hype, sondern eine echte Begeisterung für die Dinge Gottes, und es ist eine Freude, zu diesem sehr ansprechenden Publikum predigen. Die Kirche war voll für die ersten beiden Nächte. Am Freitagabend die Kraft Gottes treffen die Jugendlichen in einem großen Weg. Ich rief jeden unter dem Alter von 25 Jahren an die Front. Time after time sie wurden alle auf den Boden abgeflacht, alle zusammen und ohne jemand zu berühren.

Samstagabend war ein Jugendtreffen und Jugendlichen kamen aus allen Teilen des Landkreises. Es war Chaos als der Führer hatte mich angekündigt mit den meisten der Kinder sprechen oder herumlaufen. Aber als ich, meine Herausforderung, sie wurde zu erheben und sein Meister von der Wahrheit, muss das Wort Gottes direkt in ihre Herzen gegangen sein, weil es nicht ein Ton, und wir sahen eine riesige Altarruf in der Antwort.

Viele Besucher kamen zu den Leistungen am Sonntag, einige von so weit weg wie Toowoomba, eine große ländliche Stadt zwei und eine halbe Stunde Autofahrt von hier entfernt. Einige der Jugendlichen öffentlich bezeugte heute darüber, wie ihr Leben verändert worden, und dass an diesem Wochenende hatte sie mehr glücklich und aufgeregt über Gott, als sie jemals zuvor. Ein Mann in den Fünfzigern schickte dieses Zeugnis: “Ich habe nicht nur eine gute Zeit haben, aber mein Leben hat sich für immer verändert. Ich weiß, dass du allein bist der Bote und suchen nicht irdischen Belohnungen, aber es ist gut zu wissen, von und manchmal sehen die Ergebnisse des Heiligen Geistes bewegt durch dich. ”

Ich glaube, dass diese Kirche wird viel für das Reich Gottes zu vollbringen. Sie haben eine Vision zu sein, ein Mann stark bis zum Jahr 2000, und ihre Gebäude erweitern, um doppelt so groß, dass es jetzt sein. Es gibt eine enorme Begeisterung und eine große Vorfreude und Aufregung über die Zukunft. Sie wissen, wohin sie gehen und viele wollen mit ihnen zu gehen.

 

Donnerstag, 10. Juli, 1997, Caloundra, Queensland (Ken Kilah)

Pastor Ken Kilah, Senior Pastor bei Caloundra Baptist Church an der Sunshine Coast von Queensland berichtet über eine Bewegung Gottes in der Kirche und bei Caloundra Christian College:

Seit Februar 1995 ist die Caloundra Baptist Church hat mehrere Wellen des Geistes erlebt, als er souverän auf der Gemeinde bewegt hat. Zeitweise Leute würden in ihre Sitze fallen wie der Geist bewegt an der Macht. Seit dieser Zeit hat die Kirche konsequent Altar Anrufe am Ende der Dienstleistungen mit verschiedenen Erscheinungsformen auftretenden gemacht.

Diese Manifestationen erhöht während und nach einer “catch the Fire ‘Konferenz im Oktober 1996. Guy Chevreaux war der Gastredner. Viele Menschen wurden durch die Kraft Gottes berührt und bezeugten Heilungen, erfrischend, Freisetzung von Ängsten und eine ganze Menge mehr.

Am Donnerstag, 10. Juli 1997, der Heilige Geist kam unerwartet auf Schüler in einer Klasse 7 Klasse an der Caloundra Christian College. Das College ist ein Dienst des Caloundra Baptist Church.

Studenten begann Schütteln und auf den Boden fallen. Der Lehrer, wohl wissend, was vorkommenden dauerte mehrere der Schüler aus der Klasse der Gebetsraum in der Kirche, wo sie für die gebetet wurde und betreut durch Mitarbeiter der Kirche.

Dies verursacht eine starke Reaktion von bestimmten Eltern, die durch das Sammeln eine Petition, die Schule zu beenden, was los war, oder sie würden ihre Schüler von der Schule zu entfernen protestiert. Die Kirche und Schule reagierte mit den Worten wir glaubten, dass dieser Gott bei der Arbeit war.

Ein Brief an den gesamten Grundkörper erklären diese Position. Dieser Brief erreicht die lokale Presse, die Titelseite Artikeln in den Zeitungen am Wochenende durchgeführt. Während der nächsten Woche die TV-Kanäle lief Nachrichtensendungen und aktuellen Berichten über die Schule und die Ansichten der Gegner. Einige der wichtigsten Zeitungen lief auch Magazin-und Nachrichtensendungen, und Radio-Stationen für Interviews genannt.

Letztlich einige Eltern haben durch Zurückziehen 30 Kinder aus der 371 eingeschrieben reagieren. Jedoch trat Neuanmeldungen und Schulen im ganzen Land gesendet ermutigende Berichte.

Das erfreuliche Ergebnis wurde um das Leben der Kinder verändert sehen. Die Kinder hatten keine Angst, was Gott tut und weiterhin in ihrem Leben zu tun. Sie waren diejenigen, die Gott für seine Gnade gelobt zu ihnen, und so tun, alle an der Caloundra Baptist Church und Schule.

 

Sonntag, 12. Oktober, 1997, Greenville, Alabama (Ken Owen)

Ken Owen, Hauptpastor der First Assembly of God Greenville, South Carolina, berichtet:

Im April 1995 wurde eine erste Welle der Erweckung begann Kamm die Gemeinde bei First Assembly of God, Greenville, South Carolina. Nightly Sitzungen wurden für einen Monat mit Ed Nelson statt. Seitdem wurde eine Reihe von Wellen haben in gerollt, Gebäude in das, was ist jetzt ein Tsunami der Erweckung.

Im August 1997 begann die Flut deutlich vertiefen. Ich rief Ed – Direktor einer Missionsarbeit zu unerreichten Völker – sofort zurück. Am 11. Oktober 1997 kehrte Ed uns aus Asien. Der Gottesdienst am Sonntagmorgen floss wie ein mächtiger Fluss – Hunderte kamen uns auf der Sünden zu bereuen. Die Sitzung durchgeführt auf den ganzen Tag bis 04.00 Uhr. Mit einer Stunde Pause, begann es wieder um 5:00 Uhr mit einem großen Gebetstreffen und Abendgottesdienst. Seitdem gab es kein Nachlassen, nur eine Erhöhung.

Mehr als zweitausend Menschen haben von Sünden bereut, Konvertiten getauft wöchentlich. Viele Wunder und Heilungen begleiten den Aufschwung.

Menschen aus einer Vielzahl von Hintergründen und Kirche Konfessionen sind zu den Sitzungen von mehreren Städten und Staaten als treibende Dynamik weiter zu stärken. Es hat fast keine Förderung der Wiederbelebung, aber Mund-zu-Mund hat tausende von Menschen zu den Sitzungen gebracht.

 

November 1997 – Pilbara, Western Australia (Craig Siggins)

Die Schließung einer Kneipe durch Mangel an Kunden ist große Neuigkeit in Australien. Dies ist, was die Medien zog in eine kleine Stadt namens Nullagine im äußersten Norden von Western Australia. Aber die Medien wusste nicht recht, wie man die religiösen Erweckung, die halten die Menschen wird von den Kneipen-sowie den Gefängnissen und Krankenhäusern zu berichten. Aboriginal Kirche Arbeitnehmer Craig Siggins schrieb diesen Bericht über das spirituelle Erwachen, dass eine Änderung Aborigines-Gemeinden in Western Australia ist.

“Kuurti yarrarni kuwarri ngangka mungkangka” (“Heiliger Geist, wir begrüßen Sie in diesem Ort tonight”) ist die erste Zeile eines Liedes an vielen Aborigines-Gemeinden rund um die Pilbara gesungen. Es wurde von Len “Nyaparu” Brooks, auch als Kurutakurru, einer der vielen Führern Gott bis zu den Martu Wangka, Nyangumarta und andere Völker der Pilbara erhöht hat bekannt komponiert.

Ein spirituelles Erwachen fand in vielen Gemeinden im vergangenen Jahr, im Jahr 1997. Die Dinge begannen am Warralong, wo viele Christen geworden und wurden, nachdem sie von drei christlichen Aboriginal Führer beeinflusst getauft. Dann kurz vor Weihnachten trat Kurutakurru zwei weitere Führungskräfte auf Nullagine, und viele von Nullagine und anderen Gemeinden wurden Christen und stieß auf dem Damm am Newman, getauft zu werden.

Viele Gemeinden begann mit Sitzungen fast jede Nacht und jeden Tag Gebetstreffen. Mitarbeiter reisten nach verschiedenen Gemeinden für die Sitzungen und die Menschen zu ermutigen, manchmal die Abhaltung von Tagungen in der Nacht nach einer Trauerfeier, wenn Hunderte von Menschen versammelt waren.Einige Sitzungen ging für acht Stunden oder mehr als Menschen in Song geteilt, Zeugnis, Gebet, Bibellesen und Predigt.

Als Franklin Graham Perth besuchte Anfang Februar reiste über 200 Martu Menschen die 1150 km für seine Sitzungen. Es war wie ein langer Gottesdienst den ganzen Weg hin und zurück. Jeder war Platzen zu singen und zu den Menschen in Perth erleben.

Als wir zurückkamen gab es weitere Treffen und Taufen, auch von Gemeinden, die zuvor das Christentum abgelehnt hatte. Alte Menschen, Aboriginal Ältesten wurden zu Christus Drehen und getauft. Vierhundert Menschen am Fluss in der Nähe Coongan Marble Bar für drei Tage von Sitzungen gesammelt, mit vielen mehr getauft.

Unser Ostern Convention, 1998, war eine wunderbare Zeit des Feierns Jesus. Über 1000 Menschen kamen, darunter auch viele neue Christen aus Gemeinden, die nie kommen hatte. Die Sitzungen ging fast non-stop über die Osterzeit. Singen ist ein hervorstechendes Merkmal der Wiederbelebung. Es ist ein echtes Gefühl der Freude, das kommt im Lied. Viele neue Lieder geschrieben worden und viele alte Lieder in Martu Wangka, Nyangurnartu und andere Sprachen übersetzt. Überall wo du hingehst Sie tragen Kinder singen und spielen Lieder Bänder der Wiederbelebung.

So viele Menschen wurden zu Christen und die Aufgabe der Grog, dass die Kneipe in Nuilagine viel von ihrem Geschäft verloren und ging in Konkurs. Die Geschichte machte Schlagzeilen rund um Australien. Nyaparu Landy und ich waren auf Perth Radio interviewt! A Current Affair ging Nuilagine. Polizei, Krankenhäuser und andere haben einen Rückgang der alkoholbedingten Vorfälle bemerkt. Die Medien haben begonnen, Notiz zu nehmen.

Erstaunlicherweise begann eine gleichzeitige und scheinbar ganz getrennten Wiederbelebung etwa zur gleichen Zeit unter den Menschen und andere Pintubi über die Grenze in das Northern Territory. Ein Team von Kiwirrkura, einfach auf den WA Seite der Grenze, reiste quer durch die Wüste und trat mit den Pilbara Meetings, Ankunft am frühen Ostern für unsere Convention in einem breiten trockenen Flussbett in der Nähe von Newman statt. Mehr als 1000 Menschen aus verschiedenen Gemeinden und christlichen Traditionen kamen zusammen, um zu feiern.

Warum die Wiederbelebung? Es ist nichts mehr oder weniger mehr als ein Werk des Heiligen Geistes. Es hat Ähnlichkeiten mit der Wiederbelebung, die für viele Aborigine-Gemeinden in den frühen 80er Jahren, die die Pilbara erreicht aber nie wirklich ergriff verbreiten. Wie dieser Wiederbelebung, haben die Menschen hatten Träume und Visionen. Kürzlich Mitchell, ein führender Anbieter von Punmu, stand auf und las aus der Apostelgeschichte 2 über Joels Prophezeiung und sagte, es ist erfüllt. Nicht lange her, erzählte mir, sie hätten Leute ein Kreuz am Himmel zu sehen an einem Morgen. Und wie die 80er Jahre Revival, ist es die Aborigines unter den Wangka Kunyjunyu (Good News), um ihre eigenen Leute in ihren eigenen Weg und ihre eigene Sprache.

Die Wiederbelebung hat nicht aufgehört. Die Martu Menschen selbst sind, die sich anderen Menschen Martu. Neilie Bidu von Yandeyarra kam zurück, angefeuert vom Hören Franklin Graham, zu erreichen, um seine eigene Gemeinde. Er begann eine kleine Gebetstreffen und dann eingeladen Kurutakurru und andere Führer von Warralong und Punmu um ihm zu helfen. So gingen sie zu Warralong und viele sind es Christen geworden. Yandeyarra Menschen wiederum haben sich Menschen in der Nähe Banjima Tom Price erreicht. Andere Gemeinden haben auch erreicht, darunter einige, die zum Christentum geschlossen wurden. Einige dieser Gemeinden hatten sich Teams aus Crusade 1981 Wiederbelebung gedreht. Jetzt haben sie den Herrn wandte.

Aboriginal Führer durch den Heiligen Geist bevollmächtigt sind führend bei der Wiederbelebung. Diese Führer sehen möchten die Wiederbelebung Erreichen der breiteren Kartiya (Nicht-Aborigines) Gesellschaft. Aber für diese schüchtern Wüste Menschen zu erreichen, um Kartiya in diesen Tagen der Mabo wird Wik und der Kampf um die Versöhnung nur durch die Hand Gottes zu sein.

Aber es gab auch einige Exzesse und Schwierigkeiten bei der Wiederbelebung.Einige noch Kampf mit Alkoholismus und einige haben zurück zum trinken gegangen. Viele sind neue Christen mit wenig Wissen über das Christentum. Auch die Staats-und Regierungschefs sind in der Hauptsache untrainierte. Einige sind Analphabeten. Und andere Gruppen haben sich mit unterschiedlichen Ideen und Praktiken, die Teilung verursachten sogar innerhalb von Familien und haben zu viel Diskussion und Streit geführt, einige davon bitter kommen. One ist eine Gruppe, die den legalistischen Haltung der 10 Gebote, vor allem das vierte (den Sabbat) betont.Ein weiterer Grund ist eine ziemlich extreme charismatische Gruppe.

Dann gibt es Fragen von einem kulturellen Charakter. Einige Paare, die Christen geworden sind der falsche Weg in einer Stammes (wenn auch nicht biblischen) Sinne, darunter einige Führer verheiratet. Was ist zu tun? Was über einige Gesetze und den Stammesgebieten Zeremonien zu tun? Ablehnen sie alle? Halten Sie etwas? Das sind große Fragen, die durchgearbeitet werden.

Wir ermutigen die Führer, die Bibel für sich selbst zu lesen und die solide biblische Schlussfolgerungen kommen, wie sie kämpfen, durch diese Fragen mit Hilfe des Heiligen Geistes, aber es wird einige Zeit dauern. Beten Sie für die Menschen und die Wiederbelebung!

Adaptiert von Alive Magazin, Juni 1998 Vision-Magazin, Juli 1998 an.

 

Pfingstsonntag, dem 31. Mai 1998, St Helens, Tasmanien, Australien (Stuart Lumsden)

Pastor Stuart Lumsden ist der Pfarrer von St. Helens Christian Fellowship in der Stadt St. Helens, 3.000 Einwohner, an der Ostküste von Tasmanien. Er schrieb diesen Artikel zwei Monate nach Wiederbelebung begann in ihrer Kirche am Ende des Mai, 1998.

Hier ist ein kurzer Bericht darüber, was passiert am 31. Mai, Pfingstsonntag, in St. Helens Christian Fellowship. Wir hatten Ronnie Fynn, einem südafrikanischen Zulu Evangelist, tut eine zweitägige Ministerium, das in den letzten sechs Monaten geplant hatte. Durch Gebet und Fasten (wir waren in den letzten Tagen von einem 40 Tage Corporate schnell), war die Erwartung dessen, was Gott tun würde, sehr hoch. Während der Sitzungen, war es offensichtlich, dass wir auf einer anderen Ebene in den Lobpreis und Anbetung, vor allem in den Bereichen Klatschen und Schreien bewegt.

Wir haben wirklich erfaßt hatten wir durch bis zum Ende des Treffens am Sonntag gebrochen. Ronnie war aus Jesaja 40:31 geteilt und wies darauf hin, dass das Wort “warten” bedeutet Gott, Gott zu sein ‘erwarten’. Dieses Wort erhöht den Glauben Ebene der Menschen. Wie wir Schließung waren (gut, dachten wir, wir schlossen), wurde Ronnie Erfassen der Herr sprach zu ihm und nahm ihn zurück zu den Wiederaufnahmen in Südafrika von der Mitte der siebziger Jahre, in denen er beteiligt war. Er sah die gleichen Zeichen, dass Gott über etwas Bedeutendes tun war, und so wurde er darauf wartet, dass mit mir zu teilen, und wirklich das Gefühl der Dringlichkeit, als ich anfing, die Sitzung zu schließen. In meinem Herzen fühlte ich die gleiche, obwohl ich an diesem Punkt nicht bewusst, was Ronnie erlebte war. Ich rief ihn zu sich, und sobald er es mit mir teilte, fragte er mich: “Was sollen wir tun?” Ich sagte: “Go for it!”

Ein Wort der Erkenntnis kam, dass wir als Kirche zu gehen in die Stadt und erhalten Sie alle Kranken und Schwachen, die kommen würde, waren. In diesem Moment, es war wie eine große Freudigkeit fiel auf die Kirche, wie es in Apg 1,8 ‘Sie Macht erhält, wenn der Heilige Geist auf euch herabkommen wird, und ihr werdet meine Zeugen sein in Jerusalem und in ganz Judäa und Samaria und bis zum Ende der Erde. ‘

Damit war die Gegenwart Gottes spürbar. Es war, als ob der Himmel war eröffnet; genial, aber auch sehr sanft. Die Liebe Gottes erfüllte das Haus. Nicht lange danach begann Folk mit dem Kranken und Schwachen zurück. Übrigens wurden alle diese Menschen, die kamen, nicht wieder geboren.

Die erste Dame, die kamen, hatten mit Brustkrebs diagnostiziert worden und erlebte eine Menge Schmerzen, vor allem nachts. Wir beteten für sie und schien nicht viel zu passieren, obwohl wir durch den Glauben das Wort der Heilung über ihr erklärt. Sie hatte einen Bruder in der Kirche, und ihre Beziehung hatte im Laufe der Jahre angespannt. Der Bruder ging und bat sie um Vergebung, und in dem Moment tat ​​er, fühlte sie die Gegenwart Gottes auf ihrem ganzen, eine warme prickelnde Gefühl, und jetzt beweist, dass, obwohl die Klumpen sind immer noch da, der Schmerz ist weg.

Eine andere Dame, eine Schwester im örtlichen Krankenhaus, hatte einen schweren Autounfall vor ein paar Jahren. Sie hat Migräne und Energie-Senke und Schwindelanfällen litt seitdem. Wir beteten für sie, und sie jetzt bezeugt große Gefühle. Auch ihr Gesicht verändert hat; keine Kopfschmerzen, Schwindelanfälle oder Müdigkeit seit Sonntag.

Eine andere Dame, die zusammen mit ihrem Mann, gut bekannt sind und auch geliebt in der Gemeinde für ihre Arbeit mit Kindern und in der örtlichen Schule, wurde zur Heilung gebracht. Sie hat in Bremssätteln und auf Krücken seit Auftraggeber Kinderlähmung im Alter von zehn Jahren. Sie ist jetzt in ihren Fünfzigern. Nachdem sie gebetet wurde, sie erhobenen Händen über ihre Schultern, was sie nicht in der Lage war, vor, ohne Schmerzen zu tun, sie ging auch ohne die Hilfe von Krücken, die Hände über den Kopf, über mehrere Meter rund um die Kirche. Es war nicht ein trockenes Auge im Haus. Die Kinder waren besonders mit der Barmherzigkeit Gottes bewegt und versammelten sich um sie, umarmte sie und sie zu lieben. Sie bezeugte später, dass sie noch nie so geliebt gefühlt in ihrem Leben. Ich erzählte ihr, wie sehr sie Kinder geliebt und hatte sich für sie, und wie heute hatte sie die wahre Liebe Gottes für sie erlebt, dass ein signifikant Wirklichkeit sie nicht erlebt hatte.

Meine Tochter, Asha, (12 Jahre alt), hatte eine Vision, dass die Himmel up wurden geöffnet, und Gott ließ einen Senfkorn in unsere Mitte. Das Saatgut stellte eine Vermittlung des Glaubens in den Körper, und ich ermutigte alle, die daran teilhaben, dass sie ihre eigenen persönlichen brennenden Busch Erfahrung haben. Ein anderes Kind, Rose (12 Jahre alt), sprach prophetisch und erklärte sich mit Tränen und Weinen, dass “Revival hat begonnen.” Alles in allem war es ein toller Tag, und die Sitzung, die zur gewohnten Zeit von 10 gestartet bin noch nicht zu Ende, bis 17.30 Uhr

In den folgenden drei Wochen hatten wir Sitzungen jeden Abend mit dem Besuch im Bereich um 180 bis 200 Menschen während der ersten zwei Wochen, mit vielen Reisen aus allen Teilen des Landes. Auch zu diesem Zeitpunkt haben wir 48 Konvertierungen, das heißt, zum ersten Mal Entscheidungen erlebt. Wir haben zahlreiche Wunderheilungen, wie Krümmung der Wirbelsäule begradigt gesehen, Geschwüre sofort geheilt, ein Gentleman mit einer Geschichte von Nierenerkrankungen bezeugte geheilt, wobei diese durch seine gelben Augen ständig immer über Nacht weiß belegt. Ein Mann, der bezeugte, dass eine ständige Klingeln in seinen Ohren, die es seit vielen Jahren, nach dem Gebet für Heilung gestoppt. Wir haben mehrere Instant Heilungen von Rückenschmerzen erlebt.

Eine andere Dame, nicht gespeicherte erhielt Gebet für schwere Nierenerkrankung und einem Magengeschwür und war zu der Zeit in starke Schmerzen an dieser Erkrankung. Sogleich erlebt eine ganze Maß der Heilung, dann nahm Jesus als ihren Herrn und Erlöser. Sie bezeugte, am folgenden Tag, dass die Schmerzen zurückgekehrt war, jedoch stand sie auf das Wort und behauptete, ihre Heilung und hatte den besten Schlaf sie in Jahren gehabt hat, und nicht brauchen, um ihr Schmerzmittel verwenden. Sie war eindeutig sehr wohl und keine Schmerzen überhaupt. Weitere Aussagen über diese Dame ist, dass sie zur Kirche in Hobart und hat bereits dazu beigetragen andere Dame dem Herrn.

Ein Mann und Frau, kam nicht gespeicherte, der als einer der Sitzungen teilgenommen, nach vorne zum Gebet, als der Mann an einer schweren Muskel-degenerative Erkrankung litt. Ärzte sagten ihm, dass er in einem Rollstuhl in ein paar Monaten sein. Er hatte einen kondensierten Hals, kein Gefühl in seinen Händen oder Beinen und Füßen hatte ständig Schmerzen. Da wir für ihn gebetet, Gott ihn überflutet mit Feuer, fühlte er sich ganz heiß, seinen Hals wurde befreit und erhielt er das Gefühl in seinen Händen und Füßen und Beinen, und sprang auf und ab, als der Schmerz von ihm veröffentlicht wurde. Sie kehrten in der nächsten Nacht kam wieder nach vorne für mehr Gebet, und er erlebt wieder intensiver Hitze im ganzen Körper, wie Gott ihn berührte. Sie standen zusammen und erhielt Jesus als ihren Herrn und Erlöser.

An einem anderen Abend, kam ein älteres Ehepaar. Die Dame, die in den Siebzigern, hatte zwei Schlaganfälle und konnte kaum noch laufen mit Hilfe von Krücken und ihres Mannes Hilfe. Da wir für ihre Heilung gebetet, sagte Ronnie ihr, ihm zu folgen. Sie begann zu laufen, ohne ihre Krücken, und als sie sah man ihr die Freisetzung schlurfte, war sie fast herumflitzende nach Ronnie. Wir wurden später erzählte, dass zu Hause, sie war tatsächlich hob Beine höher heben und die Knie oberhalb Hüften. Dieses Paar auch akzeptiert Jesus als ihren Herrn und Erlöser.

Nur vor ein paar Nächten, kam eine Dame in weit fortgeschrittenen Stadien von Krebs nach vorn für die Heilung. Da wir für sie beteten, Ronnie zu sehen, eine ‘Klumpen’ verlassen ihren Körper ausgesagt, sie sagte auch zu einer “Wärme” Überflutung durch sie. Seitdem hat sie bezeugt ist von viel Unbehagen entlastet, besser schlafen und hat sich ihr Herz wieder zum Herrn.

Wir haben in zahlreichen Familien zu sehen, wobei die Herzen der Väter zu den Kindern gedreht; Zeugnisse der tiefen Versöhnung und Vergebung zwischen Vätern und Söhnen. Wir haben Befreiung von Süchten erlebt, wobei die Ablehnung, geheime Sünde mit Reue folgenden ausgesetzt.

Wir waren sehr beeindruckt von Zeugnissen aus Pastoren und Besucher aus anderen Kirchen gefördert. Viele haben persönliche Durchbrüche erlebt und gesehen haben, Gott zu bewegen beginnen, erstaunlich bei den Menschen in ihren Kirchen. Lobt Gott!

 

August 1998 – Kimberleys, Western Auswtralia (Max Wiltshire)

Robert McQuillan berichtet in der Evangel:

Eine begeisterte Max Wiltshire, Australian Aboriginal Outreach (AAO) Koordinator, kurz auf die Assemblies of God Western Australia Staat Konferenz gemeinsam einige der> spannende Dinge, die Gott in der Kimberley-Region im Norden von Western Australia im Jahr 1998 dabei ist.

Eine Reihe von Aboriginal Führer hatten ihn zu der Konferenz, darunter Kenny Boomer, die sein Ministerium Credential empfangen begleitet. Pastor Wiltshire würdigte auch die Rolle Western Australia Frauen Ministerien bei der Versorgung mit dem Bus zur Arbeit gespielt hatte.

“Fire in den Kimberleys fallen”, berichtete er. “Tausende werden mächtig durch Gott in der Erlösung, Heilung und Freisetzung berührt. Und in vielen anderen Möglichkeiten auch sind, von denen einige unglaublich. Hunderte von Menschen fallen aus – nicht miteinander, aber “Herausfallen” unter der Salbung “.

Liebevoll von Aboriginals bekannt als “der Mann im großen Hut”, die AAO Koordinator fügte hinzu, dass so viel hat sich seit ihrer hervorragenden Weihnachten Sitzungen passiert. Er berichtet:

Die Kimberleys sind in Flammen. Das Feuer Gottes in den Herzen seiner Menschen brennt heller als je zuvor, neue Kirchen gestartet wurden, haben andere in der Größe verdoppelt – ein Sprung von 10 Prozent von der Gemeinde zu 90 Prozent in nur wenigen Wochen. Etwas weiter entfernt in der Pilbara Region die Bewegung Gottes war so intensiv, dass die örtlichen Hotel in Konkurs ging.

seine Bewegung hat sich die Zahl der Christen in der Region in den letzten zwölf Monaten verdoppelt gesehen, was bedeutet, unsere Konventionen zu tausend Menschen in den abendlichen Treffen Klettern. Sind die Symptome noch auftreten als auf den ersten in dieser Bewegung Gottes? Ja, in der Tat, dass der Anstieg> wir sehen, ist in direkter Beziehung zu den herausragenden Manifestationen des Geistes.

Aber – was Manifestationen reden wir? Das Übliche? Ja, lachen, schütteln, rollen, weinen, laufen und so weiter auf. Allerdings, wenn diese die normal sind, was sind die Außenstehende? In Wahrheit würde einige machen Sie in Ehrfurcht weinen und frage mich. Wie sehen die Menschen, die unter der Kraft des Heiligen Geistes, wie sie ihre Opfer dem Herrn geben. Als sie an die Front gekommen sind und setzen ihr Angebot in den Behältern, sie “herausfallen” dort und dann als Segen des Gebens überwindet sie.

Nach einem letzten Kreuzzug, reichte Aboriginal Dame ein Ministerium Angebot an den Lautsprecher im Namen der Kirche, und fiel ihm zu Füßen, wieder unter der Macht und der Segen des Gebens.

Wir haben auch gesehen, Leute fallen in die Öffnung Gebet als sehr Namen Jesus erwähnt wird. Sie fallen einfach von den Sitzen auf dem Boden, nicht wissend, dass sie dazu bestimmt sind, bis zum Altar Anruf warten, bevor sie der Herr sie berühren zu lassen. Back up Sänger sind nicht in der Lage zu stehen, auch Menschen zu bringen Artikel sind nicht in der Lage, sie zu beenden, weil die Salbung ist so groß.

Eigentlich ist es ein Fall von den Sitten! Wir brauchen mehr Busse zu holen mehr Menschen, mehr der Segen zu erhalten! Transport Aboriginals zu> Dienstleistungen ist eine kulturelle Sache. Es zeigt Ihnen, Pflege und dass die Treffen sehr wichtig sind. Geben Sie Transport-und sie werden dort mit offenen Herzen.

Sonntag 25. Oktober 1998, Vancouver, Kanada (Charles Ndifon)

David Culley berichtet von froher Botschaft Versammlung in Vancouver, Kanada.

“Und es soll geschehen in den letzten Tagen, dass ich ausgießen werde meinen Geist auf alles Fleisch …” Wir sehen es! In den vergangenen Monaten frohe Botschaft in Vancouver, British Columbia, Kanada wurde mit dem gleichen Erneuerung, die auf der ganzen Welt passiert. Gestern, überquerten wir über in ausgewachsenen Revival. Der Morgen begann viel Service wie jedes andere. Der Gottesdienst war gesalbt wie gewohnt, und wir hatten einen Besuch Wiederbelebung Minister da wir oft vor. Das Ding, das anders war das Meer war von Turbanen und Saris in dem Gebäude. Vancouver ist ein multi-nationaler Stadt mit einer großen Sikh Bevölkerung und über 200 hatte am Morgen unseren Treffen kommen.

Unser Gast Minister, Charles Ndifon aus Nigeria und New York, hatte in Victoria, British Columbia, für einige Treffen vor ein paar Wochen gewesen, und ein junger Sikh Frau, die von ihrem Ehemann Christian eingeladen worden war, wurde von Blindheit und Taubheit geheilt. Sie ging zurück und brachte ihr Lieblingsonkel, Charnjit, die an Krebs im Sterben lag, und er verließ die Sitzung geheilt und gerettet.

Seitdem Charnjit hat alle seine Verwandten wurde Zeuge, und wenn Charles Ndifon in unsere Kirche in Vancouver kam, lud dieser Mann seine ganze Großfamilie.Gestern, nachdem ich viele Menschen athsma geheilt werden (als ein Beispiel dafür, wie einfach es ist, ist für Gott nichts zu heilen) und eine 90-jährige Frau erhalten ein neues Trommelfell, etwa 200 Sikhs trat, um ihre Herzen zu Gott geben . Und es ist echt. Sie hatten bereits das Evangelium von Charnjit gehört, und um sicherzustellen, wurde der Altar Aufruf in Punjabi übersetzt. Nach dem Gottesdienst waren die Leute so aufgeregt, um Jesus gefunden zu haben, und so durch diese weiße Menschen akzeptiert werden. Am Abend Dienst weitere 104 Punjab Sikh Menschen reagierten auf den Altar Anruf.

Wir sahen viele Wunder. Ein 14 Jahre alter Junge blind geboren sah seine Mutter zum ersten Mal wurden taube Ohren geöffnet, Krebs geheilt wurden. Aber das größte Wunder von allen war, dass Gott scheint nun in der Sikh-Bevölkerung bringen werden, dass wir so nicht die ganze Zeit zu erreichen.

Bob Brasset aus Victoria, Kanada, schreibt über den Umzug des Heiligen Geistes in British Columbia:

Die Ergüsse fortsetzen. In der Tat scheint es zu sein, immer stärker. Wir erfüllen nun vier Nächte pro Woche. Die Reaktion der Hirten in der Umgebung ist einfach eine überwältigende Dankbarkeit für die Güte Gottes für uns zu würdigen in solch eine fantastische Art und Weise zu besuchen. Es ist eine erstaunliche, verblüffende Hunger in Nordamerika jetzt. Die Leute wissen, dass wir am Rande der nicht nur Wiederbelebung, sondern eine echte Awakening sind: vielleicht die größte seit dem Tag von Pfingsten. Dieses Erwachen, ich fühle, wird durch die sehr kabodglorreiche Gegenwart Gottes Kommen und Verweilen in einem Raum, einer Kirche und sogar einer Stadt oder einer ganzen Region (wie in Charles Finney Revivals) charakterisiert werden.

Der Gottesdienst in unsere Dienstleistungen nun weiter und fließt für 1 ½ bis 2 Stunden, unvermindert mit spontanen Lieder des Herrn aus Lobpreisteam und Gemeinde. Bodies liegen auf dem Boden, in der Anbetung niederwerfen. Menschen berichten von Engeln. Visionen, mächtig, inspirierende diejenigen sind plenteous.Heilungen geschehen während der Predigt des Wort oder Gottesdienst, ohne dass jemand betet oder Handauflegen. Wir sind keine Werbung diese. Menschen kommen gerade. Salvations sind in jedem Dienst geschieht – auch wenn wir keine konkreten Gespräche. Wir haben jetzt Heilungen fibromylagia, Diabetes, Krebs, chronische Schmerzen, Ohren Öffnung berichtet, heilte viele Nacken und Rücken und schweren Allergien verschwunden.

 

SONNTAG, 14. MÄRZ 1999, Hobart, Tasmanien, Australien (Ian Turton)

Pastor Ian Turton von River Christian Church in Kingston, Hobart, berichtete im April 1999 über ihre Serie von Treffen Wunder:

Wir haben über das, was Gott wurde in Übersee tun Füllung Menschen die Zähne mit Gold, Silber und Platin und sogar Hosenträger Hinwendung zu Gold wurde hören. At River Christian Church in Hobart, Tasmanien, Australien wurden wir glauben, dem Herrn für Wunder, Zeichen & Wunder, wie wir noch nie zuvor für eine Weile nicht mehr gesehen. Er führte uns in eine Zeit intensiver Kriegsführung für ein paar Monate und begann dann auf unseren Herzen die echten Wunsch zu sehen, die Wunder geschehen und setzen Seelen würden wegen dem, was er tut, wie in der Apostelgeschichte 4, wo die Jünger fragte der hinzugefügt werden Herr, um ihnen Mut, das Evangelium von streckte seine heilende Macht predigen und dass Zeichen und Wunder im Namen Jesu getan werden.

Am Sonntagabend, 14. März 1999, fragten wir alle Anwesenden, die Hände auf den Mund legen und wir beteten, dass der Herr die Zähne mit Gold zu füllen. Am Montag Abend waren wir erstaunt, wie wir sahen tatsächlich Füllungen Änderung in Gold vor unseren Augen. Persönlich Goldfüllungen erschien in meinen Mund, sind auch meine Frau und andere immer weg von ihren wechselnden Füllungen vor ihren Augen geblasen. Gott ist genial. …

Wir hatten ein paar der Besatzung der USS Carl Vincent im Hafen für ein paar Tage besuchen kommen, um einige der Sitzungen. Einer von ihnen erhielt Gold Füllungen, lobe den Herrn. Was für eine Sache zu tragen zurück an Bord. Wir beteten, dass Erweckung ausbrechen würde onboard diesem Kriegsschiff. …

Jeannette (meine Frau) wurde in Richmond dienstbare bei einer Ladies Night (wenn) … eine ganze Reihe von ihnen, darunter die Frau des Pastors sahen ihre Zähne in Gold verwandeln. Einige der jungen Frauen, wenn sie nach Hause kam für ihre Ehemänner, die wiederum erhielt Goldfüllungen gebetet. Der Pastor offenbar nicht glauben, was passiert war, aber wenn die Frau des Pastors für ihn gebetet erhielt er Gold. Eine Dame hatte gerade ihre Zähne beim Zahnarzt nachgefüllt letzte Woche mit weißem Porzellan. Sie waren auch Gold. Sie war ein wenig außerhalb von ihr an erster Stelle!

Dies ist unsere erste – Goldstaub erschien auf den Gesichtern der Menschen. Eine ungesicherte Kerl hatte es und wurden errettet. Er erzählte, dass seine Frau wurde mitkommen und wurde glorreich geheilt und ihr Leben völlig verändert, genauso wie seine Schwiegermutter. Seine anderen ungesicherten Familienmitglieder zusammen kommen und in seinen eigenen Worten “sie sind weiter ‘.

Dank speziell für Ihr Gebet, es ist so sehr notwendig. Leider gibt es die Nörgler und Skeptiker aber lassen Sie mich Ihnen versichern, wir haben mehr Leben verändert, mehr Heilungen und Bekehrungen mehr in den letzten vier Wochen, dann in vielen früheren Jahren nicht mehr gesehen.

Die Kirche weiterhin Gottes mächtige Gegenwart erleben, und von Mitte 1999 begann Ian Turton führenden und Vorträge bei Tagungen rund um Australien und darüber hinaus, wo ähnliche Heilungen und Manifestationen wurden fortgesetzt.

 

Juli 1999-Tacoma, Washington (Bill Wolfson)

Aggressive Fasten treibt Hunger nach Gott zu einem Tacoma, Washington, Kirche, die mehr als 700 neue Konvertiten getauft hat während 90 Wochen der Erweckung.Während des ersten Jahres der Bewegung Gottes in Bethel Church, fastete Mitglieder insgesamt 165 Tage. Die Kirche setzt 40 Tage zu Beginn eines jeden Jahres und vier Tage am Anfang eines jeden Monats für das Fasten.

“Diese radikale Fasten ist nicht normativ, und wir empfehlen es nicht für andere”, sagte Pastor Bill Wolfson, der eine 70-Tage-Flüssigkeiten nur schnell abgeschlossen. “Aber es ist das, was Gott für uns hat. Fasten bewirkt Unglauben, um aus unserem Leben. ”

Prostituierte und Gang-Mitglieder sind unter denen, die an Christus an den vier-Nächte in der Woche Service gekommen, das kann oft Stunden dauern. Ein Mann wurde sogar angeblich von den Toten durch das Gebet hob nach CPR versäumt, ihn wiederzubeleben. “Ich kann nur feststellen, dass er auf wundersame Weise wiederbelebt wurde”, sagte Cornelius pensionierter Rettungssanitäter Winesberry Jr., der den Mann besucht.

Die Wiederbelebung begann in der Kirche – vor kurzem umbenannt Kirche für alle Nationen, um ihr erneuertes Engagement für interracial Outreach Mark – nach Wolfson gereist, um eine Kirche, die Illinois Smithton-Wiederbelebung wie geschieht es bezeugen.

Quelle: News Update vom Charisma Magazin, Freitag, 15. Oktober 1999.

 

Juli 1999-Caldwell, Texas (Deon Hockey)

Caldwell, etwa eine Stunde nördlich von Houston, hat auch erlebt Revival.

Revival hat einen kleinen Assemblies of God-Kirche in Caldwell schlagen. Die Kirche wurde mit nächtlichen Dienste, die Menschen aus der ganzen Region. Alle Arten von körperlichen Heilungen gemeldet werden, einschließlich Augen und Rücken geheilt. Deon Eishockey war der Gastredner und wegen dem, was dort geschieht, hat seine Zukunft Engagements abgesagt und wird vorerst bleiben.

Die Gegenwart Gottes ist so stark, dass Menschen werden frozen-wie gegen die Wände der Kirche für eine Stunde oder mehr. Lobpreis und Anbetung hat für zwei Stunden zu einer Zeit fortgesetzt. Jemand wird zum Altar geführt und erhalten auf ihrem Gesicht vor Gott, und zwanzig weitere werden folgen. Die Macht Gottes bewirkt, zwanzig oder so Leute fallen auf den Boden alle auf einmal.

Menschen aus der ganzen Region sind in die Kirche kommen. Gefragt, wie sie davon erfuhr, werden sie sagen, dass sie von jemandem gehört, welche geheilt zog sie. Wir sind in einer Zeit in der Kirche Zeichen und Wunder Eingabe. Diese werden Zeichen sein, dass Gott noch lebt. Gott heilt noch. Gott spricht noch. Gott immer noch liebt seine Kinder. Und Gott noch kümmert.

Gottesdienste weiterhin bei First Assembly of God Nacht.

Quelle: Awakening Liste über grn@crown-house.com , den 16. Juli, 1999 (Guido Kuwas)

 

Dienstag, 27. Juli, 1999, Mornington Island, Queensland, Australien 
Der folgende Bericht, aus Berichten Brian Pickering und Jesse Padayache angepasst, gibt Details einer mächtigen Bewegung Gottes, die unter Aborigines-Gemeinden auf Mornington Island, Arakun und Weipa im Carpentariagolf, North Queensland, sowie auf Psalm Insel nördlich aufgetreten östlich von Townsville.

Mornington Island war ein ziemlich schrecklicher Ort, bekannt für seine Trunkenheit und Gewalt. Iranale Tadulala ein Fidschi Pastor wurde es vor fünf Jahren geschrieben. Vor etwa zwei Jahren erschien ein Engel zu ihm und sagte ihm, dass es zu einer Belebung auf Mornington Insel sein, und er war, es zu erleichtern. Es wäre jedoch nicht einfach sein.

Er begann eine 40-tägige Fastenzeit vom 1. Juni bis 11. Juli 1999. Ein Kollege besuchte Mornington Island, wenn Iranale war 28 Tage in seiner schnellen und war zutiefst herausgefordert einfach nur mit dem Menschen. Er war so engagiert, den Tränen nahe die ganze Zeit.

Während des Fastens eine der heiligen Schriften auf ihn beeindruckte, war die Ähnlichkeit zwischen der Stadt Pergamon (Offb 2,12-17) und Mornington Island. So viel schreckliche Zeug hielt auf dort geschieht, dass es so etwas wie der Thron des Satans sein musste. Und genau wie Pergamon war ein guter Christ Mann dort in den frühen Tagen der Mission Märtyrertod. Am Ende seiner 40 Tage schnell er glaubte, er hatte zu gehen, um die Website des Tötens und schnell dort weitere sieben Tage. Das war ein ziemlich erschütternde Erfahrung, und er war sich bewußt, im Kampf mit kosmischen Kräften ganz.

Am Ende des Fastens (nur wenige Tage nach dem nationalen Gebet Versammlung am Uluru im Juli), planten sie Treffen auf Mornington Insel, die auf 27. Juli begann.Am Ende der ersten Sitzung 100 blieb für das Gebet und Beratung. Bis zum Ende des Kreuzzuges gab es 300 Konvertierungen (25% der Bevölkerung), und sie waren noch im Gange mit 500 gemeldet bis September.

Fünf weitere Pastoren mit diesem wunderbaren Geschehen geholfen. Zwei sind Fijians von Palm Island und Weipa. Der Pfarrer von Aurukun und einem weißen Pastor aus Townsville sind ebenfalls beteiligt wie ein indischer südafrikanischen von Brisbane. Sie basieren auf Jüngerschaft arbeiten wollen Bibeln und sind schon immer Anrufe aus den umliegenden Gebieten bat sie, dorthin zu gehen, aber sagen: “Wenn Gott sagt, es ist richtig”

Einer der Teamleiter war Pastor Jesse Padayache, die südafrikanische Inder. Er hat in Australien für viele Jahre gedient. Seine Frau Keks wurde auf wunderbare Weise durch das Gebet von einem Tumor auf das Gehirn geheilt. Sie haben Röntgenstrahlen zeigt insgesamt Heilung.

Im Februar und Mai hatte Jesse bei Erweckungsversammlungen in Palm Islandnordöstlich von Townsville, unter den Stämmen dort gesprochen, wo es wurde viel drunkeness. Viele umgewandelt wurden, geliefert und frei von der Sucht nach Alkohol, Tabak und Unzucht. Ein Mann, der wütend mit Jesse, weil seine De-facto-Frau wurde im Februar umgewandelt und wollte heiraten, wurde später umgewandelt. Er fragte Jesse, um sie während der Sitzungen im Mai heiraten.Jetzt Geld früher auf Süchte verbrachte auf Nahrung, Kleidung und Obdach und viele Menschen verbringen zum ersten Mal prosperierenden.

Nachrichten der Erweckungsversammlungen auf Palm Island erreicht Mornington Island. In Mornington Island, hat Alkoholmissbrauch extrem gewesen. Trunkenheit war überall. Der Ort war mit Stapeln von Bierdosen übersät. Über 10 Personen nahmen an den Dienstleistungen.

Am ersten Abend, Dienstag, 27. Juli 1999, wurde das Team Dämonen bis Mitternacht.

Menschen wurden geheilt – die taub, Krüppel, Rückenschmerzen, Diabetes, Bluthochdruck, Herzkrankheiten. Viele verpflichtet ihr Leben dem Herrn Jesus Christus und wurden aus Generationsflüchen befreit. Ein Bericht von den Hirten sagt: “Spirits of Selbstmord, Alkoholismus und angetrieben wurden aus alten Flüchen der Zauberei und Hexerei waren gebrochen.”

Am zweiten Abend, Mittwoch, kann eine böse Frau mit einem Bier in der Jesse missbrauchen und das Team für das Austreiben von Geistern kam. Sie schrie: “Ich und mein Bier, wir leben zusammen. Nicht zu diesem Mann zuzuhören. “Aber die Leute wollten wegen der Veränderungen, die sie in ihre Freunde sahen geliefert werden. Viele wurden geheilt und befreit. Zwei geheilte Menschen warfen ihre Krücken. Eine Dame mit einem Schlag wurde geheilt und aus ihrem Rollstuhl befreit. Der betrunkene Dame sah die Heilungen und schließlich wollte Gebet. Sie gab ihr Leben Jesus und wurde sofort nüchtern. Sie sagte: “Pastor, ich will nicht diese dumme Angewohnheit” und gab ihr Six-Pack Bier zum Pfarrer.

Ihr Bericht erzählt von einem kleinen Jungen, geboren Behinderte – stumm, taub und unfähig zu gehen – geheilt wurde, herumlaufen. Sein erstes Wort war “Mama”.Eine Frau mit einem Schlaganfall, die nicht sprechen konnte und konnte kaum gehen wird um Zeugnis über das, was Gott für sie getan hatte Fuß. Eine Frau kam zu dem Treffen mit einer Gehhilfe, ließ aber den Rahmen und ging nach Hause, ohne dass es, wenn der Herr heilte sie.

Sie haben ein Frauenhaus in der Regel ist randvoll-a-Block am Donnerstag und Freitag Nächte. Es hatte ein Kunde! Gegen Mitternacht eine Nacht, als ein Mann seine Familie zusammen und sprach von dem, was Gott in bringen die ganze Familie zum Herrn getan, sagte: “Jeder ist willkommen in diesem Haus, aber von nun an gab es nie zu einem Alkohol in dieser Haus. ”

Ein weißer Polizist kam zu einem Treffen, gezeichnet, was Aborigines erlebten aber das Gefühl zu schämen, vorwärts zu gehen. Am nächsten Tag fand ein Pfarrer ihm in einer Ecke saß, sprach mit ihm über seine Scham, nahm ihn mit nach Hause und führte ihn zum Herrn. Der Pub geschlossen eine Stunde zu früh, ohne Kunden. Am nächsten Tag war niemand an das Frauenhaus – brauchten sie nicht diese Art von Hilfe nicht mehr!

Viele Staats-und Regierungschefs in der Gemeinschaft wurden gerettet, und der Verkauf von Bier dramatisch gesunken. Rund 500 in dieser Gemeinschaft von 1200 wurden Christen. Jetzt ehemaligen Feinde versöhnt. Revival hat die Versöhnung zwischen Schwarzen und Weißen brachte auch. Gemeinschaft Führer ermutigte die Menschen zu treten der Dämon trinken aus und geben sich zu Gott.

Ein junger Mann, im Bett liegend zu Hause hörte die Lautsprecher, und so kamen zu den Treffen, sein Leben Gott zu geben. Am Sonntag wurde die Kirche mit den Menschen außerhalb zu hören verpackt. Viele wurden in der Früh geheilt, und viele mehr am Sonntagabend.

Große Zahlen, die früher in de-facto Beziehungen haben jetzt verheiratet. Der Pfarrer beschäftigt sich seit Durchführung Ehen. Innerhalb weniger Wochen fiel Bierkonsum von über 9.000 Dosen pro Woche.

Am Montag begannen sie Klassen für die Gläubigen. Weitere wurden dann auch umgesetzt. Ein betrunkener Mann kam aus der Kneipe auf die Gläubigen Klasse, Gott zu suchen. Die Gläubigen auch folgen einander, weil sie wissen alle, die beteiligt ist.

Als Jesse durch Weipa bestanden auf seinem Weg in den Golf von North West Queensland im August Arakun, traf er eine Dame aus einer Aborigine-Gemeinde von 400 Menschen in Mapoon, nördlich von Weipa. Ihre 34-jährige Sohn, sucht wild, Speichel tropft, und schüttelte, hatte in einem psychotischen Zustand in Behandlung seit sechs Jahren. Er hatte aus seiner De-facto-Frau und Kinder wurden für die damalige Zeit getrennt. Der Pfarrer sah sie im Einkaufszentrum so lud sie ein, seinen Platz für die Heilung Gebet. Der Sohn wurde von den Pastoren erschrocken und starrte mit wilden Augen. Sie banden Spirituosen und warf sie hinaus. Als er zurückkam, ging ins Krankenhaus, er ausgesprochen wurde völlig geheilt. Er lebt jetzt mit seiner Familie und heiratete.

Die Mutter bat um Gebet auch. Sie hatte Asthma, ein Herz moniter, Zuckerkrankheit und eine riesige Klumpen wie eine Rock-Melone auf ihrem Bauch. Die Klumpen verschwunden, und die Arthritis, Asthma, Diabetes und Blutdruck wurden alle sofort geheilt medizinisch überprüft. Später kam sie zurück, um für ein Treffen mit einem Bus voller Menschen, die alle Gott zu suchen, weil dieser Heilungen Weipa. Die meisten dieser Buslast wurden gerettet, und jetzt eine Kirche in Marpoon gestartet wurde. Die bisherige Kirche war in den 1960er Jahren zerstört worden, und die Leute dort waren, das Evangelium gehasst, bis jetzt.

Jesse fing das Kleinflugzeug von Weipa nach Arakun. Viele wurden dort getrunken.Menschen ignoriert oder gehasst, die Kirche, in Bezug auf das Christentum als eine Religion für die Weißen. Nur etwa 6 Mitglieder ging zur Kirche.

Einer der ersten Nacht von Treffen auf Arakun kamen etwa 50 in der Halle mit weiteren 40 Leute sitzen draußen herum hören. Lautes Hunde kamen in. Ein alter Mann, taub auf dem linken Ohr taub und teilweise in sein rechtes Ohr wurde völlig geheilt. Drei Wochen zuvor, in einem Traum, den er gesehen hatte, die dunkelhäutige Jesse beten für seine Heilung, und er wusste, dass er bei diesem Treffen würde geheilt werden. Dann gab fast alle in der Halle und einige von außen ihr Leben Christus in der ersten Nacht. Viele wurden geheilt, darunter ein Mann lame in seinem rechten Bein.

Wort verbreitete sich schnell. Jeder weiß, was in der Gemeinde geschieht. In der nächsten Nacht die Kirche war voll. Crowds stand draußen herum. Bis zum Ende der Sitzungen, hatte 170 Ureinwohner ihr Leben Christus gegeben für die erste Zeit.Viele wurden auch Menschen blind oder teilweise blind und taub geheilt. Große Freude erfüllte die Gemeinde. Viele wurden von Alkoholsucht ausgeliefert.

Einer der Rat Offiziere in das Gebäude nebenan erzählt die Gemeindeleiter, dass Jesse und der Pfarrer auf Dämonen austreiben, weil so viele Menschen wurden von Trunkenheit und Krankheiten ausgeliefert wird gehen müsse.

Demons mit Suizid kam aus einem Mann, der versucht, sich umzubringen viermal hatte. Jetzt ist er ganz. Jeder sprach über die Veränderungen in der Atmosphäre der Gemeinschaft. Dann kehrte er zu seinem De-facto-Frau und verheiratet war.Sein Zeugnis brachte eine große Zahl an den Herrn.

Wieder zurück bei Weipa für Tagungen, hielt die gleichen Dinge passiert. Eine junge weiße Dame in ihren Zwanzigern wurde mit lautem Schreien geliefert und heilte in der zweiten Nacht der Sitzungen in Weipa, zur Überraschung der Ureinwohner, die Aborigines hatten nur Dämonen gedacht. Die Nachricht wie ein Lauffeuer verbreitet, und viele mehr kamen für die Erlösung, Befreiung und Heilung.

Der Bus Last von M apoon nördlich von Weipa – von der Dame und ihr Sohn, die am Pfarrhaus zuvor geheilt worden war gebracht – wieder voller gespeichert, geheilt und befreit Menschen, entschlossen, ihre Kirche in ihrer Gemeinde zu starten.

Genau wie auf Wiederbelebung Elcho Island in 1979-1980 löste Wiederbelebung über Arnhem Land, und Teams ging zu vielen indigenen Gemeinschaften, so wird diese Wiederbelebung berühren viele Gemeinden im Norden von Queensland.Betet für die mächtigen hatte Gottes mächtige Wiederbelebung in das Land zu bringen.

 

Revivals in das 21. Jahrhundert

Das Jahr 2000 mit zunehmenden Berichte über Erweckungsbewegung unter den weltweit 6 Mrd. Menschen angebrochen. Die bisherigen 40 Jahre sah der Weltbevölkerung verdoppeln. Was werden die nächsten 40 Jahre bringen?

Angesichts der wachsenden Berichte von sozialen und physischen Umwälzungen, Terrorismus, der schrecklichen Bedrohung durch nuklearen Holocaust, und die Erhöhung der Epidemien von tödlichen Krankheiten, weiterhin Berichte über Revivals zu wachsen. Unabhängige Kirchen in Afrika, Hauskirchen in China, und Basisgemeinden in Lateinamerika alle Erfahrung erstaunliche Wiederbelebung, unter Verfolgungen. Jetzt Wiederbelebung Berichte weiterhin auch im Westen zu verbreiten. Auch wir können schreien zu Gott um Gnade und Wiederbelebung, wie wir uns demütigen, beten, Buße zu tun und Gott suchen.

Im vergangenen Jahrhundert begann mit vielen Tausenden von Gebetsgruppen, Gott zu suchen. Revivals brach auf der ganzen Welt, die bekannteste ist die mächtige Welsh Wiederbelebung 1904-5, die so viele andere Wiederbelebung Bewegungen ausgelöst. Ein Jahr später Gebetsgruppen in Los Angeles sah das störende und leistungsstarke Azusa Street Erweckung ausbrechen. Beide Revivals beeinflusst unzählige Leben auf ganz unterschiedliche Weise. Sowohl in Geist erfüllt Evangelisation und Mission, die rund um den Globus verteilt ausgestellt.

Die Waliser Erweckung beeinflusst 100.000 Menschen für Gott. Azusa Street berührte Tausende mehr von einem kleinen Treffen in einer alten Scheune voll, wenn sie 500 Menschen mussten. Doch die 500 Millionen Pfingstler und charismatische Bewegung in der Welt jetzt in der Regel erkennt seine Wurzeln in dieser Erweckung.

Jetzt eine einzelne Kreuzzug mit Reinhard Bonnke kann erreichen mehr als 500.000 Menschen in Afrika. David Yonggi Cho-Kirche in Seoul, Korea, verfügt über mehr als 800.000 und beeinflusst hat Tausende mehr gepflanzt und anderen großen Kirchen. Über 100.000 Menschen haben Gott vor kurzem in Toronto auftreten und mehr als 100.000 haben Verpflichtungen gegenüber Gott in Pensacola gemacht.

Wie die plätschernden Wellen, die von einem Felsbrocken fiel in einen Teich, haben diese Wellen der Wiederbelebung weltweit verbreitet. Und wir haben nur ein wenig von der erstaunlichen Konten der Erweckungsbewegung in China, Afrika, Lateinamerika, Indien oder den Inselstaaten gehört!

Gott sagte: “Ich werde meinen Geist ausgießen über alles Fleisch.” Das Jahr 2000 und ein anderes Jahrtausend gesetzt, um zu sehen, dass erfüllt mehr als jemals zuvor in der Geschichte.

 

Zeitzeuge

Beispiellose Belebung setzt sich in China vor allem in Hauskirchen, in Afrika vor allem in unabhängigen Kirche Bewegungen in Lateinamerika vor allem in evangelikalen / Pfingstkirchen wie derzeit in Argentinien und in proliferierenden Wiederbelebung Bewegungen auf der ganzen Welt. All dies jetzt auch mit leistungsstarken charismatischen Auswirkungen der Geist Gottes und das Bewusstsein und die Nutzung der Charismen.

Erneuerung und Evangelisation haben im Laufe der neunziger Jahre erhöht, auch im Westen. Schwerpunkte für die Erneuerung und Wiederbelebung haben Toronto in Kanada, Brompton in London, Sunderland in England, und Pensacola in Amerika aufgenommen. Jedoch weiterhin Berichte von erneuerten Kirchen, ermächtigt Evangelisation und erhebliche soziale Engagement (wie Kriminalität deutlich in Sunderland und Pensacola reduziert) multiplizieren. David Barrett weltweiten Forschung zeigt, dass pentecostal / charismatischen Mitgliedschaft hat sich aus kleinen Anfängen Anfang dieses Jahrhunderts auf über 460 Millionen gewachsen von 1995 und über 500 Millionen jetzt (Synan 1997: 281; Hollenweger 1998:42).

In Australien gab die Landeskirche 1991 Erhebung zur Lebensqualität, dass zwei Drittel der Kirche Anwesenden mit beteiligt waren oder sympathisch charismatischen / pentecostal Christentum. Charismatische Gemeinden, ob konfessionell unabhängig oder Pfingstler, weiter zu vermehren, evagelise aktiv, und viele haben erhebliche soziale Fürsorge Programme.

Diese Indikatoren deuten auf eine massive Verschiebung im globalen Christentum, das zunehmend erkennt und entdeckt Charisma in Wiederbelebung. Es birgt ein enormes Versprechen für “die Umgestaltung der Religion in das einundzwanzigste Jahrhundert” (Cox 1995). Charisma in Wiederbelebung bietet einen Paradigmenwechsel in der unterschiedlichen konfessionellen Perspektiven auf charismatische Geist Bewegungen unstreitig in der Evangelisation können feststellen, Ausrüstung der Christen für den Dienst, und in soziale Reformen.

 

Referenzen

Balcombe, D. (1991) “Hong Kong und China berichten.” Hong Kong: Revival Christian Church.

Coleman, Robert (1970) einen göttlichen Moment Old Tappan:. Revell.

Cox, H. (1995) Feuer vom Himmel: The Rise of Pfingstbewegung Spiritualität und die Umgestaltung der Religion in der Twenty-first Century New York:. Addison-Wesley.

Dunn, James DG (1970) Die Taufe im Heiligen Geist. London: SCM

Evans, E. (1969) Die walisische Revival 1904 Bridgend:. Evangelical Press.

. Frodsham, SH (1946) Mit Signs Nach Springfield: Gospel Publishing House.

Gondarra, D. (1991) “Pfingsten in Arnhem Land” in Waugh, G. Church on Fire,

Melbourne: JBCE, S. 14-19.

Grün, M. (1985) Ich glaube an den Heiligen Geist London:. Hodder & Stoughton.

Greenfield, J. (1927) Kraft aus der Höhe. Nachdruck 1950 London: Christian Literature Crusade.

Griffin, SC (1992) Eine vergessene Revival Bromley:. One Day Publications.

Griffiths, A. (1977) Feuer in den Inseln Wheaton:. Shaw.

Howard, PE (1949) Das Leben und Diary of David Brainerd. Herausgegeben von Jonathan Edwards. Nachdruck Jahr 1989. Grand Rapids: Baker.

Hollenweger, WJ (1998) “Pfingstbewegung Global Language.” Christian History,Heft 58, S. 42-44.

Hyatt, E. (1997) 200 Jahre charismatische Christentum. Tulsa: Hyatt.

Idle, C. Ed. (1986) The Journal of John Wesley Tring:. Lion.

. Koch, K. (1968) The Revival in Indonesien Grand Rapids: Kregel

McDonnell, Kilian & Montague, George, eds. (1991) Christian Initiation und die Taufe im Heiligen Geist. New York: Paulist.

. Moody, WR (1900) Das Leben von DL Moody New York: Revell.

Overend, R. (1986) Die Wahrheit wird euch frei machen Laurieton:. SSEM

Pratney, W. (1994) Revival Lafayette:. Huntington House.

Riss, Richard (1995) The Awakening Worldwide 1992-1995.http://www.grmi.org.renewal.Richard_Riss/history.html

Riss, Richard (1998) “Worldwide Awakening” in Renewal Journal # 8: Awakening, Seite 31.

Stacy, J. (1842) The Great Awakening. Nachdruck 1989. Edinburgh: Banner der Wahrheit.

Synan, Vinson (1997) Die Heiligkeit Pfingst-Tradition:. Charismatischen Bewegungen in der Twentieth Century Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Warfield, Benjamin (1918) Gegenmagnetfeldes Miracles. Carlile, PA.

Waugh, G. (1991) Kirche von Feuer Melbourne:. JBCE.

Waugh, G. (1998, 2009) von Flashpoints Revival Shippensburg: Revival Press.

Waugh, G. (2009) Revival Fires, Globale Awakening

Wessel, H. ed. (1977) Die Autobiographie von Charles Finney Minneapolis:.Bethany

Williams, Rodman (1992) Erneuerung Theologie Grand Rapids;. Zondervan.

Weltweit Evangelisierung Crusade. (1954) ist, dass London:. Weltweit Evangelisierung Crusade.

Die Geschichte geht weiter – siehe 21. Jahrhundert Revivals im Südpazifik

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21st Century Revivals in the South Pacific by Geoff Waugh

21st Century Revivals in the South Pacific

Adapted from South Pacific Revivals

This report gives examples of revivals which originated in Pacific cultures, not from missionaries, but from Pacific islanders.  They acknowledge the involvement of spirits in life’s events, including the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome other powers.  They live and think communally, not individually as we tend to do. 

These revivals demonstrate that we can learn vital lessons about discipleship as followers of Jesus from children, youth, and ‘uneducated’ village people.  Their childlike (not childish), strong faith, their humble and teachable attitudes, and their application of Scripture to life can challenge and instruct us.

Transforming revival continues to spread exponentially.  The Sentinel Group (www.sentinelgroup.org) DVDs report on community transformation around the world, especially in Transformations I and II, and Fiji reports in Let the Seas Resound.  This brief update describes recent revivals in the South Pacific islands, representative of revivals multiplying in the twenty-first century.

Vanuatu

Law School students at their Christian Fellowship (CF) in University of the South Pacific developed a powerfully discipling community through their CF, which led to effective evangelism, mission to many nations, and involvement in revival movements.  Peer discipling with committed leaders encouraged personal growth and enabled powerful ministry.

The Lord moved in a surprising way at the Christian Fellowship (CF) in the School of Law in Port Vila, Vanuatu on Saturday night, April 6, the weekend after Easter 2002.

The university’s CF held an outreach meeting on the lawn and steps of the grassy university square near the main lecture buildings, school administration and library.  God moved strongly there that night.

Romulo Nayacalevu, then President of the Law School CF reported:

The 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 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 that night, and as soon as the prayer teams had finished praying with those who rushed forward at the altar call, 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 of them played rugby in the popular university teams and enjoyed drinking and the night club scene.  Both changed dramatically.  Many of their friends said it would not last.  It did.

Later, Jerry became prayer convenor at the CF and Simon its president.  Most of the CF leaders attended the lively, Spirit-led Upper Room church in Port Vila, where pastors Joseph and Sala Roberts, Jotham Napat and others encouraged and nurtured them.

The University of the South Pacific, based in Suva Fiji, has its School of Law in Vanuatu (because of the unique combination of French, English and local laws in Vanuatu, previously called New Hebrides).  Students come from the many nations of the South Pacific Islands to study law at Vanuatu, many being children of chiefs and government leaders.

The very active CF at the School of Law regularly organised outreaches in the town and at the university.  About one third of the 120 students in the four year law course attended the weekly CF meeting on Friday nights.  A core group prayed together regularly, including daily prayer at 6 a.m., and organised evangelism events.  Many were filled with the Spirit and began to experience spiritual gifts in their lives in new ways.

A team of eleven from their CF visited Australia for a month in November-December 2002 involved in outreach and revival meetings in many denominations and as well as in visiting home prayer groups.  They drove 6,000 kilometres in a 12-seater van, including a trip from Brisbane to Sydney and back to visit Hillsong.

The team prayed for hundreds of people in various churches and home groups.  They led worship at the daily 6 am prayer group at Kenmore Baptist Church, with Calvin Ziru on guitar.  That followed their own 5 am daily prayer meeting in the house provided miraculously for them.

Philip and Dhamika George from Sri Lanka bought that rental house with no money and made it freely available.  They had recently befriended a back packer stranger who advised them to buy a rental property because Brisbane house prices then began to increase rapidly in value.  They had no spare money but their new friend loaned them a deposit of $10,000, interest free, to get a bank loan and buy the house.  They sold the house two years later for $80,000 profit, returned the deposit loan, and used the profits for Kingdom purposes especially in mission.

The law students from the CF grew strong in faith.  Jerry, one of the students from Fiji, returned home for Christmas vacation 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 after a wild time as a youth in the village.   The following December vacation, 2004, 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 2005 he had 50 young people involved, evangelising, praying for the sick, casting out spirits, and encouraging revival.  By 2009 Jerry was a lawyer and pastor of a church in Suva and had planted a new church in his village as well.

Simon, returned to his island of Tuvalu, also transformed at university through CF.  He witnessed 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

In May 2003 a team from the CF flew 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.  He was converted there and 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 near the village.  Ancient tradition dictated that anyone breaking tabu must be killed, so they were going to kill Tomas, but his disciple 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 the pioneer of the church in South Pentecost, establishing Churches of Christ there.

God opened a wide door Pentecost Island (1 Cor 16:8-9).  The weekend with the CF team brought new unity among the competing village churches.  The Sunday night service went from 6-11 pm, although it had been ‘closed’ three times after 10 pm, 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.

Another team of four students from the law school CF returned to South Pentecost in June 2003 for 12 days of meetings in many villages.  Again, the Spirit of God moved strongly.  Leaders repented publicly of divisions and criticisms.  Then youth began repenting of backsliding or unbelief.  A great-grand-daughter of the pioneer Tomas Tumtum gave her life to God in the village near his grave at the Bible College.

Evening rallies were held 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

By 2004, the Churches of Christ national Bible College at Banmatmat on Pentecost Island 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.

Don and Helen Hill, Geoff’s friends from Brisbane participated in some visits, Don repairing the electrical writing and supplying needed portable generators and lawn mowers and Helen recording the revival teaching sessions on DVD for internal distribution.

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.

Every weekend the team from the college led revival meetings in village churches.  Many of these went late as the Spirit moved on the people with deep repentance, reconciliation, forgiveness, and prayer for healing and empowering.

Another 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.  Almost 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 am each morning for the school and nation with some of his staff.

The church arranged for more revival teaching at their national Bible College for church leaders.  Teams from the college held mission meetings simultaneously in seven different villages.  Every village saw strong responses, including a team that held their meeting in the chief’s meeting house of their village, and the first to respond was a fellow from the ‘custom’ traditional heathen village called Bunlap.

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 Bebe, host of most revival teams, 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 about six prayed there.  Mathias reported this way:

The deliverance ministry group left the college by boat and when they arrived at the Bungalows they prayed together.  After they prayed together they divided into two groups.

There is one person in each of these two groups that has a gift from the Lord that the Holy Spirit reveals where the witchcraft powers are, such as bones from dead babies or stones.  These witchcraft powers are always found in the ground outside the houses or sometimes in the houses.  So when the Holy Spirit reveals to that person the right spot where the witchcraft power is, then they have to dig it up with a spade.

When they dug it out from the soil they prayed over it and bound the power of that witchcraft in the name of Jesus.  Then they claimed the blood of Jesus in that place.

Something very important when joining the deliverance group is that everyone in the group must be fully committed to the Lord and must be strong in their faith because sometimes the witchcraft power can affect the ones that are not really committed and do not have faith.

After they finished the deliverance ministry they came together again and just gave praise to the Lord in singing and prayer.  Then they closed with a Benediction.

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 accompanied Geoff Waugh to Pentecost Island in Vanuatu in September-October 2006.  Grant grew up with missionary parents, saw many persecutions and miracles, and had his dad recounting amazing, 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 has had revival since 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 was getting clear words of knowledge, and seeing people healed daily in meetings and in the villages. That inspired and challenged everyone.

In Port Vila Grant and Geoff attended the Sunday service at Upper Room.  That night pastors Joseph and Jotham were away in Tanna Island on mission so the remaining leaders felt God sent these two visitors to preach that night!  Great warning!  It was fantastic, with strong worship and waves of prayer ministry for healing and anointing.

Raised from the dead

At sharing time in the Upper Room service Leah, 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 – and after an hour the monitor started beeping and the girl recovered.

The mission trip continued on South Pentecost once more, based in the village of Panlimsi where Mathias was then the young pastor.  The Spirit moved strongly in all the meetings. Repentance.  Reconciliations.  Confessions.  Anointing.  Healings every day.  The healings included Pastor Rolanson’s young son able to hear clearly after partially deaf from birth.  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 crackled back into place.  An elderly man no longer needed a walking stick to come up the hill to the meetings.  Grant prayed for a son of the paramount chief of South Pentecost from Bunlap, a heathen village.  He was healed from a painful groin and he invited the team to come to his village to pray for the sick.  No white people had been invited there to minister previously.

The team, including the two Australians, trekked for a week into mountain villages.  They literally obeyed Luke 10 – most going with no extra shirt, no sandals, and no money.  The trek began with a 5 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 the preacher spat on the dirt floor, making mud to show what Jesus did once.  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 her small Bible without glasses.

Glory in a remote village

The team trekked through the ‘custom’ heathen village (where the paramount chief’s sons 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 7 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 in 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 and holy.  Just pure love for the Lord, especially among the young.

Angels singing filled the air about 3 am.  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 repented, as the Spirit moved on everyone.

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.

Some people in the host village heard angels singing there also.  At first they too thought it was the church full of people but the harmonies were more wonderful than we can sing.

The two Australians returned full of joy on the one hour flight to 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 in the Spirit, and many resting in the Spirit, soaking in grace.

The Upper Room church continues to move in the Spirit and has seen strong touches 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 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 as they spoke, told Bible stories, and sang original songs inspired by the Spirit.

Solomon Islands

As revival spreads in the Solomon Islands, it also generates peer discipling, supported by mentors.  Many leaders of revival are very young, and they appreciate mentoring as they seek to move in the anointing and power of the Spirit.  Local pastors have not provided effective mentoring because they tend to follow traditional evangelical church patterns, and may oppose revival phenomena such as prophecies, revelations, removing tribal fetishes and witchcraft artefacts.

Discipleship in these islands has involved understanding New Testament patterns of church life and applying them in revival movements.

The Lord poured out his Spirit in fresh and surprising ways in New Georgia in the Western District of the Solomon Islands in 2003, and touched many churches in the capital Honiara with strong moves of the Holy Spirit.  God’s Spirit moved powerfully especially on youth and children.  This included many conversions, many filled with the Spirit, many having visions and revelations.

In spite of, and perhaps because of, the ethnic tension (civil war) for two years with rebels armed with guns causing widespread problems and the economy failing with wages of many police, teachers and administrators unpaid, the Holy Spirit moved strongly in the Solomon Islands.

An anointed pastor from PNG spoke at an Easter Camp in 2003 attended by many youth leaders from the Western Solomons.  Those leaders returned on fire.  The weekend following Easter, from the end of April, 2003, youth and children in the huge, scenic Marovo Lagoon area were filled with the Spirit, with many lives transformed.  Revival began with the Spirit moving on youth and children in village churches.  They had extended worship in revival songs, many visions and revelations and lives being changed with strong love for the Lord.  Children and youth began meeting daily from 5 pm for hours of praise, worship and testimonies.  A police officer reported reduced crimes and that former rebels attending daily worship and prayer meetings.

Revival continues to spread throughout the region.  Revival movements brought moral change and built stronger communities in villages in the Solomon Islands, including these lasting developments:
1. Higher moral standards.  People involved in the revival have quit crime and drunkeness, and now promote good behaviour and co-operation.
2. Christians who once kept their Christianity inside churches and meetings now talk more freely about their lifestyle in the community and among friends.
3. Revival groups, especially youth, enjoy working together in unity and community, including a stronger emphasis on helping others in the community.
4. Families are strengthened in the revival.  Parents spend more time with their youth and children to encourage and help them, often leading them in Bible readings and family prayers now.
5. Many new gifts and ministries are being used by more people that before, including revelations and healing.  Even children receive revelations or words of knowledge about hidden magic artefacts or ginger plants related to spirit power, and remove them.
6. Churches are growing.  Many church buildings in the Marovo Lagoon have been pulled down to be replaced by much bigger buildings to fit in the crowds.  Offerings and community support have increased.
7. Unity.  Increasingly Christians unite in reconciliation for revival meetings, prayer and service to the community.

Western Solomon Islands

A team of law students from the University of the South Pacific CF in Port Vila, Vanuatu, visited Honiara and the Western Solomon Islands in mid 2003.  Sir Peter and Lady Margaret Kenilorea hosted the team in Honiara.  Sir Peter was the first Prime Minster of the independent Solomon Islands, and then Speaker in the Parliament.

Dr Ronald Ziru, then administrator of the United Church Hospital in Munda in the western islands hosted the team there, which included his son Calvin.  The team had to follow Jesus’ instructions about taking nothing extra on mission because the airline left all their checked luggage behind in Port Vila!  They found it at Honiara after their return from the western islands.

The team first experienced the revival on an island near Munda.  They took the outboard motor canoe with Rev Fred Alizeru from Munda.  Two weeks previously, early in July, revival started there with the Spirit poured out on children and youth, so they just want to worship and pray for hours.  They meet every night from around 5.30 pm and wanted to go late every night!  The team encouraged the children to see school as a mission field, to pray with their friends there, and learn well so they could serve God better.

At Seghe and in the Marovo Lagoon the revival spread since Easter.  Some adults became involved, also repenting and seeking more of the Holy Spirit.  Many outpourings and gifts of the Spirit have emerged, including the following:

Transformed lives – Many youths that the police used to check on because of alcohol and drug abuse became sober and on fire for God attending daily worship and prayer meetings.  A man who rarely went to church led the youth singing group at Seghe.  Adults publicly reconciled after years of old rifts or strife.

Long worship – This included prophetic words or actions and visions.  About 200 youth and children led worship at both Sunday services with 1,000 attending in Patutiva village where the revival began.  They sang revival songs and choruses accompanied by their youth band.

Visions – Children saw visions of Jesus (smiling at worship, weeping at hard hearts), angels, hell (with relatives sitting close to a lake of fire, so the children warned them).  Some saw Jesus with a foot in heaven and a foot on earth, like Mt 28:18 – “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”  One boy preached (prophesied) for 1½ hours, Spirit-led.

Revelations – especially ‘words of knowledge’ about hidden things, including magic artefacts and good luck charms.  Children show parents where they hid these things!  If other adults did that there would be anger and feuds, but they accept it from their children.  One boy told police that a man accused of stealing a chain saw (and sacked) was innocent as he claimed, and gave them the name of the culprit, by word of knowledge.  The accused man returned to work.

Spiritual Gifts – teaching sessions discussed traditional and revival worship, deliverance, discernment of spirits, gifts of the Spirit, understanding and interpreting visions, tongues, healing, Spirit-led worship and preaching, and leadership in revival.  Many young people became leaders moving strongly in many spiritual gifts.

These effects continued to spread throughout the Solomon Islands.

Solomons Mission

A different team of 22 visited the Solomon Islands for a month, in November-December 2006, most coming from Pentecost Island, Vanuatu, on their first international mission.  The rest came from Brisbane – an international group of Bible College students (from Holland, England, Korea, and Grant Shaw who grew up in China) plus Jesse Padayachee, an Indian healing evangelist originally from South Africa, now in Brisbane, who joined the team for the last week.  Jerry Waqainabete and his wife Pam (nee Kenilorea), participated in Honiara.  Rev Gideon Tuke, a United Church minister, organized the visit.

In the Solomon Islands the revival team of 15 from Vanuatu and 6 from Brisbane visited villages in the Guadalcanal Mountains, three hours drive and seven hours trekking from Honiara, and held revival meetings in November 2006 especially to encourage revival leaders.   They walked up mountain tracks to where revival is spreading, especially among youth.  Now those young people have teams going to the villages to sing, testify, and pray for people.  Many gifts of the Spirit are new to them.  The team prayed for the sick and for anointing and filling with the Spirit.  They prayed both in the meetings and in the villages.

Revival in Guadalcanal Mountains

Revival in the Guadalcanal Mountains started at the Bubunuhu Christian Community High School on July 10, 2006, on their first night back from holidays.  They took teams of students to the villages to sing, testify, and pray for people, especially youth.  Many gifts of the Spirit were new to them – prophecies, revelations (e.g., about where magic stuff is hidden) healings, and tongues.

South Seas Evangelical Church (SSEC) pastors Joab Anea (chaplain at the high school) and Jonny Chuicu (chaplain at the Taylor Rural and Vocational Training Centre) led revival teams.  Joab reported on this revival.

We held our prayer in the evening.  The Spirit of the Lord came upon all of us like a mighty wind on us.  Students fell on the ground.  I prayed over them and we were all praying for each other.  The students had many gifts and saw visions.  The students who received spiritual gifts found that the Lord showed them the hidden magic.  So we prayed about them and also destroyed them with the power of God the Holy Spirit.  The students who joined in that night were speaking and crying in the presence of God and repenting.

We also heard God calling us to bring revival to the nearby local churches.   The Lord rescues and released many people in this time of revival.  This was the first time the Lord moved mightily in us.

Pastor Jonny Chuicu teaches Biblical Studies and discipleship at the Taylor Rural and Vocational Training Centre.  He teaches about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and is using the book: Understanding Our Need of Revival, by Ian Malins.

Some of the people (who are all students) have gifts of praying and intercession, worship, healing, preaching, and teaching.

Choiseul Island

Gideon, Grant and Geoff participated for five days in the National Christian Youth Convention (NCYC) in the north-west at Choiseul Island – 2 hours flight from Honiara.  Around 1500 youth gathered from across the nation, many arriving by outboard motor canoes.  The group coming from Simbo Island in two canoes ran into trouble when their outboard motors failed.  Two of their young men swam from noon for nine hours in rough seas to reach land and get help for their stranded friends.

The Friday night convention meeting saw a huge response as Grant challenged them to be fully committed to God.  Most of the youth came out immediately so there were hundreds to pray for.  The anointed worship team led the crowd in “He touched me” for nearly half an hour as prayer continued for them, including many wanting healing.

Here is Grant’s description of that youth crusade night:

We were invited to speak for their huge night rally.  Geoff began and God moved on the young people in a special way.  Then he handed it over to me at about half way and I gave some words of knowledge for healing.  They came forward and we prayed for them most of them fell under the Spirit’s power and all of them testified that all the pain left their body.  After that I continued to speak for a bit and then gave an altar call for any youth who choose to give their lives fully to Jesus, no turning back! 

Most of a thousand youth came forward, some ran to the altar, some crying!  There was an amazing outpouring of the Spirit and because there were so many people Geoff and I split up and started laying hands on as many people as we could.  People were falling under the power everywhere (some testified later to having visions).  There were bodies all over the field (some people landing on top of each other).  Then I did a general healing prayer and asked them to put their hand on the place where they had pain.  After we prayed people began to come forward sharing testimonies of how the pain had left their bodies and they were completely healed!  The meeting stretched on late into the night with more healing and many more people getting deep touches. 

It was one of the most amazing nights.  I was deeply touched and feel like I have left a part of my self in Choiseul.  God did an amazing thing that night with the young people and I really believe that he is raising some of them up to be mighty leaders in Revival.

A young man healed that night returned to his nearby village and prayed for his sick mother and brother.  Both were healed immediately.  He told about that the next morning at the convention, adding that he had never done that before.

The delegation from Karika, in the Shortland Islands further west, returned the following Monday.  The next night they led a meeting where the Spirit of God moved in revival.  Many were filled with the Spirit, had visions, were healed, and discovered many spiritual gifts including discerning spirits and tongues.  That revival has continued, and spread.

Revival Movements

Many revival movements continue to spread in the Solomon Islands.  Visiting teams have participated and encouraged leaders.

Honiara, the capital has seen many touches of revival.  A week of evening revival meetings in Wesley United Church in the capital Honiara spontaneously erupted in September 2007.  That was the first time they had had such a week of revival meetings, including joining with youth of other churches.  Calvin Ziru, their youth leader had been worship leader in the law student team hosted in Brisbane in 2002.  He was then legal advisor to the parliament in the Solomons, ideally placed to lead combined churches youth revival meetings and also the parliamentary Christian fellowship.

Seghe lies at the south east point of New Georgia in stunning scenery.  Revival meetings have been held at the Theological Seminary at Seghe in the fantastic Marovo Lagoon – 70 kilometres with hundreds of tropical bush laden islands north and west of New Georgia Island.  Morning teaching sessions, personal prayers in the afternoons (and some rest) and night revival meetings, with worship led by the student team, filled an eventful week in September 2007.  That was the first time the seminary held such a week.  Meetings included two village revival services in the lagoon, including Patutiva village, where revival started in Easter 2003.  That meeting went from 7 p.m. to 1.30 a.m. with about 1,000 people!  Hundreds received personal prayer after the meeting ‘closed’ at 11 pm.

Simbo.  A tsunami ravaged Gizo and Simbo islands in April 2007.  It smashed all the Simbo canoes, except Gideon’s and his brother’s which were then on the ocean on the two hour trip from Simbo to Gizo.  Tapurae village has hosted many revival meetings.  It was wiped out by the tsunami, so the villagers relocated to higher ground.  Strong moves of the Spirit continue on Simbo.  The village relocated from Tapurae has a revival prayer team of 30, and no one from that village needed medical help from the clinic in three years since they started praying constantly for the sick, laying on hands and casting out spirits.

Gizo, the provincial capital of the Western Region is the Solomons’ second largest town.  Its unique airstrip fills a small island near the town, with its pressed coral runway covering the whole length of the island.  Visitors take a canoe or launch across to town.  The central United Church hosted revival meetings in October 2007.   The Premier of the region asked penetrating questions and joined those who came out for prayer.  He testified that he was immediately healed from stress related head pain and tension.

Taro. The regional centre for Choiseul province in the west Solomons hosted an amazing week of unprecedented unity among all the churches, the United Church, SDAs, Catholics and Anglicans.  The meetings included 30 leaders from Karika in the Shortland Islands region, further west.  Revival started in Karika the day after leaders returned from the National Christian Youth Convention in Choiseul Island the previous December.

The premier and regional officials attended a meeting at the regional parliament house, which included praying with people afterwards.  So did the director for medical services and his staff at a meeting at the hospital.  Others gathered at the Catholic Church for a meeting and personal prayer there.  Each night combined churches revival meetings were held on the soccer field, with huge responses for prayer nightly.  Pastor Mathias from Vanuatu shared in speaking and led worship in the prayer groups.

The Lord opened the way for strong ministry with revival and national leaders in all these places.  Revival, reconciliation and transformation accelerate now.  God is doing far more than most people are asking or even thinking about in these islands (Eph 3:20-21).  In all these places people made strong commitments to the Lord, and healings were quick and deep.

Both in Vanuatu and in the Solomon Islands the people said that they could all understand the speaker’s English, even those who did not speak English, so they did not need an interpreter.

Transforming Revival

An unusual pattern of discipleship has emerged in whole villages in the South Pacific during the 21st Century.  Applying the principles of 2 Chronicles 7:14, complete village communities have experienced not only revival but ecological and social transformation.  Mentors and leaders from among their own people have led them into radical repentance, reconciliation, and communal commitment to Jesus as Lord in all of life.

The following stories of community transformation from Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and Vanuatu come from pages 58-70 of A Manual for Healing the Land  by Vuniani Nakanyaca and Walo Ani, 3^rd edition, 2009, published by Toowoomba City Church, Australia, reproduced by permission.  Reports by Harry Tura from Vanuatu are added here.

 Fiji

The twenty-first century has already seen many village communities transformed.  Rev Ratu Vunaiani Nakauyaca describes community transformation in Fiji.  The most powerful events in this ongoing revival are the direct results of repen­tance, reconciliation and unity,

One of the first instances of this oc­curred in 2002, when Chief Mataitoga of Sabeto village (between Nadi and Lautoka) had a dream from the Lord.  The village had a lot of social problems as well as enmity and divisions.  As a result of the dream, he called his people together to pray and fast to seek God for answers and healing.  Over a period of two weeks, many of the clans spent time with the Chief to sort out their differences.  They had meetings every night and God brought about rec­onciliation and unity in the church and village, many relationships being healed.

There had only been one church in the area until the Pentecostal revival of the 1960s which spread across the cities and towns and into the rural areas dur­ing that period.  Because of the rejection of the Pentecostal experi­ence by some people, many villages had two churches, one Methodist and one Pentecostal.  This caused division be­tween friends and family, with many people not communicating and carrying bitterness and resentment for decades.

When Ratu Mataitoga directed his people to come together as one, there was a move of the Holy Spirit with real repen­tance and forgiveness, and unity in the village was restored.  The long term results of this action were only revealed with the passing of time.  Productivity of the soil increased and long absent fish varieties returned to the reef.  Mangroves that had died and disappeared have begun to grow again.  The mangroves are very important for the ecology, providing shelter and breeding grounds for all kinds of fish, crabs, etc. all of which were part of the staple diet of these villages.

Healing the Land

The Healing the Land (HTL) Process, as it is now officially recognized, was really started on the initiative of Pastor Vuniani Nakauyaca.  For him it was a personal journey that resulted from an accumulation of various events.

The Pacific Prayer movement had a desire to see that prayer, repentance and reconciliation were carried out where nec­essary on location – where missionaries had been killed or where tribal conflict had taken place.  These were all based on a bottom up or grass roots approach to bring healing and reconciliation.

Vuniani had visited Argentina and seen the beneficial results of reconciliation with the British over the Faulklands war.  He also visited Guatemala to see the Al­molonga transformation (see Transformation Series DVD/Video).  This was a singularly dramatic community change.  Jails and public bars closed, land fertility in­creased and crop production levels had to be seen to be believed.

What he saw brought a deeper desire in his heart to see this happen in Fiji, to give room for God to bring about com­munity and national transformation in similar ways to what he had seen over­seas.  He saw the need to appropriately respond to the circumstances and use the spiritual tools available to see the nation transformed.

Nuku Village

After returning to Fiji, he called some people together to seek God for solutions.  They felt they should begin at Nuku, and this took place 1-10 April, 2003.  Nuku is about 65 kilometres north of Suva, on the main island of Viti Levu.

The inhabitants of Nuku had been suf­fering feuds, infertility, mental illness and social problems for decades.  The water of the stream that flowed through the village had been polluted since a day 42 years previously, the water and banks being filled with slime.  At that time, children were swimming in the stream when the water suddenly turned white and they all ran for their lives.  Fish died and grass died.  Vuniani, as a child, was swimming in the river when this happened, so he knew the background story.  It was believed that the polluted water caused blind­ness, infertility, madness and even death.

Vuniani and the team went up to Nuku to activate the Process.  The key Scripture they went with was 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land”.

They had two weeks of prayer meetings, the Methodist, Assemblies of God and Seventh Day Adventist churches being represented.  They spent time studying Bible refer­ences on defilement and Healing the Land.  This lead them to repent and con­fess their sins and the sins of their fore­fathers, in the same way as Nehemiah did.  These included killing and cannibalism, idolatry, witchcraft, bloodshed, immorality

They went to the high places in the area to cleanse them of the sinful acts that had taken place there.  The elders con­fessed sins of their forefathers.  Rec­onciliation first took place within fami­lies, then clans and finally within the tribe.  The chief of the area led a corporate prayer of repentance with the whole tribe.

On the third day of the Process, some women came running and shouting into the village, announcing that the water in the stream had become pure again.  It is still pure today.

Nuku village had been heavily populated, but because of feuds and disputes, peo­ple were chased out or just left and went to live in other villages.  Deputations were sent out to these to apologise for the past offences.  A matanigasau (traditional apology) was sent to two villages, inviting the people to return if they wished.

The whole community now count them­selves as very blessed.  The productivity of the land has increased.  The stream water is pure and since that time shrimps and fish have returned to the waters.  The fertility of the banks and agriculture has radically improved.  Some people have even reported that the water has demonstrated healing properties.

Nabitu Village, East of Nausori, Viti Levu

What occurred in this village was very much a follow on from what was hap­pening around the country at the time.  There was a split in the tribe and there were a lot of unresolved issues.  During a business meeting in the local church, which was situated right in the middle of the village, a fist fight broke out.  There was always a heaviness in the vil­lage, like a hovering dark cloud.  This affected people negatively and there were not a lot of jobs available.

On the advice of chiefs, the people came together on their own initiative for a time of corporate repentance.  A lay preacher in the Methodist Church facilitated the Process.  There was instantly a change in the atmosphere.  The heaviness that had been there had lifted and everyone could feel it.  The division in the church was healed.

The lesson learned from there is that satan’s hold over people and places is tenuous to say the least.  It only takes one man to lead many into forgiveness and healing.  Satan has to leave, along with the oppression and curses.

Vunibau (Serua Island) in the mouth of Navua River

The HTL Process in this place was scheduled over a 14 day period.  During the Process the mixture of elements was poured out onto the sand on the beach.  Later that day, an elderly lady and her son went fishing on the beach.  They cast the net out but when they tried to haul it back in, it seemed to be stuck.  They thought that perhaps it had been caught on a stump or rock, but they found that the net was actually so full of fish that they could not pull it in.

They started walking back to the village to tell everyone, and the lady was fol­lowing her son walking along the beach.  Wherever his footprints were in the sand a red liquid appeared.  As she walked in his footsteps she was healed of migraine, knee ailments and severe back pain, all of which she had suffered for many years. This healing has been per­manent.  As soon as they returned to the village she told the whole community what had happened.

All the people rushed down to the beach to see this phenomenon, including the HTL team that was still there at the time.  To their amazement, right on the spot where the elements had been poured onto the sand, there was blood coming out of the sand and flowing into the sea.  A backslidden Catholic man gave his life to the Lord on the spot.  Photos were taken.  Vuniani was called from Suva (about an hour away) and he also witnessed the blood coming out of the sand.  This actually happened twice.

It was understood to be a confirming sign from the Lord that He was at work in the reconciliation and healing Process.  1 John 5:6-7, “There are three that bear witness on earth, the Spirit, the water and the blood.”  This was similar to the miracle of the healing of the waters in Nuku, which was also recognized as a sign of God’s clean­sing and healing that was taking place amongst the people.  God is authenti­cating what He is doing.

At Vunibau many other signs quickly followed.  Large fish returned to their fishing grounds.  On one occasion, con­siderable quantities of prawns came ashore so that people could just pick them up.  Crabs and lobsters have also returned, and they have been able to sell the large lobsters for up to $25-$30 each.

After this sign of the blood, Pastor Vuniani recalled the scripture in Acts 2:19 where the Lord had spoken through the prophet Joel that “I will grant wonders (signs) in the sky above, and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire and vapour (pillars) of smoke” (NASB).  He wondered what would come next after the sign of the blood and felt that the next sign would be fire.

Nataliera, Nailevu North

In Nataliera village there were four churches.  There was no communication between their mem­bers, affecting even closely related families within the village.  Traditional witchcraft was still being practised and there were about eight sorcerers there.  In addition, there had been many more deaths than would be normal.

After forgiveness and reconciliation, the members of these four churches would meet every Wednesday for prayer and fasting.  On the first Sunday of every month, the four congregations would combine for one large gathering.  An Eco Lodge, previously closed, is now prospering after the HTL Process.

For many years the fishing on the reef had become lean.  Large fish were very scarce and for many years the catch had only ever comprised “bait fish” – the very small ones.  Much of the coral reef was dead and what was left seemed to be dying.  After reconciliation, on two separate occasions fire was seen to fall from the sky onto the reef.  After this, large fish returned in abundance.  The coral is now regenerating and new growth can be seen in abundance.

When stormy weather strikes and the boats can’t go out, the women pray and large fish swim in close to the shore and become trapped in a small pond so that the women are able to just wade in and catch them.  When women from neighbouring villages heard of this, they tried praying for the same provision, but without the same result.

Draubuta, Navosa highlands, north of Sigatoka

Vuniani’s son, Savanaca, was working with two teams in the highlands.  While they were there, pillars of smoke descended on the villages.  This was seen by many neighbouring villagers who described it as thick bloodstained smoke.  This sign was seen at almost exactly the same time as fire was seen to fall on the reef at Nataliera.

In this area there were many marijuana plantations.  The Nadroga council had been trying to prevent the plantings.  During the HTL Process, a deputation of marijuana growers approached the team and asked what the Government would do for them if they destroyed their crops. They had a list of demands which they presented to the team.

The marijuana crop was large, and esti­mated to be worth about $11 million.  There were 9 growers involved.  The team leaders told the farmers that it was their choice, that they should obey God and trust Him for their livelihood, without any promises from anyone to do any­thing for them.  If they could not, then they should not participate in the Healing Process.

By the time the Process had finished, the people had destroyed the crop as part of the reconciliation Process.  After the HTL ministry, a total of 13,864 plants were uprooted and burnt by the growers themselves.  There were 6,000 seedlings as well.

These are a few of the many miraculous events that have occurred in Fiji since 2001.  Every week, more such events are happening as the forgiveness, reconcilia­tion and HTL processes are being experienced.

Papua New Guinea

Rev Walo Ani and his wife Namana describe community transformation through Healing the Land in Papua New Guinea.

Karawa Village

It was a very exciting week in August 2006 where we saw the Lord move mightily in the lives of the village elders, chiefs, church leaders and the people.  A group of dedicated young people’s prayer ministry team started praying and fasting from 1st of July for the HTL Process. We witnessed repentance, forgiveness and reconciliations between family and clan members, and between individuals.

The Lord went ahead and prepared the hearts of people in every home as we visited.  They were ready to confess their sins and ask for forgiveness from each other and reconcile.  In some homes, members of families gave their hearts to the Lord.  Visitation of homes took two days.  On the third morning, after the dedication of the elements of salt, oil and water, the village elders and chiefs publicly repented as they identified with sins of their forebears; and each of them publicly gave their clans to the Lord.

Three dinghies and a big canoe with people all went in different directions up several rivers and along the nearby coast to anoint specific places for cleansing that were defiled through deaths and killings in the past.

That night there was a time of public confession and renouncement of things that were a hindrance in the lives of the people around a huge bonfire.  It was a solemn night; the presence of the Lord was so powerful that people were coming forward and burning their witchcraft and charms publicly.  No one could hold back, even the deacons and church elders, village elders, women and young people were all coming forward.  Young people started confessing their sins and renouncing and burning drugs, cigarettes and things that were hindering their lives from following Christ.

A young man, who had murdered another young man about 11 years ago, came forward and publicly confessed his sin and asked for forgiveness from the family of the murdered man.  That was a big thing; there was a pause and we waited and prayed for someone from the other side to respond.  Only the Lord could do this.  The younger brother of the man who was killed came out finally, and offered forgiveness.  We could hear crying among the people; it was a moving moment where God just took control.  Mothers, brothers and members of both extended families became reconciled in front of the whole village.  We could sense the release upon both families and village.  It was an awesome time; the meeting went on into the early hours of the next morning.  At the end of all this at about 2am the pastor stood up and said the prayer to invite Jesus into the community.

The village is not the same; you can sense the release and freedom of Christ in the lives of the people.  The Holy Spirit is still moving in people’s lives and they are coming to their pastor for prayer.  Recently, a young man surrendered two guns to the pastor.  News of what God has done and is still doing has spread to neighbouring villages.  God birthed a new thing in our area and I believe that many more villages will see the transforming power of God because they are hungry and desperate to see change in their communities.

Update, February 2007

Walo did three nights of HTL follow up in Karawa village and reported that the meetings in the village were packed.  He spoke on the bow and arrow concept – reliable bows enable reliable arrows to hit the mark (reliable parents are like the bows).  The people were asked to bring their bows and arrows.  They brought their bows but interestingly no one had any arrows.  That was really a challenge and eye opener to everyone.  The HTL prayer team have taken on board the bow and arrow concept and they are going to do house to house visitation to explain this concept.  Three widowers and several widows were rededicated to the Lord. They were anointed with oil and prayed that untimely death will not occur in the village any more.

Walo reported that there were a lot of testimonies arising 7 months after the HTL Process.  Two water wells which had a salty taste were anointed with oil and now have good fresh water in them.  One of the rivers that was anointed and prayed for now has fresh water instead of salty water half way up the river.

Alukuni, one of the villages which experienced their pigs being stolen by the Karawa young people over the years testified that since HTL in Karawa none of their pigs had been stolen so far.  Righteousness is rising up in the village.

The king tides in January to March usually caused floods in the middle of Karawa village dividing the village in two.  After the HTL Process last August, the 2007 king tides have not caused any flooding.  Praise the Lord!

A barren woman conceived after one of the visitation teams dealt with the generational curses holding her in bondage for sixteen years.  Nine months after the Karawa HTL Process she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy named Simon.

There is abundance of fruit and garden food and two harvests of fruit on the orange trees have been observed so far.

A hunger for prayer has risen among the young people.  Straight after HTL Process young people from one of the clans started a prayer group which is still going on.  Two other clans started prayer groups after a lot of struggle to get going over the years.  The HTL team was the main support behind “Kids Games” which were held December 2006 in the neighbouring village of Keapara.

The studies were on Joseph and when they came to the section on forgiveness the Lord moved in a powerful way and revival started among the children.  They stood and asked for forgiveness from their parents.  There was crying and reconciliation between children and parents.  The Lord is arresting the hearts of the young, the old and the children and there is no holding back.

One Year Thanksgiving, October 2007

Karawa is still experiencing the blessings of God with abundance of crabs, fish and garden produce.  The economic life of the village is growing stronger.  There have also been some challenges.  A week before we arrived there had been a murder of one of the Karawa men who was living in his wife’s village nearby.  He went missing for three days on his fishing trip.  All the Karawa people prayed during this time and search parties went out to look for him.  On the third day they found his body and thanked God, as in the past people missing on fishing trips were never found.  The testimony from this is the Lord kept all the Karawa young men calm although the urge to take the law into their own hands was there.  They testified that if it had not been for the transforming work of the Lord in their lives since the HTL Process, they would have caused trouble in the nearby village.

One of the things prayed for was good education for their children, especially the smaller ones who do elementary schooling and did not have proper classrooms.  Nine months after the HTL Process, Karawa which was the second last on the list of applications for school funding, was brought up to second priority and their application was approved.  A semi-trailer loaded with building materials for two classrooms worth K75,000 (Kina, about AU$35,000) arrived in the village.  The classrooms have now been built and the children are using them.  Only the Lord could have done this.

Makirupu Village

Makirupu is about 2 hours drive east of Port Moresby, with a population of about 600.  The United Church was the established church there and CRC and AOG have also planted churches there in recent years which caused a lot of offences between families.

In March 2007, we had eight days for the HTL Process, two teaching sessions in the mornings and one at night.  From 2‑5.30pm for four days the prayer team did house to house visitation of all of the 126 homes in the village.  The HTL team of seven and the prayer team all fasted and prayed for those eight days.  The teaching was done in the language people understood very well.  The Lord moved in a mighty way convicting people of land disputes, immorality and fornication, fear of witch­craft and sorcery (fear was at its peak when the HTL Process began), lies, gambling, stealing, marriage problems, witchcraft, sorcery and charms and many other issues.  Miracles of healing started from day one; people who were deaf began to hear, their ears were healed.

From research I had done we discovered that the mission land was defiled by three previous pastors who had minis­tered in the village and who had committed adultery and fornication in the last 30 years, the last one about 18 months ago.  This involved the last pastor and a young girl in the church behind the pulpit areas in the church building.  That pastor was suspended from ministry.  There was a court case between the family of the young girl, (who defended her saying she was innocent) and the deacons of the church.  There was actual physical fighting as well.  This case involved the whole village; almost all the young people left the church.  Because of this, the life and attendance of the services were affected.  The life of the church was slowly dying away.  This issue was never resolved properly; it was like a dark shadow hanging over the whole village.  Our first focus of prayer would be the cleansing of the mission land.

On the second night of prayer this evil manifested itself in a snake that lay across the doorway of the current pastor’s house.  The prayer team killed it on the spot.  The next morning I spoke on Roots and Foundations and how curses come into communities and defile the land and people.  That night we had a time of identification repentance and the current pastor came forward and repented on behalf of the three former pastors of adultery and fornication.  Something happened in the heavenlies.  A deacon came forward and repented on behalf of the deacons, followed by a women’s leader all repenting of the same sin and their involvement in it.  More people came out and confessed.  The presence of the Lord was very heavy in the church.  I asked if there was anyone to repent on behalf of the young people and the young girl who had committed fornication and adultery with the last pastor came for­ward, trembling and crying, confessing, repenting and asking for forgiveness from God and the whole village.  The people were amazed at what God was doing.  Only He could do that.  The girl who had denied outright what she had done 18 months ago was arrested by God’s presence and could not hide any more.  A Sunday School representative came forward and repented and asked for forgiveness.  A former deacon could not hold back.  He came forward and confessed that he had been the messen­ger boy for the pastor and the girl and he said sorry to the Lord for denying Him.

Because of this incident 18 months ago, all the young people had left the church but when the air was cleared, the next day all the young people came and the church building was full to capacity.  The fear of the Lord entered the hearts of the people.  That same night the anointing elements were mixed and the mission land was anointed, cleansed and rededicated to God.  It was an awesome time.  The AOG pastor also asked for forgiveness from the United Church for leaving the church and causing division.  He and his wife and all his church members were part of the prayer warrior team right from day one of the Process.  A couple of days later the CRC members started joining us and by the end of the Process all three churches were united to see change in the community. The prayer warrior team grew from 7 to 40.  Praise God!

The next day news of what had hap­pened had reached everyone in the village and the nearby villages and more people came for the meetings.  They were hungry to hear the Word of the Lord.  The next few days people were seeing signs and wonders, something they had never experienced before.  Revival had started and the fear of God came upon the people.  Also on the third day the village chief invited Jesus into the community.

On the last day the whole village gath­ered at the spot where the village was started some five or six generations ago.  Anointing oil was mixed and all the chiefs and village elders were anointed and reinstated.  After that, groups of people and prayer team took oil to certain places defiled because of blood­shed in the past on garden land.  They anointed these places while deacons took oil to the boundaries of the village and the beach and dedicated the land back to God.

After lunch everyone came back to the village and started a bonfire.  Church deacons and leaders were the first ones to come forward with confessions of adultery, immorality and witchcraft.  Families with land disputes came out and reconciled with people they had taken to court.  Young people came out with charms and magic and burnt them in the fire.  A mother came out with her ten year old daughter and confessed she had handed down her sorcery and magic to her and said she was sorry, asking for forgiveness from God.  Both were prayed for.  Husbands and wives reconciled, artefacts of magic and idolatry were burnt.  God was doing His cleaning up in the lives of the people.

The next day we had a time of celebra­tion and you could see the release and freedom in people’s lives, singing was coming from their hearts and joy was bubbling over.  The Lord had again touched peo­ple’s hearts and His presence was so evident that the people did not want to stop celebrat­ing, although it was getting dark and there was no light.

The land and the people are being healed.  The day after the Process a cou­ple of men went crabbing and caught bigger and more crabs than usual.  A week later a lady went to her garden to find that the bad weed which had been a prob­lem to most gardens had started to wither and die.  She went back to the village and told everyone.  The fear that had gripped the hearts of the people had also been broken in prayer and now women are going to their gardens on their own – something they could not do before.  A few days after the HTL Process, men began to go fishing and to their surprise they were catching more and bigger fish than before.

There has been a case of instant healing of a patient with a stroke after the AOG pastor and his wife shared with her fam­ily about Roots and Foundations and how curses come into lives.  The whole family confessed, repented and recon­ciled with each other.  The pastor’s wife had some of the oil that was mixed in the village the week before and began anointing the lady while they prayed.  To their surprise, she was healed instantly.  She began to speak and eat on her own.  The pastor said he had never experi­enced anything like this before.  The presence of the Lord was so great they all started worshipping Him and time was not an issue any more.  Praise God for this miracle!

During the Process, the pastors of the AOG, the United Church and an Elder of the CRC church, standing on behalf of the pastor, all repented of all the offences and misunderstandings between them in the past.  So now the three churches have decided to have a combined service once a month in the middle of the village.  The young people from all three churches are already having combined prayer meetings and they are in the process of building a big shelter in the middle of the village for the combined church services.

Update 6 months after the HTL Process

A couple of months after the HTL Process a security firm from the city turned up in the village and recruited all the young men who had been stealing and causing problems.  These young men had been stealing pigs and other things and then reselling them in the city.  One of them could not fit into city life so he went back to the village.  He stole a pig and when his family found out they chased him out of the village.  He went to stay with relatives in another village and in the process found the Lord there!

The villagers reported there has not been any stealing since the men were employed.  There has also been increase in their garden produce, fruit and nut trees.  The people are able to see their own produce come to maturity and sell it, whereas in the past it would have been stolen.

Makirupu and one of the nearby villages are known for getting floods during heavy rains.  One month before we got there, it had been raining heavily but the Lord has kept the floods away.  This is an answer to the people’s prayers.  However, the other village got the floods and we got to see some of the houses still surrounded by flood waters when we were there.  It surely is amazing!

Kalo Village

Reconciliation Process – Protocol discussion with the chiefs of Poti Clan, February 2007.

Kalo is the village where about 126 years ago in 1881, four Cook Island missionaries and their families were killed.  The killings were led by the chief of one of the clans.  Walo had three meetings with the clan leaders and the history was told and confirmed.  Since the killings this particular clan has been under a curse and the whole village is also affected by it.  The leaders and the people of this clan know that they are under a curse and they are desperate to be freed from it.  There have been unexplained deaths, not many of their children go beyond high school; those that go to work in towns don’t last long and they lose their jobs.

The outcome of the talks is that the leaders of this clan called all their families together, from far and near to come and start the repentance and reconciliation Process.  This was supported by the pastor and all the Church and clan leaders of Kalo.  It was a moving occasion and the leaders agreed to proceed with the HTL Process and a bigger reconciliation event with the relatives of the Cook Island missionaries present in the near future.

Every year at their Church anniversary the Kalo people used put on the play of the landing of the Cook Island missionaries and their killings but straight after putting on this play, someone always dies.  They cannot explain it and they don’t put it on any more.  After talks with Walo, they have decided to do the play again but this time including a time of repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation after the play.  Please pray that God will visit the Kalo people at this time!

Vanuatu

Pastors Walo Ani and Harry Tura report on transforming revival in Vanuatu.

Hog Harbour, Espirito Santo

The island was named Espiritu Santo because that is the island where over 400 years ago in May 1606 Ferdinand de Quiros named the lands from there to the South Pole the Great Southland of the Holy Spirit. 

After hearing about the Healing The Land stories of Fiji, Pastor Tali from Hog Harbour Presbyterian Church invited the Luganville Ministers Fraternal to run a week of HTL meetings in Hog Harbour village.

In April 2006 the Fraternal, under the leadership of Pastor Raynold Bori, conducted protocol discus­sions with the Hog Harbour community leaders and explained to them what the Process involves.  In May 2006 six pastors from Luganville did the HTL Process and God’s presence came on the people that week.

Here are some of the stories of Healing the Land in a village of 800 people:

• Married couples were reconciled.
• Schools of big fish came to the shores during the reconciliation.
• A three year old conflict, bloodshed and tribal fighting that could not be stopped by the Police, ended and reconciliation was made.
• The presence of the Lord came down on the village.
• In June of 2006, 12 pastors from the Luganville Fraternal were invited by the Litzlitz village on Malekula Island to do the HTL Process there.  These Pastors spent three weeks teaching and doing the Process during which many instances of recon­ciliation and corporate repentance were witnessed.  Village Chiefs and the people committed their community to God.

One year later the President of Vanuatu re-covenanted the Nation to God on the island of Espiritu Santo.

Pastor Harry Tura,  the pastor of Bombua Apostolic Church in Luganville the main town on Espiritu Santo Island, also reported on transformation in Vanuatu. 

I wish to indicate to you what God is doing now in Vanuatu these days as answers to your prayers, and ask that you continue to pray for us.

Litzlitz Village, Malekula Island

I went to Litzlitz village community on the island of Malekula on Sunday 4 June, 2006, and the Transformation activities started on the same day.  The study activities and the process of healing the land closed on the following Sunday 11 June.  The presence of the Lord was so real and manifested and many miracles were seen such a people healed, dried brooks turned to running streams of water, fish and other sea creatures came back to the sea shores in great number and even the garden crops came alive again and produced great harvests.

Miracles happened three days after the HTL Process:

• The poison fish that usually killed or made people sick became edible and tasty again.
• The snails that were destroying gardens all died suddenly and didn’t return.
• As a sign of God’s transforming work a coconut tree in the village which naturally bore orange coco­nuts started bearing bunches of green coconuts side by side with the red ones.
• A spring gushed out from a dried river bed and the river started flowing again after the anointing oil was poured on it when people prayed and repented of all the sins of defilement over the area.
• A kindergarten was established in the village one week after the HTL Process took place.
• Crops are now blessed and growing well in their gardens.

Vilakalak Village, West Ambae Island

On Tuesday June 20, 2006, I flew to Ambae Island to join the important celebration of the Apostolic Church Inauguration Day, June 22.  After the celebration I held a one-week Transformation studies and activities of healing the land at Vilakalak village community.  It began on Sunday June 25 and closed on Saturday July 1, 2006.  A lot of things had been transformed such as people’s lives had been changed as they accepted Christ and were filled with the Holy Spirit for effective ministries of the Gospel of Christ.  The Shekinah glory came down to the very spot where we did the process of healing the land during the night of July 1.  That great light (Shekinah glory) came down.  People described it as a living person with tremendous and powerful light shining over the whole of the village community, confirming the Lord’s presence at that specific village community area.  On the following day people started to testify that a lot of fish and shell fish were beginning to occupy the reefs and they felt a different touch of a changed atmosphere in the village community.  I flew back to Santo after the healing of the lands on Tuesday July 4.

The lands and garden crops then started to produce for great harvests and coconut crabs and island crabs came back in great abundance for people’s daily meals these days.  The people were very surprised at the look of the big sizes of coconut crabs harvested in that area.  I went there a month later to see it.  You can’t believe it that the two big claws or arms were like my wrist when I compared them with my left wrist.  That proved that the God we serve is so real and He is the owner of all the creatures.

We started the Transformation studies and activities at my church beginning on Monday July 17 and closed on Sunday July 23, 2006.  After the Transformation studies and activities had completed, we did the final process of healing the land on Sunday July 23.  As usual the Shekinah glory of the Lord’s presence appeared the following night of Monday, July 24.  The people were amazed at the scene.  That confirmed that God is at work at that specific area.  A lot of changes are taking place at our church base and its environment – the land, the sea, and the atmosphere above us.  People experience the same blessings as the others had been through.

On Sunday August 13, 2006, I took a flight to West Ambae again because the Walaha village community had requested me to carry out the Transformation studies and activities and healing of the lands at their area.  The Transformation studies started on Monday August 14.  Again the presence of the Lord came down (Shekinah glory) on the whole village community early on Wednesday night and they all witnessed the scene the following day.  They were very excited and began praising God all over the place. I took a flight back to Santo on Tuesday August 22.

The revival is now taking place at that particular community and lives are totally changed and people turned out to be experiencing a mighty difference of atmosphere and have been transformed to people of praise and worship.  All sorts of fish are coming back to the reef and garden crops came green and are now beginning to produce a great abundance of harvest at the end of this year by the look of it now.  This is all the hand of the Lord who does the work which is based on the transformation key verse in 2 Chronicles 7:14, which reads: “If my people who are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land.”

Lovanualikoutu, West Ambae

Walo Ani and a team also conducted the HTL Process in Vanuatu.

In 2004 Walo was invited by a pastor in West Ambae to do the HTL Process there.  It wasn’t until May 2007 that a small team consisting of Pastor Walo Ani, Deryck and Nancy Thomas of Toowoomba Queensland and Tom Hakwa from Lovanualikoutu village (who then worked for Telekom Vanuatu in Port Vila) flew to West Ambae to do the HTL Process.  The protocol was done by Tom some months before the team’s arrival and a prayer team was already praying and fasting a month before the actual event took place.  Deryck and Nancy coordinated the home visitation teams and saw many miracles of people restored to the Lord and witchcraft destroyed.  The Chief said the sinner’s prayer on behalf of the community one night and they all surrendered their lives to the Lord as he invited Jesus into the village.

In the morning of the last day one of the teams was trying to pray down a stronghold in the bush when a bone fell through a hollow tree, taking them by surprise.  They all jumped back but then stepped forward and dealt with it once and for all.  Many taboo (sacred) places were demolished and items of witchcraft and idolatry were burnt in a bonfire as reconciliations flowed till after midnight.

Also on that morning a team of people swam out to sea with the anointing oil to worship there and dedicate the sea and reef back to God.  The day after the team’s departure from the village a pastor who went out spear fishing saw a large migration of fish.  He in fact reportedly speared two fish together at one stage.  When he reported this to the Chief there was dancing and rejoicing under the cocoa trees where the Chief and some young people had been working.

During the reconciliation when the Chief began to speak, a light shower fell from the sky. There were no clouds but only a sky full of millions of stars. Surely God was in this Process!  The prayer team continues to see visions and witness miracles of more reconciliation and repentance.  Harvests from sea and land have begun to be more abundant than ever before witnessed.

Healing the Land Process

Essential requirements for Healing the Land, used by HTL teams, include these practical steps, as explained in A Manual for Healing the Land.

1. The Protocol.

Discuss protocol, select a “man of peace” to lead, form a council of elders, a community leader invites Jesus into the community, assess the needs of the community, and recognise and work with the men or women of peace.

2. Teaching on Healing the Land

Six days of teaching concerning commitment to the land, dealing with sin the church, and dealing with hidden agendas in the community.  This involves teaching about the land belonging to God, fallen stewardship, defilements of the land (idolatry, immorality, broken promises, and bloodshed), bow and arrow concept (Psalm 127), roots and foundations of curses, salt of the earth, forgiveness and healing, healing and transformation from Jesus, inheritance and consecration, obedience to the word of the Lord for the community, men and women of peace, and unity in the Body of Christ.

3. Activities of the HTL Process

Have Protocol discussion, form a council of elders, sinners prayer and invitation of Jesus, research and assess and profile the community, teach the Word of God, lead into corporate repentance, allow repentance and forgiveness and reconciliation to flow, develop a prayer team for the village, cover the village in prayer and fasting, organise teams for home visitation, prepare the anointing oil, final day activities (may involve oil, water, and salt), anoint and reinstate community chiefs and village leaders, public worship after anointing the land, and public repentance, reconciliation and burning of witchcraft items.

4. Celebration

Celebration may be in dancing, feasting, singing and in taking the Lord’s Supper together as the climax of the week.

5. Allow God to Continue the Process of HTL

Prayer teams stay active, a mid-week united prayer service sustains transformation, share testimonies, share with others usually in teams.

6. Follow-up Ideas

These include recognising those who made new commitments to God (as in baptisms or prayer for them), and on-going review each three months, with a thanksgiving event a year later to celebrate the goodness of God on the land and the community.

7. Warnings!

Four strong powers always at work are lies, fear, shame and secrecy.  Possible attacks include people speaking discouraging things against transformation – usually from outside, opposition by the devil, criticism by other Christian leaders, complacency, unbelief, and lack of prayer to sustain the transformation.

People interested in the Healing the Land manual may contact Toowoomba City Church for further information.  See www.tcchurch.com.au or email tccemail@tcchurch.com.au .

The reports of transforming revival confirm that God’s purposes for us include far more than personal, family, or church renewal and revival.  They also include community transformation, including social and ecological renewal and revival.

These accounts of transforming revival continue to multiply in the twenty-first century, calling us all to deeper repentance, reconciliation, renewal and revival.

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Survey of Revivals by Geoff Waugh

 Revivals continue to expand, changing people and communities.  The books Flashpoints of Revival and Revival Fires contain fuller reports of these brief accounts of  revivals.

Biblical witness

Biblical terms describing revival impacts of the Spirit vary greatly.  They include:
the Spirit was given ‑‑ Numbers 11:17; John 7:39;
the Spirit came upon ‑‑ Judges 3:10; Acts 19:5;
the Spirit took control ‑‑ Judges 6:34; 1 Samuel 11:6; 16:13;
the Spirit poured out ‑‑ Joel 2:28‑28; Acts 10:45;
the Spirit came down ‑‑ Matthew 3:16; Luke 3:22; John 1:33;
the Spirit fell (or came down)‑‑ Acts 10:44; 11:15;
the Spirit received ‑‑ Acts 8:15‑17; 19:2;
baptized in or with the Spirit ‑‑ Luke 3:16; John 1:33; Acts 1:5;
filled with the Spirit ‑‑ Acts 2:4; 9:17; Ephesians 5:18.

The specific nature of these impacts is significant, as is the varied nature of subsequent ministries resulting from these impacts.  These impacts of the Spirit empowered people for ministry.  That ministry involved a wide range of charismata including anointed preaching and prophecy, healings and miracles, tongues and trouble.

Historical witness

Significant revival impacts of the Spirit of God have continued through history.  These may have been overlooked or minimized for reasons such as these:

• Many historians wrote from the perspective of the established government or church, which often opposed and suppressed revivals.
• Strong impacts of the Spirit constantly initiate new movements which threaten the established order, so these movements were opposed and their writings destroyed.
• Revivals may be regarded as heretical, and their leaders killed, as with Jesus, in the early church, and throughout history.
• Accounts of revivals have been systematically destroyed, often burned as heretical.
• Excessive enthusiasm and fanaticism in revivals may bring those movements into disrepute.
• Leaders and adherents of revival movements have often been occupied with more pressing priorities than writing history, such as ensuring their own survival.

However, where such records have survived, mostly after the invention of the printing press, revivals consistently reveal similar patterns to the biblical witness.  A brief selection is given here including first person accounts. 

—Before Constantine the church spread rapidly in spite of, and even because of, persecution.  The witness of the martyrs influenced many people.  After Constantine made C hjristianity the official religion of the Roman Empire the Holy Spirit continued his work in the church and the world, often causing strong opposition as in the New Testament.

—

—Irenaeus (d 195), a student of the Apostle John’s disciple Polycarp, led a considerable spiritual awakening in Lyons in southern Gaul where in addition to his Episcopal responsibilities he learned the local language and his preaching was accompanied by gifts of the Spirit, exorcisms and reports of some raised from the dead.

—

—The Montanists, or the New Prophecy movement, flourished in Asia Minor from 150-400s.  This movement included a revival of prophecies and of acknowledged prophets including women, a challenge for Christians to forsake worldly attitudes with stricter living standards in Christian communities, and a strong belief in the second coming of Christ with the ideal society soon to be established in the New Jerusalem.  Montanus spoke in tongues and began prophesying at his baptism, and taught that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were still available.  The lawyer-theologian Tertullian (c 150-223) became the most famous convert to Montanism when he joined that movement early in the 200s.  The movement came into disrepute because of excesses, particularly in prophecy, but it became a strong challenge to the lax state of the church at that time.

—

—Gregory the Wonderworker (c 213-270), converted through contact with Origen (c 185-254), became bishop of his native Pontus and appears to have led a strong movement of conversion till most of his diocese was Christian.

—

Monastic orders were devoted to serving of God and people, often in protest to laxity and nominal Christianity in the church.  Many of these leaders led strong spiritual movements including various miracles, healings and exorcisms, although caution is needed in distinguishing between fact and subsequent fiction.

—

—Augustine of Hippo in North Africa (354-430), strongly influenced the church and society through his writings.  His work The City of God included a chapter entitled “Concerning Miracles Which Were Wrought in Order that the World Might Believe in Christ and Which Cease Not to Be Wrought Now That the World Does Believe.”

—

—Patrick (389-c 461) told of the conversions of thousands of the Irish, initiating active Celtic missionary activity including subsequent evangelism by Columba (521-597) in Scotland and Columban and others in France, Switzerland and northern Italy.  By 600 Augustine of Canterbury and his missionaries saw thousands accept Christianity in England and it was reported that they imitated the powers of the apostles in the signs which they displayed.

—

—Peter Waldo and the Waldensians in the 1100s began reform and revival movements which challenged the church and impacted society.

—

—Francis of Assisi in the 1200s called people to forsake all and follow Jesus.  Many did.  They influenced others in society.

—

—John Wycliffe and his itinerant preachers, the Lollards, made a powerful impact on England in the 1300s.  They aroused strong opposition leading to many becoming martyrs.

—

John Hus in Bohemia and Savonarola in Italy led strong reform movements in the 1400s which brought revival but led to their martyrdoms.  Hus was known for his unblemished purity of life and uncompromising stand for truth in a decadent society.  Savonarola fasted, prayed and preached with prophetic fire which confronted evils of his time, filled the churches, and brought honesty into much of civic and business life.

—

—Gutenburg’s printing press invented in 1456 made the Scriptures widely available.  This helped spark the 1500s Reformation with leaders such as

—Huldrych Zwingli in Switzerland initially calling for freedom of conscience though later denying this for others,

—Martin Luther in Germany proclaiming justification by faith alone based on the supreme authority of scripture, and

—John Calvin in Geneva emphasizing the awesome sovereignty and grace of God.

—Radical reformers, such as Felix Manz the first Anabaptist martyr, were killed by some of the reformers in those days of heated religious conflict.

—John Knox fearlessly called Scotland to repentance amid the intense political and religious fervour of the times.

Revivals continued to break out during and after the Reformation in spite of, and often caused by, persecution.

Wednesday, 13 August, 1727 – Herrnhut, Saxony

The Spirit of God fell on 300 refugees in Germany in 1727, mostly Morvian exiles given asylum on the estates of Nicholaus von Zinzendorf.  One of them wrote that “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.” (Greenfield 1927:14).

Within 25 years they sent out 100 missionaries, then by 1782 they had 175 missionaries in 27 places, and in their fist 100 years of missions sent out over 1,199 people, including 459 women, all supported by round-the-clock ‘hourly intercessions’.  Both John and Charles Wesley were converted through their witness.  Their English missionary magazine, Periodical Accounts, inspired William 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?” (Greenfield 1927:19).

January, 1735 ‑ New England, America

Jonathan Edwards reported on a revival movement which developed into 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 January, 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. 

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. … Those amongst us that had formerly been 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 (Stacy 1842, 1989:12‑13).

Monday, 1 January, 1739 ‑ London

1739 saw astonishing expansion of revival in England.  During the evening of 1st January the Wesleys and George Whitefield with 60 others, met in London for prayer and a love feast.  The Spirit of God moved powerfully on them all.  John Wesley described it:

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” (Idle 1986:55).

This London Pentecost contributed powerfully to revival, which 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.

Thursday 8 August, 1745 ‑ Crossweeksung, America

David Brainerd, missionary to the North American Indians from 1743 to his death at 29 in 1747, tells of revival breaking out among Indians at Crossweeksung in August 1745.  Concerning 8 August, 1745, he wrote

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 (Howard 1949:216-217).

The ‘Great Awakening’ which had begun a decade previously now impacted Indian settlements with charismatic outpourings of the Holy Spirit, producing both conversions and significant social improvement.

Sunday 25 December, 1781 ‑ Cornwall, England

Forty years after the eighteenth century evangelical revivals began the fires of revival had died out in many places.  Concerned leaders called the church to pray.  Those prayer meetings included outpourings of the Spirit in revival.  On Christmas day 1781, at St. Just Church in Cornwall, at 3.00 a.m. intercessors met to sing and pray.  The Spirit was poured out on them and they prayed through until 9.00 a.m. and regathered that Christmas evening.  Throughout January and February, the movement continued.  By March 1782 they were praying until midnight as the Holy Spirit moved on them.  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 church building in the world at that time.  Baptist churches in North Hampton, Leicester, and the Midlands, set aside regular nights devoted to prayer for revival.  Methodists and Anglicans joined them, and revival spread.

June‑July, 1800 ‑ Kentucky, America

Presbyterian James McGready organised camp meetings in Kentucky, an area nicknamed Rogues Harbour populated with fugitives from justice including murderers, horse thieves, highway robbers, and counterfeiters.  On the last day of the first camp meeting, held in June with around 450 people, ‘a mighty effusion of [God=s] Spirit’ came upon the people, ‘and the floor was soon covered with the slain; their screams for mercy pierced the heavens.=  At the next camp meeting held in late July 1800 an enormous crowd of 8,000 attended, many from up to 100 miles away.  McGready recalled:

The power of God seemed to shake the whole assembly.  Toward the close of the sermon, the cries of the distressed arose almost as loud as his voice.  After the congregation was dismissed the solemnity increased, till the greater part of the multitude seemed engaged in the most solemn manner.  No person seemed to wish to go home ‑ hunger and sleep seemed to affect nobody ‑ eternal things were the vast concern.  Here awakening and converting work was to be found in every part of the multitude; and even some things strangely and wonderfully new to me (Christian History, No. 23, p 25).

August, 1801 ‑ Cane Ridge, America (Barton Stone)

Presbyterian minister Barton Stone, organised similar meetings in 1801 in his area at Cane Ridge, Kentucky.  A huge crowd of around 12,500 attended in over 125 wagons. At that time Lexington, the largest town in Kentucky, had less than 1,800 citizens.  Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist preachers and circuit riders formed preaching teams, speaking simultaneously in different parts of the camp grounds, all aiming for conversions.  Methodist James Finley, wrote:

The noise was like the roar of Niagara.  The vast sea of human being seemed to be agitated as if by a storm.  …  At one time I saw at least five hundred swept down in a moment as if a battery of a thousand guns had been opened upon them, and then immediately followed shrieks and shouts that rent the very heavens (Pratney 1994:104).

The Rev. Moses Hoge described it:

The careless fall down, cry out, tremble, and not infrequently are affected with convulsive twitchings …  Nothing that imagination can paint, can make a stronger impression upon the mind, than one of those scenes.  Sinners dropping down on every hand, shrieking, groaning, crying for mercy, convulsed; professors praying, agonizing, fainting, falling down in distress for sinners or in raptures of joy! …  As to the work in general there can be no question but it is of God.  The subject of it, for the most part are deeply wounded for their sins, and can give a clear and rational account of their conversion (Christian History, No. 23, p. 26).

These frontier revivals became a new emphasis in American revivalism.  They included the ‘saw dust trail’ laid down to settle the dust or soak up wet ground over which penitents moved to the ‘altar’ at the front.  Revival early in the nineteenth century not only impacted the American frontier, but also towns and especially colleges.  One widespread result in America, as in England, was the formation of missionary societies to train and direct the large numbers of converts filled with missionary zeal.

Wednesday, 10 October, 1821 ‑ Adams, America

Charles Finney had a mighty empowering by God=s Spirit on the night of his conversion on Wednesday 10 October 1821.  Convicted by the Spirit that morning, he surrendered to God in the woods.  That night he was filled with the Spirit:

I received a mighty baptism of the Holy Spirit.  Without any expectation of it, without ever having the thought in my mind that there was any such thing for me, without any memory of ever hearing the thing mentioned by any person in the world, the Holy Spirit descended upon me in a manner that seemed to go through me, body and soul.  I could feel the impression, like a wave of electricity, going through and through me.  Indeed it seemed to come in waves of liquid love, for I could not express it in any other way.  It seemed like the very breath of God.  I can remember distinctly that it seemed to fan me, like immense wings.

No words can express the wonderful love that was spread abroad in my heart.  I wept aloud with joy and love.  I literally bellowed out the unspeakable overflow of my heart.  These waves came over me, and over me, and over me, one after another, until I remember crying out, ‘I shall die if these waves continue to pass over me.’  I said, ‘Lord, I cannot bear any more,’ yet I had no fear of death (Wessel 1977:20‑22).

Finney continued for the rest of his life in evangelism and revival. He founded and taught theology at Oberlin College which pioneered co‑education and enrolled both blacks and whites.  His Lectures on Revival were widely read and helped to fan revival in America and England.

Sunday, 22 May, 1859  ‑ Natal, South Africa

Revival began among the Zulu and Bantu tribes in South Africa before it spilled over into the Dutch Reformed Church.  Tribal people gathered in large numbers on the frontier mission stations and then took revival, African style, into their villages.  On Sunday night, 22 May, the Spirit of God fell on a service of the Zulus in Natal so powerfully that they prayed all night.  News spread rapidly.  This revival among the Zulus of Natal on the east coast ignited missions and tribal churches.  It produced deep conviction of sin, immediate repentance and conversions, extraordinary praying and vigorous evangelism.

In April 1860 at a combined missions conference of over 370 leaders of Dutch Reformed, Methodist and Presbyterian leaders meeting at Worcester, South Africa, they discussed revival.  Andrew Murray Sr., moved to tears, had to stop speaking.  His son, Andrew Murray Jr., now well known through his books, led in prayer so powerfully that many saw that as the beginning of revival in those churches.

October, 1871  ‑  New York

D. L. Moody, converted in 1855, led powerful evangelistic campaigns in America and England.  While visiting New York in 1871 to raise funds for churches and orphanages destroyed in the Chicago fire of October that year, in which his home, church sanctuary and the YMCA buildings were destroyed, he had a deep encounter with God.  He wrote,

I was crying all the time God would fill me with his Spirit.   Well, one day in the city of New York ‑ oh, what a day! ‑ I cannot describe it, I seldom refer to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to name.  Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for fourteen years.  I can only say that God revealed Himself to me, and I had such an experience of His love that I had to ask him to stay his hand.  I went to preaching again.  The sermons were not different; I did not present any new truths; and yet hundreds were converted.  I would not be placed back where I was before that blessed experience for all the world ‑ it would be as the small dust of the balance (Moody 1900:149).

Monday, 31 October 1904 – Loughor, Wales

Evan Roberts, a student at the Methodist Academy in Wales, experienced a deep work of the Spirit at meetings on Thursday 29 September, 1904, after Presbyterian evangelist Seth Joshua closed the 7 a.m. meeting crying out in Welsh, ‘Lord … bend us.’  Roberts agonised in prayer that day.  He wrote, “It was the Spirit that put the emphasis for me on >Bend us.=  >That is what you need= said the Spirit to me.  And as I went out I prayed, O Lord, bend me.” (Evans 1969:70).

Impelled by the Spirit he returned home from college on a week’s leave and spoke nightly from 31 October to increasing crowds as the Spirit moved powerfully on them.  From the following week he led teams by invitation across south Wales, sparking the Welsh Revival which reported 70,000 conversions in three months and 100,000 within a year.  Crime rates and abortions dropped.  Many taverns went bankrupt.  Some judges had no cases to try, and police had so little to do in many towns at the height of the revival that they attended the meetings while still on duty.

Friday, 30 June, 1905  ‑ Mukti, India

Pandita Ramabai established a compound for widows and orphan girls during severe famine in her area near Pune (Poona) just south of Bombay, and called it Mukti (Salvation).  By 1901 she had 2,000 girls and women and from January 1905 she began teaching about the need for revival.  Soon over 500 people met twice daily to pray for revival, mostly women and girls.  Thirty of her ladies ministered in teams in the villages.  They met daily to pray for the endowment of the Holy Spirit.  On Thursday 29 June the Spirit moved strongly on many of the girls.  On Friday, 30 June, while Ramabai taught from John 8, the Holy Spirit fell on them all suddenly with great power.  Everyone there began to weep and pray aloud, crying out to be baptised with the Holy Spirit and fire.  Revival spread through their mission, and into many surrounding areas.  Regular school activities gave way to confession, repentance, and great joy with much praise and dancing.  Many spoke in tongues (including English!), and were filled with zeal for evangelism and social care.

Saturday, 14 April, 1906 ‑ Azusa Street, Los Angeles

Charles Paraham conducted a Bible College at Topeka, Kansas where on 1 January 1901 Agnes Ozman spoke in tongues when Parham laid hands on her and prayed for her to be baptized in the Spirit.  That month Parham and half of the 34 students also spoke in tongues.  Those events have been seen as the beginning of Pentecostalism in America.

William Seymour, a Negro Holiness pastor attended Parham’s short term Bible School in Houston, Texas early in 1906, then by April was the leader of The Apostolic Faith Mission at Azusa Street, Los Angeles.  Meetings began there on Easter Saturday, 14 April 1906.  About 100 attended including blacks and whites.  The Spirit of God moved powerfully on that little mission.  Many were baptised in the Spirit with speaking in tongues, prophecies, and healings.  Its centrifugal influence ignited pentecostal mission across America and overseas.

Sunday, 4 July, 1909  ‑ Valparaiso, Chile

Minnie Abrams, who worked at Mukti in India during the 1905 revival there, sent an account of it in 1907 to Willis Hoover, Methodist missionary in Chile.  Those Methodists began praying for revival which burst on them on Sunday 4 July, resulting in their church growing from 300 to 1,000 in two months.   Willis Hoover wrote:

Saturday night was an all night of prayer, during which four vain young ladies (three of them were in the choir) fell to the floor under the power of the Spirit. … From that time on the atmosphere seemed charged by the Holy Spirit, and people fell on the floor, or broke out in other tongues, or singing in the Spirit, in a way impossible in their natural condition. (Frodsham 1946:177‑178).

1914 – Belgian Congo, Africa

Africa has seen many powerful revivals, such as the Belgian Congo outpouring with C. T. Studd in 1914.  “The whole place was charged as if with an electric current.  Men were falling, jumping, laughing, crying, singing, confessing and some shaking terribly,” he reported.  “As I led in prayer the Spirit came down in mighty power sweeping the congregation.  My whole body trembled with the power.  We saw a marvellous sight, people literally filled and drunk with the Spirit” (W.E.C. 1954:12‑15).

Monday, 7 March, 1921 ‑ Lowestoft, England

Douglas Brown, a Baptist minister in South London, saw conversions in his church every Sunday for 15 years to 1921.  He felt the Lord convict him about leaving his pastorate for evangelistic mission work.  Although reluctant, he finally surrendered.  “Then something happened,” he wrote.  “I found myself in the loving embrace of Christ for ever and ever; and all power and joy and blessedness rolled in like a deluge” (Griffin 1992:17‑18).  After that 2 a.m. encounter, he embarked on itinerant missions commencing on 7 March in Lowestroft, East Anglia, with immediate responses in large numbers.  Within eighteen months he addressed over 1700 meetings, and saw revival in his evangelistic ministry in England.

1949 – Hebrides Islands, Scotland

Following the trauma of World War II, spiritual life reached a low ebb in the Scottish Hebrides.  Church leaders prayed for revival.  They invited evangelist Duncan Campbell to lead meetings.  At the close of his first meeting in the Presbyterian church in Barvas the travel weary preacher was invited to join an all night prayer meeting!  Thirty people gathered for prayer in a nearby cottage.  Duncan Campbell described it:

God was beginning to move, the heavens were opening, we were there on our faces before God.  Three o’clock in the morning came, and God swept in.  About a dozen men and women lay prostrate on the floor, speechless.  Something had happened; we knew that the forces of darkness were going to be driven back, and men were going to be delivered.  We left the cottage at 3 am to discover men and women seeking God. I walked along a country road, and found three men on their faces, crying to God for mercy.  There was a light in every home, no one seemed to think of sleep (Whittaker 1984:159).

His mission continued for five weeks.  Services continued early morning until late at night and into the early hours of the morning.  The revival spread to the neighbouring parishes from Barvas with similar scenes of repentance, prayer and preaching.  People sensed the awesome presence of God everywhere.

Sunday, 26 September, 1965 ‑ Soe, Timor

Revival burst into unprecedented power in Timor in 1965.  This revival spread in the uncertain days following the attempted army coup on 30 September, 1965 in Indonesia.  Four days previously a visitation from God had begun in Soe, a mountain town of about 5,000 people in Timor in the Reformed Church on Sunday 26 September.  That night, as at Pentecost, people heard the sound of a tornado wind, and flames on the church building prompted police to set off the fire alarm to summon volunteer fire fighters, but the church was not burning.  Many were converted that night, many filled with the Spirit including speaking in tongues, some using in English who did not know English.  By midnight teams of lay people had been organised to begin spreading the gospel the next day.  Eventually, about 90 evangelistic teams were formed which functioned powerfully with spiritual gifts.

The Reformed Church Presbytery on Timor recorded 80,000 conversions from the first year of the revival there, half of those being former communists.  They verified that 15,000 people were permanently healed in that year (Koch 1970).

Tuesday, 3 February, 1970 ‑ Asbury College, Wilmore, Kentucky

A revival broke out in Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky, on Tuesday 3 February 1970.  God’s Spirit moved on the regular morning chapel commencing at 10 o=clock.  Students came weeping to the front to kneel in repentance.  Others gave testimonies including confession of sin.  They prayed and worshipped spontaneously.  The staff cancelled lectures for the day as the auditorium filled with over 1,000 people.  Few left for meals.  By midnight over 500 still remained praying and worshipping.  Several hundred committed their lives to Christ that day.  By 6 a.m. next morning 75 students were still praying in the hall, and through the Wednesday it filled again as lectures were again cancelled for the day.  The time was filled with praying, singing, confessions and testimonies.  Almost half the student body of 1000 formed teams witnessing about the revival.   In the first week after the revival began teams of students visited 16 states by invitation and saw several thousand conversions through their witnessing (Coleman 1970).

Sunday, 23 August, 1970 ‑ Solomon Islands

Muri Thompson, a Maori evangelist from New Zealand, visited the Solomon Islands in July and August 1970 where the church had already experienced significant renewal and was praying for revival.  During the last two weeks of these meetings the Holy Spirit moved even more powerfully in the meetings.  On Sunday morning 23 August on the island of Malaita Muri preached powerfully, then he said, ‘If anyone wants to come forward …’ and immediately the whole congregation of 600 surged forward in repentance.  Many saw visions of God, of Jesus on the cross or on his throne, of angels, or of bright light.  Some spoke in tongues.  Some were healed.  Most came into a new experience of God with a deep awareness of the need for humility and being sensitive to the Holy Spirit. 

The following Thursday, 27 August, at another village on Malaita when the 2,000 people bowed in prayer, they heard a growing sound.  ‘I looked up through an opening in the leaf roof to the heavens from where the sound seemed to be coming.  It grew to be roar – then it came to me: surely this is the Holy Spirit coming like a mighty rushing wind.  I called the people to realize that God the Holy Spirit was about to descend upon them’ (Griffiths 1997:175).  Many people involved in that impact of the Spirit sparked similar revivals  throughout the Pacific (Waugh 1998:69-75).

Wednesday 14 March, 1979 ‑ Elcho Island, Australia

Djiniyini Gondarra, Uniting Church minister in the settlement of Galiwin=ku on Elcho Island returned from holidays on the late afternoon Missionary Aviation Fellowship flight on 14 March, 1979.  Aboriginal Christians there had been praying earnestly, and met that night in his home for another prayer meeting.  He reports,

Suddenly we began to feel God=s Spirit moving in our hearts and the whole form of our prayer suddenly changed and everybody began to pray in the Spirit and in harmony. And there was a great noise going on in the room and we began to ask one another what was going on.  Some of us said that God had now visited us and once again established his kingdom among his people who have been bound for so long by the power of evil…  In that same evening the word just spread like the flames of fire and reached the whole community in Galiwin=ku.  Gelung [his wife] and I couldn=t sleep at all that night because people were just coming for the ministry, bringing the sick to be prayed for, for healing. Others came to bring their problems. Even a husband and wife came to bring their marriage problem, so the Lord touched them and healed their marriage (Gondarra 1991).

Teams from Elcho Island took revival movements throughout Arnhem Land, Northern Territory and Western Australia.  At Warburton, then regarded as having one of the highest aboriginal crime rates in Australia, the results of

Sunday 15 May, 1980 ‑ Anaheim, America

John Wimber led the evangelical Vineyard Fellowship at Anaheim from 1977.  On Mother’s Day, 15 May, 1980 at the evening service a young man spoke. 

That night, after he gave his testimony, Lonnie asked the Holy Spirit to come and the repercussions were incredible.  The Spirit of God literally knocked people to the floor and shook them silly.  Many people spoke in tongues, prophesied or had visions.  Then over the next few months, hundreds and hundreds of people came to Christ as the result of the witness of the individuals who were touched that night, and in the aftermath.  The church saw approximately 1,700 converted to Christ in a period of about three months.  This evolved into a series of opportunities, beginning in 1980, to minister around the world.  Thus the Vineyard renewal ministry and the Vineyard movement were birthed (Vineyard Reflections, May/June 1994).

Thursday 14 June ‑ Brugam, Papua New Guinea

In the Sepik lowlands of northern Papua New Guinea revival touched the South Seas Evangelical Churches at Easter 1984, sparked by Solomon Island pastors.  It was characterised by repentance, confession, weeping and great joy.  Stolen goods were returned or replaced, and wrongs made right.  Australian missionary Ray Overend’s report includes comment on revival beginning at Brugam, the church headquarters, on 14 June:

About 200 people surged forward.  Many fell flat on their faces on the ground sobbing aloud.  Some were shaking ‑ as spiritual battles raged within.  There was quite some noise…  The spiritual battles and cries of contrition continued for a long time.  Then one after another in a space of about three minutes everybody rose to their feet, singing spontaneously as they rose.  They were free.  The battle was won.  Satan was bound.  They had made Christ their King!  Their faces looked to heaven as they sang.  They were like the faces of angels.  The singing was like the singing of heaven.  Deafening, but sweet and reverent (Overend 1986:36‑37).

The whole curriculum and approach at the Bible School for the area changed.  Instead of having traditional classes and courses, teachers would work with the school all day from prayer times early in the morning through Bible teaching followed by discussion and sharing times during the day to evening worship and ministry.  The school became a community, seeking the Lord together.  Christians learned to witness and minister in spiritual gifts, praying and responding to the leading of the Spirit.  These included discernment of spirits, deliverance, words of knowledge, tongues, prophecy, healing and boldness in evangelism.

 Thursday 4 August, 1988 ‑ Kambaidam, Papua New Guinea

 Johan van Bruggen, a missionary at the Lutheran Evangelist Training Centre at Kambaidam near Kainantu in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, reported in his circulars on the beginnings of revival which produced powerful evangelism, deliverance where whole villages publicly burned fetishes, and healings and miracles:

What were the highlights of 1988?  No doubt the actual outpouring of the Holy Spirit must come first.  It happened on August 4 when the Spirit fell on a group of students and staff, with individuals receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit on several occasions later on in the year.  The school has never been the same again.  As direct results we noticed a desire for holiness, a hunger for God=s Word which was insatiable right up till the end of the school year, and also a tremendous urge to go out and witness.  Whenever they had a chance many of our students were in the villages with studies and to lead Sunday services.  Prayer life deepened, and during worship services we really felt ourselves to be on holy ground. …  We have been almost left speechless by what God is doing now through our students.  We realize that we have been led on and are now on the threshold of a revival (Waugh 1998:96).

1988 – Madruga, Cuba

In 1988, revival broke out in a small church in Madruga, Cuba.  “People would begin to weep when they entered the church,” said their pastor.  More than 60 churches experienced a similar move of the Spirit among the 10 million people of Cuba.  The revival produced more than 2,400 house churches.  Although open evangelism is still outlawed, teenagers were joining the children and adults to witness boldly in parks, beaches, and other public places, regardless of the risk.  There is a “holy and glorious restlessness” amongst the believers, said one pastor.  “The once defensive mood and attitude of the church has turned into an offensive one, and Christians are committed to the vision of >Cuba Para Cristo!= ‑ Cuba for Christ!” (Open Doors, Australian Report, September 1993).

1989 – Henan and Anhul, China

The persecuted church in China lives in constant revival.  This is merely a sample account.

In 1989 Henan preachers visited North Anhul province and found several thousand believers in the care of an older pastor from Shanghai.  At their first night meeting with 1,000 present 30 were baptised in the icy winter.  The first baptised was a lady who had convulsions if she went into water.  She was healed of that and other ills, and found the water warm.  A 12 year old boy deaf and dumb was baptized and spoke, “Mother, Father, the water is not cold ‑ the water is not cold.”  An aged lady nearly 90, disabled after an accident in her 20s, was completely healed in the water.  By the third and fourth nights over 1,000 were baptised.  A young evangelist, Enchuan, 20 years old in 1990, had been leading evangelistic teams since he was 17.  He said, “When the church first sent us out to preach the Gospel, after two to three months of ministering we usually saw 20‑30 converts.  But now it is not 20.  It is 200, 300, and often 600 or more will be converted” (Balcombe 1991).

Dennis Balcombe reported in a newsletter on 27 August 1994:  “This year has seen the greatest revival in Chinese history.  Some provinces have seen over 100,000 conversions during the first half of this year.

1992 – Buenos Aires, Argentina (Claudio Friedzon)

During the 1980s, Carlos Annacondia, a businessman turned evangelist, won thousands to the Lord in mass crusades accompanied by signs and wonders, healings (including filling of teeth) and deliverances.  Churches grew dramatically. 

Other pastor/evangelists such as Omar Cabrera and Hector Giminez won hundreds of thousands to the Lord.  All of them have powerful ministries in evangelism with many signs and wonders, healings and miracles.  Omar and Marfa Cabrera discovered the power of prayer for deliverance, and now lead a church movement of over 90,000 in 120 cities.  Hector Giminez, formerly a drug addicted criminal, lead a church which grew to 1000 in a year and now has over 120,000.

Claudio Freidzon, founder of a Buenos Aires church which grew to 4000 people in five years, continues to lead powerful crusades in another wave of revival since 1992.  The breakthrough came for him and his wife Betty after seven years of struggling as a pastors with a congregation of seven in a dilapidated building.  He reported:

Sometimes pastor friends came to visit and would find me alone in the meeting.  I felt like dying: I wished I could disappear.  I used to walk among the empty benches and the devil laughed and jumped around me, whispering in my ear: “You’re no good; you’ll never make any progress; it will always be like this.”

And unfortunately I believed him.  One day I thought: “This isn’t for me.  I’m going to give up the pastorate.  I’m going to resume my engineering studies and get myself a job.”  But deep down I knew that was not God’s plan.

I went and saw my superintendent for the purpose of handing in my credentials.  But before I could tell him, he said, “Claudio, I have something to say to you.  God has something to say to you.  He has something wonderful for you.  You don’t see it, but God is going to use you greatly.’ …  He went on: “Look, I started in a very precarious house and had no help from anybody.  Sometimes I had nothing to eat and I suffered greatly.  But we prayed and God provided for  each day and we felt grateful.  I knew we were doing God’s will.  And when I think of you,  Claudio, I know you are going to be useful to God and that you are within his will.  I don’t  know what your problems are, but keep on.  By the way, what brings you here today?”

I put my credentials back in my pocket and said, “Well… , nothing in particular, I thought I would just come and share a moment with you.”  There was nothing else I could say.  When I got home Betty was weeping and I said, “Betty, we’re going to continue.”  I embraced her tightly and we started all over again (Waugh 1998, 106).

Sunday, 2 May, 1993, Brisbane, Australia (Neil Miers)

Pastor Neil Miers preached at Brisbane Christian Outreach Centre on Sunday night 2 May. 1993.  Darren Trinder, editor of their magazine A New Way of Living (now Outreach), reported:

Some staggered drunkenly, others had fits of laughter, others lay prostrate on the floor, still more were on their knees while others joined hands in an impromptu dance.  Others, although showing no physical signs, praised the Lord anyway, at the same time trying to take it all in.  People who had never prayed publicly for others moved among the crowd and laid hands on those present.

“When we first saw it in New Zealand early in April we were sceptical,” said Nance Miers, wife of Christian Outreach Centre International President, Pastor Neil Miers.  “I=ve seen the Holy Spirit move like this here and there over the years.  But this was different.  In the past it seemed to have affected a few individuals, but this time it was a corporate thing.”

Neil Miers himself was physically affected, along with several other senior pastors, early in this Holy Ghost phenomenon.  Later he viewed the series of events objectively.  “It started in New Zealand and then broke out in New Guinea, and now it’s here.  If I know the Holy Ghost, it will break out across the world ‑ wherever people are truly seeking revival.  For the moment this is what God is saying to do, and we’re doing it.  It’s that simple.”

But despite the informal nature of the events, Pastor Miers, adopting his shepherd role, was careful to monitor the situation.  “There are some who are going overboard with it; just like when someone gets drunk on earthly wine for the first time.  The next time it happens they’ll understand it a little better”  (Waugh 1998, 110-111).

Within two weeks this outpouring of the Spirit touched C.O.C. churches across Australia, from Townsville to Perth.  People were overwhelmed.  Many found release, healing and anointing amid laughter, tears, shaking or stillness.  Many saw visions.  Some had open-eyed visions such as seeing the glory of God or angels appearing in the building.  Many were ‘drunk in the Spirit’ for days or weeks.

The result?  The churches experienced anointed evangelism and mission.  The movement now has over 200 centres in Australia and more than 450 centres overseas.  It has powerful crusades in many countries, international ‘global care’ relief outreaches, international church-based Ministry Training Institutes, education from pre-school to tertiary including Christian Heritage College offering degrees in education, arts, business, and also in ministry through the Brisbane COC School of Ministries, and has regular teams involved in mission, evangelism and pastoral care.

November, 1993, Boston, America (Mona Johanian)

During November 1993, revival touched the 450 member Christian Teaching and Worship Centre (CTWC) in Woburn, Boston led by Mona Johnian and her husband Paul.  Revival broke out in their church after they attended revival meetings led by Rodney Howard‑Browne in Jekyll Island Georgia, in November of 1993.  Richard Riss reported:

At first, Mona was not impressed by the various phenomena she observed there, but she was surprised that her own pastor, Bill Ligon of Brunswick, Georgia, fell to the floor when Rodney Howard‑Browne laid his hands upon him.  “Bill is the epitome of dignity, a man totally under control,” she said.  The first chapter of her book describes a meeting at her church in which revival broke out while Bill Ligon was there as a guest minister.  From the Johnians’ church, the revival spread to other churches, including Bath Baptist Church of Bath, Maine, pastored by Greg Foster.

In a video entitled Revival, produced in his church in August of 1994, Paul Johnian said, “We cannot refute the testimony of the Church. …  What is taking place here is not an accident.  It’s not birthed by man.  It’s by the Spirit of God. …  The last week in October of 1993, Mona and I went down to Georgia.  We belong to a Fellowship of Charismatic and Christian Ministries International, and we went down there for the annual conference.  And hands were laid on us.  And we were anointed.  And I’m just going to be completely honest with you.  What I witnessed there in the beginning I did not even understand.  I concluded that what was taking place was not of God … because there was too much confusion. …  I saw something that I could not comprehend with my finite understanding.  And it was only when I searched the Scriptures and asked God to show me and to reveal truth to me that I saw that what was taking place in the Body of Christ was a sovereign move of the Almighty.  And I, for one, wanted to humble myself and be a part of the sovereign move of the Almighty.  And I came back.  I really didn’t sense any change within me.  But I came back just believing God that He was going to be doing something different in our congregation (Riss 1996, 31) .

 That has now happened in various forms in thousands of churches touched by this current awakening.

 Thursday, 20 January, 1994, Toronto, Canada (John Arnott)

John Arnott, senior pastor at the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship told how the “Toronto Blessing” – which they call the Father’s blessing – began:

In October 1992, Carol and I started giving our entire mornings to the Lord, spending time worshipping, reading, praying and being with him.  For a year and a half we did this, and we fell in love with Jesus all over again. …

We heard about the revival in Argentina, so we travelled there in November 1993 hoping God’s anointing would rub off on us somehow.  We were powerfully touched in meetings led by Claudio Freidzon, a leader in the Assemblies of God in Argentina. …  We came back from Argentina with a great expectation that God would do something new in our church.

We had a taste of what the Lord had planned for us during our New Year’s Eve service as we brought in 1994.  People were prayed for and powerfully touched by God.  They were lying all over the floor by the time the meeting ended.  We thought, “This is wonderful, Lord.  Every now and then you move in power.”  But we did not think in terms of sustaining this blessing.

We invited Randy Clark, a casual friend and pastor of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship in St. Louis, Missouri, to speak because we heard that people were being touched powerfully by God when he ministered.  We hoped that this anointing would follow him to our church.  Yet Randy and I were in fear and trembling, hoping God would show up in power, but uncertain about what would happen.  We were not exactly full of faith ‑ but God was faithful anyway.

On January 20, 1994, the Father’s blessing fell on the 120 people attending that Thursday night meeting in our church.  Randy gave his testimony, and ministry time began.  People fell all over the floor under the power of the Holy Spirit, laughing and crying.  We had to stack up all the chairs to make room for everyone.  Some people even had to be carried out.  

We had been praying for God to move, and our assumption was that we would see more people saved and healed, along with the excitement that these would generate. It never occurred to us that God would throw a massive party where people would laugh, roll, cry and become so empowered that emotional hurts from childhood were just lifted off them.  The phenomena may be strange, but the fruit this is producing is extremely good (Waugh 1998, 111-112).

Hundreds of thousands have visited their church since then, most returning to their home churches with a fresh anointing for ministry and evangelism.  People were saved and healed, more in the next two years than ever before in that church. 

Sunday, 29 May, 1994, Brompton, London (Eleanor Mumford)

The Anglican Church, Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) near Kengsington in London has been powerfully affected by the current awakening and widely reported in the media.  The famous Alpha evangelism and renewal course now used worldwide, comes from them.

Eleanor Mumford, assistant pastor of the South‑West London Vineyard and wife of John Mumford (the pastor and the overseer of the Vineyard Churches in Britain), told a group of friends about her recent visit to the Toronto Airport Vineyard in Canada.  When she prayed for them the Holy Spirit profoundly affected them.

Nicky Gumbel, Curate of Holy Trinity Brompton, was there.  He rushed back from this meeting with his wife, Pippa, to the HTB church office in South Kensington where he was late for a staff meeting.  The meeting was ready to adjourn.  He apologised, told what had happened, and was then asked to pray the concluding prayer.  He prayed for the Holy Spirit to fill everyone in the room. 

The church newspaper, HTB in Focus, 12 June 1994, reported the result: “The effect was instantaneous.  People fell to the ground again and again.  There were remarkable scenes as the Holy Spirit touched all those present in ways few had ever experienced or seen.  Staff members walking past the room were also affected.  Two hours later some of those present went to tell others in different offices and prayed with them where they found them.  They too were powerfully affected by the Holy Spirit ‑ many falling to the ground.  Prayer was still continuing after 5 pm” (Riss 1995).

The church leaders invited Eleanor Mumford to preach at Holy Trinity Brompton the next Sunday, 29 May, at both services.  After both talks, she prayed for the Holy Spirit to come upon the people.  Some wept.  Some laughed.  Many came forward for prayer and soon lay overwhelmed on the floor.

Cassette tapes of those services circulated in thousands of churches in England.  A fresh awakening began to spread through the churches.  Nicky Gumbel’s Alpha Course has spread worldwide.  Sandy Miller prayed for Stephen Hill just before his evangelistic ministry began at Pensacola.  Thousands still pass through “HTB” seeking God, and finding him. 

Sunday, 14 August, 1994, Sunderland, England (Ken Gott)

Ken and Lois Gott founders of Sunderland Christian Centre (SCC) in 1987 in the north‑east   of England, felt dry and worn out in 1994.  Ken Gott and four other Pentecostals visited Holy Trinity Brompton in London.  The presence of God among Anglicans humbled and amazed those Pentecostals.

Andy and Jane Fitz‑Gibbon reported that “stereotypes were shattered as Ken and the other Pentecostals received a new baptism in the Spirit at the hands of Bishop David Pytches.  The change was so profound in Ken that the members at SCC took up an offering and sent Ken, Lois and their youth leader for a week to Toronto.  Like most of us who have made the same pilgrimage, they were profoundly touched, soaking in God for a week, never to be the same again.”

On August 14th, the first Sunday morning back from Toronto, the effect on the church was staggering.  Virtually the whole congregation responded to Ken’s appeal to receive the same touch from God that he and Lois had received.  They decided to meet again in the evening, although normal meetings had been postponed for the summer recess.  The same experience occurred.  They gathered again the next evening and the next . . . in fact for two weeks without a night off.  Quickly, numbers grew from around a hundred‑and‑fifty to six hundred.  Word reached the region and, without advertising, people began the pilgrimage to Sunderland from a radius of around 70 miles.

By September a pattern of nightly meetings (bar Mondays) was established and each night the same overwhelming sense of God was present.  That pattern has continued ever since, with monthly leaders’ meeting on a Wednesday or Thursday afternoon (with usually around 300 in attendance) and a daily ‘place’ of prayer being added.  The effect on many churches and on thousands of individuals has been profound (Waugh 1998, 122).

The church began two meetings a day with daily afternoon prayer meetings from January 1995.  Many former criminals were saved, and crime dropped in the community.            

Saturday, 5 November, 1994, Mount Annan, Sydney (Adrian Gray)

Christian Life Centre Mount Annan is an Assembly of God church located on 37 acres of park-like land near Campbelltown in the south west of Sydney.  They have been experiencing a sustained outpouring of the Holy Spirit since 5 November 1994.  This edited report is by Pastor Brian Shick, a member of the staff at Christian Life Centre Mount Annan, Sydney.

Adrian Gray, the senior Pastor of Christian Life Centre Mount Annan was born again in the mid 1960’s during a period of revival in Campbelltown.  This initial experience of the power and work of the Holy Spirit left a distinct impression on his spirit.  He believed for and worked towards full-scale revival as a major focus in his relationship with the Lord and in his ministry.

An outstanding prophetic sign occurred a short while before this outpouring took place when a helicopter flying over the church called the fire department reporting our building on fire.  Thirteen fire trucks screamed up the church driveway looking for the fire to extinguish, but there was no visible fire.  When we realised that it was a spiritual fire that had been seen, great awe came upon the church.  This happened at the conclusion of ten days of prayer and fasting for revival.

The arrival of the move of the Holy Spirit on the first weekend of November, 1994, could only be described as sovereign.  Randwick Baptist Church, which is in more central Sydney, experienced the same outpouring at exactly the same time.  Numbers of churches around the nation experienced a similar occurrence about the same time.

For many months the church had been praying for a visitation of God without perhaps really realising what that meant.  An evangelistic crusade with an “end-times emphasis” had been planned for that weekend.  The evangelist, recently returned from Toronto, Canada, preached his evangelistic message and called people forward who wanted a fresh touch from God.  Immediately over 300 people responded and as the evangelist and pastors prayed the presence of God came.  The Father’s heart of love was revealed to the people and as hands were gently laid on them they fell to the floor under the anointing of the Holy Spirit.  They lay there for a long time and when they got up there were dozens of amazing testimonies of healing and restoration and life changing transformations.  The next day, Sunday, the Holy Spirit came again, and then again on Monday and Tuesday and in every meeting held since that time.  The anointing was so strong that many people in those first months would fall to the floor as soon as they came through the door.          

Two weeks later on arriving back from Toronto, Adrian and Kathy and the leadership team, convinced that this was of God and the fulfilment of the many prophecies, made a decision to commit the church to revival.  Renewal did not just become an appendage to the existing program, it became the entire program.  The Holy Spirit is free to move however he wants in any of the services.  While most pastors would say that this is the case in their churches, many have actually limited the style of meeting that is characteristic of this current move, to one or two services a week and the other meetings are “normal”.

Because of the numbers of people just visiting, it is hard to actually determine how many people in each service actually belong to the church.  There have been approximately 200,000 people pass through the church doors since the outpouring began.  The official membership has grown from 300 prior to renewal to 700 at present.  With all the services added together, 1,200 people are ministered to per week with many more during conferences.

Sunday, 6 November, 1994, Randwick, Sydney (Greg Beech)

Greg Beech, the minister of Randwick Baptist Church in Sydney, reported:

Many Christians are talking about a significant work of God that is sweeping the church today which has become known as the Toronto Blessing.  Hundreds of churches around Australia have already been touched, blessed and changed.  Christians are testifying to significant life change, wonderful fruit and a new zeal for God.  People are laughing, crying, falling down, experiencing strange body movements.  Many who have exhibited these phenomena have never had such experiences before nor, by their own testimony, did they expect to.  Services are lasting for hours longer than usual.  Many pastors are rejoicing as they observe the spiritual fruit.

At Randwick Baptist Church, some of these phenomena have been present in lesser degrees for about nine years. They occurred spontaneously and without prompting or discussion.

Late in 1993 and the first seven or eight months of 1994 had been a considerable time of change for us involving difficult decisions, change of staff, relational tensions, loss of some members, and a rethink of the church’s vision.  The ‘ship’ of the church had slowed and was making a careful, yet sure change, in direction.

The outcome of this process was a greater sense of unity in the church, a growing commitment to corporate prayer, and a desire to get on with the work of the Kingdom.  In hindsight, we realise that some of the things we went through were necessary for God to be able to come and move freely among us.  Change is never easy and refining is often painful at the time. We are filled with gratitude as we reflect upon how God was working during this time.

We recognise and wish to emphasise that the outpouring was not so much a result of anything we did but was a sovereign movement of God.  The outpouring seems to have transferred from the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, and is being transferred to churches around the world.  We have been thrilled to learn of other churches in Sydney also being touched.

While we had prayed for the outpouring of the Spirit, it still caught us by surprise!  The sheer intensity and broad sweep of the Spirit’s work has been staggering.

At the same time the critics have been quick to respond.  Several have published claims that what they believe is the Toronto Blessing is in fact demonic.  Another church has arrived at the conclusion that this is a work of hypnotism.  Yet others claim it is just a passing fad for the deluded.

The secular media have been intrigued.  Newspaper, radio and T.V. have all visited church services to see for themselves.  The response of the secular media has been mainly positive.  We need to be aware however that the media often seeks sensationalism rather than an accurate portrayal of what is happening.

What are we to make of this extraordinary outpouring?  What place should the phenomena have in our church?  How can we test it to ensure that it is a true work of God?  How should meetings be administered where such phenomena occur?  Furthermore, what is the fruit of all these things?  It is important that we follow the biblical injunction to test all things, and seek to establish biblical foundations for what we see happening.

The current refreshing is not some kind of new ‘latest and greatest’ programme which has been introduced to revitalize church services.  The ‘refreshing’ is not something that pastors introduce to see if new life can be breathed into their church.  We believe what we are witnessing is a sovereign work of the Holy Spirit.  It was with considerable amazement that we stood back and watched God pour out His Spirit in November 1994 at Randwick Baptist Church.  We found it difficult to come to terms with the sheer power and intensity of God’s work.

We have pastored this movement, prayed for discernment, discussed, theologized, debated with our critics, searched the Scriptures, and carefully watched and examined the fruit.  We are convinced this is a true work of God.  However, we acknowledge that any work of God which involves a human element, will encounter sinful tendencies, perhaps demonic attack, and therefore must be carefully dealt with.  The conclusions and positions we have reached, both in theology and practice, may well be rejected by other churches. We do not believe that ours is the only orthodox position.

Sunday, 1 January, 1995, Melbourne, Florida (Randy Clark)

Five local churches in Melbourne, Florida, invited Randy Clark as guest speaker at the Tabernacle Church on New Year’s day of 1995.  Unusual revival broke out including large numbers falling down, laughter, weeping, and many dramatic physical healings.  Thousands flocked to meetings held six days a week.  Pastors and musicians from fifteen different congregations hosted the meetings in a new expression of co‑operation and unity.  Randy Clark reported:

In 1994 I spent about 150 [days] in renewal meetings. During that time I never was in a meeting which I felt had the potential to become another Toronto type experience.  That was until I went to Melbourne, Florida [on] January 1, 1995.  Another revival has broken out.  Many sovereign things have occurred which indicate this place too will be [the site of] unusual renewal meetings.  I shall share some of these.

First, what made me expect something special at these meetings?  I never schedule over four days for meetings, but I scheduled fifteen days for this meeting.  Why?  I believed there were things going on which indicated a major move of the Spirit was imminent. The Black and White ministerial associations merged a few months prior to my going. The charismatic pastors had been meeting together for prayer for six years, and pastors from evangelical and charismatic and pentecostal churches had been meeting and praying together for over two years.  There was a unity built which would be able to withstand the pressures of diverse traditions working together in one renewal/revival meeting.

The meetings are held at the Tabernacle, the largest church in the area.  It holds 950 comfortably.  This was Jamie Buckingham’s church, now pastored by Michael Thompson.  The church sanctuary is filled by 6:15 with meetings beginning at 7:00.  About 1,200 are crowded into the sanctuary, another 150 fills a small overflow room, and another 200‑300 sit outside watching on a large screen (Waugh 1998, 124-125).

The revival in Melbourne continues with an astounding mixture of white, black, Asiatic, Hispanic, and American Indian people being touched by God, filled with the Spirit and witnessing to others.

The Christian radio station WSCF, FM 92 at Vero Beach, Florida, an hour’s drive south of Melbourne, interviewed Randy Clark on Friday 6 January.  The General Manager of the radio station, Jon Hamilton, wrote a report which shows how this revival can break out of churches into the community.  Here are some exceprts from the full version in Flashpoints of Revival:

I had agreed to interview a pastor from St. Louis, Randy Clark that morning. … The interview was innocent enough at first.  The subject turned to a discussion of the Holy Spirit’s manifest presence in a meeting (as opposed to His presence that dwells within our hearts always).  Rather suddenly, something began to happen in the control room.

It began with Gregg.  He was seated behind me listening, and for no apparent reason, he began to weep.  His weeping turned to shuddering sobs that he attempted to muffle in his hands.  It was hard to ignore, and Randy paused mid‑sentence to comment “You can’t see him, but God is really dealing with the fellow behind you right now.”  I looked over my shoulder just in time to see Gregg losing control.  He stood up, only to crash to the floor directly in front of the console, where he lay shaking for several minutes. … I had always known Gregg to act like a professional, so I knew something was seriously going on.  I did my best to recover the interview under the embarrassing circumstances.  I thanked the guest and wrapped it up.  (And thought of ways to kill Gregg later!)

Before Randy Clark left, we asked him to say a word of prayer.  We formed a circle and began to pray for the staff one by one.  My eyes were shut, but I heard a thud and opened them to see Bart Mazzarella prostrate on the floor.  He had fallen forward on his face.  What amazed me most was that Bart was known to be openly sceptical.  He simply did not accept such things.  Within seconds, another and another staff person went down.  Even those that remained standing were clearly shaken.

When they prayed for me, I did not “fall down”.  What did happen was an electric sensation shot down my right arm, and my right hand began to tremble uncontrollably.  My heart pounded as I became aware of a powerful sense of what can only be called God’s manifest presence.

I thought the atmosphere would abate after a few minutes and return to normal… but instead, our prayers grew more and more intense.  The room became charged in a way that I simply cannot describe.  After an hour of this, we realized that it was 10:30, the time we normally share our listener’s needs in prayer.

I switched on the mike, and found myself praying that God would touch every listener in a personal way.  After prayer, with great hesitation I added “This morning God has really been touching our staff, so we’ve been spending the morning praying together.  If you’re in a situation right now where you are facing a desperate need, just drop by our studios this morning and we’ll take a minute to pray with you.”  This was the first time we had ever made such an invitation. …

Within a few minutes, a few listeners began to arrive.  The first person I prayed with was a tall man who shared with me some tremendous needs he was facing.  I told him I would agree with him in prayer.  As I prayed for his need, a voice in my head was saying “It’s a shame that you don’t operate in any real spiritual gift or power.  Here’s a man who really needs to hear from God and you’ve got nothing worth giving him!”  I continued to pray, but I was struggling.  I reached up with my right hand to touch his shoulder, when suddenly he shook, and slumped to the floor. (He lay there without moving for over 2 hours.)  I was shocked and shaken.

Two others had arrived at this point, and staff members were praying with them.  Suddenly they began weeping uncontrollably, and slumped to the floor.  This scene was repeated a dozen times in the next few minutes.  It didn’t matter who did the praying, whenever we asked the Lord, he immediately responded with a visible power, and the same manifestations occurred. …

Fairly early in all this, we ran out of room.  The radio station floor was wall to wall bodies… some weeping, some shaking, some completely still.  People reported that it was like heavy lead apron had been placed over them.  They were unable to get up.  All they could do was worship God.

Fortunately, our offices are inside of the complex at Central Assembly, so when the crowd began to grow, we moved across into the Church, leaving the radio station literally wall to wall with seekers. …

At some point I looked up and saw a local Baptist Pastor walk in the door.  I must confess that my first thought was, “Oh Boy…I’m in trouble!”  While I knew this brother to be a genuine man of God, nevertheless I was concerned about how a fundamental, no‑nonsense Baptist might take all these goings‑on. (Besides, I didn’t have an explanation to offer!)  I walked up to greet him.  He just silently surveyed the room, and with a tone of voice just above a whisper said, “This… is…God.  For years I’ve prayed for revival… This is God.”

Within minutes more local pastors began to arrive.  Lutheran, Independent, Assembly of God… The word of what was happening spread like wildfire.  As the pastors arrived, they were cautious at first, but within just minutes, they would often begin to flow in the same ministry.  The crowd was growing and pastors began to lay hands on the seekers, where once again the power of God would manifest and the seeker would often collapse to the ground.

It did not seem to matter who did the praying.  This was a nameless, faceless, spontaneous move of God.  There were no stars, no leaders, and frankly, there was no organization. (It’s hard to plan for something you have no idea might happen!) …

Amazingly, unchurched, unsaved people were showing up.  I got a fresh glimpse of the power of radio as person after person told us “I’m not really a part of any church…”  A few were sceptical at first, and later found themselves kneeling in profound belief.

Sometimes people would rise up, only to frantically announce to us that they had been healed of some physical problem.  One woman’s arthritic hands found relief.  Neck pains, jaw problems, stomach disorders and more were all reported to us as healed.

We have received at least a dozen verified, credible, reliable comments from people who told us that when they switched on the radio, they were suddenly, unexpectedly overwhelmed by the presence of God (even when they didn’t hear us say anything).  Several told us that the manifest presence of God was so strong in their cars that they were unable to drive, and were forced to pull off the road.

The “falling” aspect of this visitation was the most visible manifestation, but it was not falling that was important.  What was important was the fact that people were rising up with more love for God in their hearts than ever before.  They were being changed, and their hearts set ablaze. I have lost count of the numbers of people who told me of the change God worked in their life. …

Christian history is full of accounts of those times when God elected to “visit” His people.  When He has, entire nations have sometimes been affected.  I believe you’ll agree, our nation is ripe for such a revival.  For such a time as this, let us look to God with expectancy (Waugh 1998, 125-132).

Sunday, 15 January, 1995, Modesto, California (Glenn & Debbie Berteau)

Glenn and Debbie Berteau, pastors of Calvary Temple Worship Centre in Modesto, California, from January 1994, strongly sensed the Lord would give them revival there.  Early in 1994, they challenged their congregation with that vision.  After the ‘vision Sunday’, individuals committed themselves to fast on specific days as the congregation became involved in a forty day period of prayer and fasting.  In early January 1995, they had a three day fast.  The church building remained open for prayer, and people prayed over names on cards left on the altar.  Those able to do so met together daily for prayer at noon.  Many pastors in the area began meeting each week to pray for the city.

On Sunday 15 January 1995, the church began holding performances of the play, Heaven’s Gates and Hell’s Flames.  It was scheduled for three days originally but continued for seven weeks with 28 performances.  

Jann Mathies, pastoral secretary of Calvary Temple reported in April:

As of this writing, approximately 81,000 have attended the performance with 90% each night seeing it for the first time.  At time of printing, 33,000 decision packets have been handed out, and of that, (confirmed) 20,000 returned with signed decision cards.  Over 250 churches have been represented with hundreds of people added to the churches in our city and surrounding communities in less than one month.  People come as early as 3:30 pm for a 7 pm performance.  There are over 1,000 people waiting to get in at 5 pm, and by 5:30 pm the building is full.  Thousands of people have been turned away; some from over 100 miles away. …  Husbands and wives are reconciling through salvation; teenagers are bringing their unsaved parents; over 6,000 young people have been saved, including gang members who are laying down gang affiliation and turning in gang paraphernalia. . . .  The revival is crossing every age, religion and socio‑economic status. . . .   We have many volunteers coming in every day, and through the evening hours to contact 500 to 600 new believers by phone; special classes have also been established so that new believers may be established in the faith (Waugh 1998, 133).

The play became a focus for revival in the area.  Some churches closed their evening service so their people could take their unsaved friends there.  One result is that many churches in the area began receiving new coverts and finding their people catching the fire of revival in their praying and evangelising.

One church added a third Sunday morning service to accommodate the people.  Another church asked their members to give up their seats to visitors.  Bible book stores sold more Bibles than usual.  A local psychologist reported on deep healings in the lives of many people who attended the drama.

 That play continues to be used effectively around the world.  For example, churches in Australia have performed the play with hundreds converted in local churches.  Hardened unbelievers with no place for church in their lives have been saved and live for God.

Sunday, 22 January, 1995, Brownwood, Texas (Chris Robeson)

Richard Riss gathered these accounts of revival touching colleges across America beginning with Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas.

On January 22, 1995, at Coggin Avenue Baptist Church in Brownwood, Texas, two students from Howard Payne University, a Christian institution, stood up and confessed their sins.  As a result of this incident, many others started to confess their own sins before the congregation.  On January 26, a similar event took place on the campus of Howard Payne.  Word quickly spread to other colleges, and Howard Payne students were soon being invited to other college campuses, which experienced similar revivals.  From these schools, more students were invited to still other schools, where there were further revivals. …

One of the first two students from Howard Payne to confess his sins was Chris Robeson.  As he testified about his own life and the spiritual condition of his classmates, “People just started streaming down the aisles” in order to pray, confess their sins, and restore seemingly doomed relationships, according to John Avant, pastor of Coggin Avenue Baptist Church.  From this time forward, the church began holding three‑and‑a‑half‑hour services.  Avant said, “This is not something we’re trying to manufacture.  It’s the most wonderful thing we’ve ever experienced.”  …

At Howard Payne, revival broke out during a January 26 ‘celebration’ service, as students praised God in song and shared their testimonies.  Students then started to schedule all‑night prayer meetings in dormitories. …

Then, on February 13‑15, during five meetings at Howard Payne, Henry Blackaby, a Southern Baptist revival leader ministered at a series of five worship services, attended by guests from up to 200 miles away.  On Tuesday, February 14, more than six hundred attended, and students leaders went up to the platform to confess publicly their secret sins.  About two hundred stayed afterward to continue praying.  One of the students, Andrea Cullins, said, “Once we saw the Spirit move, we didn’t want to leave.” …

After Howard Payne, some of the first schools to be affected were Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Forth Worth, Texas, Beeson School of Divinity in Birmingham, Alabama, Olivet Nazarene University in Kankakee, Ill., The Criswell College in Dallas, Moorehead State University in Moorehead, Ky., Murray State University in Murray, Ky., Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, La., Gordon College in Wenham, Mass., and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois.  In each case, students went forward during long services to repent of pride, lust, bondage to materialism, bitterness, and racism.

These revivals continued throughout and beyond 1995.  Details are given in Accounts of a Campus Revival: Wheaton College 1995, edited by Timothy Beougher and Lyle Dorsett (Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1995).

Friday, 24 March, 1995, Pasadena, California (Che Ahn)

From January of 1995, John Arnott of the Toronto Airport Vineyard and Wes Campbell of New Life Vineyard Fellowship in Kelowna, British Columbia began speaking for two or three days each at Mott Auditorium on the campus of the U. S. Centre for World Mission.  By 24 March people gathered for meetings five nights a week, usually going very late.

John Arnott conducted powerful meetings there on Friday‑Sunday 24‑26 March, hosted by Harvest Rock Church, a Vineyard Fellowship.  Then the combined churches in the area continued with nightly meetings from Monday 27 March.  Later that settled to meetings from Wednesday to Sunday each week.  Then Wednesdays were reserved for cell groups and meetings continued from Thursday to Sunday nights.

Che Ahn, senior pastor of Harvest Rock Church wrote in their monthly magazine Wine Press in August 1995:

I am absolutely amazed at what God has done during the past five months.  After John Arnott exploded onto the scene with three glorious and unforgettable renewal meetings, he encouraged the pastors of our church to begin nightly protracted meetings. My mind immediately rejected the idea. I thought to myself, “The meetings were great because you were here, but how can we sustain nightly meetings without someone like John Arnott to draw the crowd?” 

The answer to my question was an obvious one. Someone greater than John Arnott would show up each night at the meetings ‑ Jesus. And each night since we began March 27, 1995, God has shown up to heal, to save, and to touch thousands of lives. There is no accurate way to measure the impact that the renewal meetings are having in our city. I do believe that we are making church history, and we are in the midst of another move of the Holy Spirit that is sweeping the world.  From March 27 to July 27, we have had 99 nightly renewal meetings.  We have averaged about 300 people per night, some nights with more that 1200 people and others with a small crowd of 120.

More than 25,000 people have walked through the doors of Mott Auditorium, many of them happy, repeat customers. We have seen more that 300 people come forward to rededicate their lives or give their hearts to Jesus Christ. These statistics don’t come close to representing other evangelistic fruit of those who have attended the meetings. For example, two church members, Justine Bateman and Jeff Eastridge, had an outreach at Arroyo High School and more than 60 young people gave their hearts to the Lord!

We have seen marvellous healings from the hand of the Lord, many of them spontaneous without anyone specifically praying for the healing.  I wish I had the time and space to share all the wonderful fruit I have seen at the renewal meetings.  Seeing the need to share what God is doing, I felt that we are producing this church newsletter to share these testimonies of lives that have been impacted by God during this current outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Waugh 1998, 133-134).

Sunday, 18 June, 1995, Pensacola, Florida (Steve Hill)

Over 26,000 conversions were registered in the first year of the ‘Pensacola Revival’.   Over 100,000 conversions were been registered in the first two years.  It still continues.

On Father’s Day, Sunday 18 June 1995, evangelist Steve Hill spoke at Brownsville Assembly of God, near Pensacola, Florida.  At the altar call a thousand people streamed forward as the Holy Spirit moved on them.  Their pastor, John Kilpatrick, fell down under the power of God and was overwhelmingly impacted for four days.

That morning service, normally finishing at noon, lasted till 4 pm.  The evening service continued for another five and a half hours.  So the church asked Steve Hill to stay.  He cancelled appointments, continued with nightly meetings, and relocated to live there, where he continues to minister in revival.

John Kilpatrick, pastor of the Brownsville Assembly of God Church, reported on their revival in 1997: 

The souls who come to Christ, repenting and confessing their sin, the marriages that are restored, the many people who are freed from bondage that has long held them captive ‑ these are the marks of revival and the trophies of God’s glory.  No, I am not speaking of a revival that lasted one glorious weekend, one week, one month, or even one year!  At this writing, the ‘Brownsville Revival’ has continued unbroken, except for brief holiday breaks, since Father’s Day, June 18, 1995!  How?  Only God knows.  Why?  First, because it is God’s good pleasure, and second, perhaps because the soil of our hearts was prepared in prayer long before revival descended on us so suddenly.

On that very normal and ordinary Sunday morning in June of 1995, I was scheduled to minister to my congregation, but I felt weary.  I was still trying to adjust to the recent loss of my mother, and my years‑long desire for revival in the church seemed that morning to be so far off.   So I asked my friend, Evangelist Steve Hill, to fill the pulpit in my place.  Although he was scheduled to speak only in the evening service, Steve agreed to preach the Father’s Day message.  We didn’t know it then, but God was at work in every detail of the meeting.

The worship was ordinary (our worship leader, Lindell Cooley, was still ministering on a missions trip to the Ukraine in Russia), and even Brother Hill’s message didn’t seem to ignite any sparks that morning ‑ until the noon hour struck.  Then he gave an altar call and suddenly God visited our congregation in a way we had never experienced before.  A thousand people came forward for prayer after his message.  That was almost half of our congregation!  We didn’t know it then, but our lives were about to change in a way we could never have imagined. 

We knew better than to hinder such a mighty move of God, so services just continued day after day.  We had to adjust with incredible speed.  During the first month of the revival, hundreds of people walked the isles to repent of their sins.  By the sixth month, thousands had responded to nightly altar calls.  By the time we reached the twelfth month, 30,000 had come to the altar to repent of their sins and make Jesus Lord of their lives.

At this writing, 21 months and over 470 revival services later, more than 100,000 people have committed their lives to God in these meetings ‑ only a portion of the 1.6 million visitors who have come from every corner of the earth …

If the prophecy delivered by Dr David Yonggi Cho [given in 1991] years before it came to pass is correct, this revival, which he correctly placed as beginning at Pensacola, Florida, will sweep up the East Coast and across the United States to the West Coast, and America will see an outpouring of God that exceeds any we have previously seen.  I am convinced that you, and every believer who longs for more of God, has a part to play in this great awakening from God (Waugh 1998, 137-138).

Pastors, leaders and Christians have been returning to their churches ignited with a new passion for the Lord and for the lost.  The awesome presence of God experienced at Pensacola continues to impact thousands from around the world.

Friday, 27 October, 1995, Mexico (David Hogan)

David Hogan, founder of Freedom Ministries, a mission to remote hill tribes in Mexico told in a sermon about the outpouring of the Spirit there.  This is part of his account:

I visited an outlying village.  It took four hours in a 4 wheel drive and then two hours on foot, uphill ‑ very remote.  There’s no radio, no T.V., no outside influences.  I’m sitting up there in this little hut on a piece of wood against the bamboo wall on the dirt floor.  Chickens are walking around in there.  And this pastor walks up to me.  He’s a little guy, and he’s trembling.  He says, “Brother David, I’m really afraid I’ve made a mistake.”

I hadn’t heard of any mistakes.  I was wondering what had happened in the last few days.  He’s got four little churches in his area.  He said, “Man, it’s not my fault.  I apologise.  I’ve done everything right, like you taught me.  I pray everyday.  I read the Bible.  I’m doing it right.  What happened is not my fault.”

I said, “What happened?  Come on, tell me what happened.”  He was trembling.  Tears were running out of his eyes.  He said, “Brother David, I got up in our little church.  I opened my Bible and I started preaching and the people started falling down.  The people started crying.  The people started laughing.  And it scared me.  I ran out of the church.”

That’s what I was looking for.  That’s what I was waiting for, when God came in our work, not because somebody came and preached it, not because I said it was okay or not okay, because I was neutral about it.  I knew it was all right, but I wanted to see it in our work not because I ushered it in, but because the Holy Spirit ushered it in.  And he did.

After I had been through all the sections, introducing this softly, it finally came time to call all the pastors together from the whole work.  A couple of hundred of our pastors came.  I wish you had been there to see what we saw!  It was amazing. 

On the first day, Wednesday, 25 October 1995, there were about 200 pastors there, and the whole church that was hosting us.  That made about 450 people.  The first day was awesome.  God hit us powerfully.  There were healings.  I was happy.  The people were encouraged.

The second day, Thursday, was even better.  It was stronger.  I thought we were peaking out on the second day.  I got there at eight o’clock in the morning and left a ten o’clock at night, and there was ministry all day.  We were fixing problems, and God was working through the ministry.  It was wonderful.   But I tell you, I was not ready for the third day.

I don’t have words to describe what happened to us when the Holy Spirit fell on us on Friday, 27 October, 1995.  We were coming in from different areas.  The Indians were all there.  I didn’t know they had been in an all night prayer meeting.  I didn’t know that the Holy Spirit had fallen on them and they couldn’t get up.  I didn’t know that they had been pinned down by the Holy Spirit all night long, all over the place, stuck to the ground.  Some of them had fallen on ant beds, but not one ant bit them.

I was staying about 45 minutes away.  I got in my 4 wheel drive and as I drove there I began listening on the two‑way radio.  Some of our missionaries were already there, and were talking on the two‑way radio saying, “What’s happening here.  I can’t walk.”

As I listened to them on the radio I felt power come on me.  And the closer I came, the more heat I felt settling on me.  I could feel heat, and I had my air conditioner going! When I got to the little church, I opened the door of the truck and instantly became hot. Sweat poured off me.  I was about 300 yards from the church.  The closer I got, the more intense was  the heat.  I could hardly walk through it, it was so thick.  I’m talking about the presence of God.  That was 7.30 in the morning!

I walked around the corner of the building.  People were all over the place.  Some were knocked out.  Some were on the ground.  Some were moaning and wailing.  It was very unusual.  By the time I got to the front of the church where the elders were I could hardly walk.  I was holding on to things to get there.  I could hardly breathe.  The heat of the presence of God was amazing. 

The people had been singing for two hours before I got there.  At 8.15 on the morning of October 27th, 1995, I walked up there and lay my Bible down on that little wobbly Indian table.  Hundreds were looking at me.  Some were knocked out, lying on the ground.  I could hardly talk.

I called the nine elders to the front and told them the Holy Ghost was there and we needed to make a covenant together, even to martyrdom.  We made a covenant there that the entire country of Mexico would be saved.  They asked me to join them in that pact.  When we lifted our hands in agreement all nine fell at once.  I was hurled backward and fell under the table.  When I got up the people in front fell over.  In less than a minute every pastor there was knocked out. 

We were ringed with unbelievers, coming to see what was going on.  The anointing presence of God came and knocked them all out, dozens of them.  Every unbeliever outside, and everyone on the fence was knocked out and fell to the ground.  There were dozens of them.  From the church at the top of the hill we could see people in the village below running out screaming from their huts and falling out under the Holy Ghost.  It was amazing.

We always have a section for the sick and afflicted.  They bring them in from miles around, some on stretchers.  There were 25‑30 of them there.  Every sick person at the meeting was healed: the blind, the cancerous, lupus, tumours, epilepsy, demon possession.  Nobody touched them but Jesus.  There was instant reconciliation between people who had been against each other.  They were lying on top of each other, sobbing and repenting. 

I was afraid when I saw all of that going on.  I looked up to heaven and said, “God what are you ‑ ?” and that was the end of it.  He didn’t want to hear any questions. Bang!  I was about three or four metres from the table.  When I woke up some hours later, I was under the table.  When I finally woke up my legs wouldn’t work.  I scooted myself around looking at what was going on.  It was pandemonium!  When some people tried to get up, they would go flying.  It was awesome.

“And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Revelation 22:1).  I saw that river.  I actually saw the river, it’s pure water of life from God’s throne.  If I could see it again I would know it, I saw it, I experienced it, I tasted it. 

We had five open‑eyed visions.  One small pastor was hanging onto a pole to hold himself up.  He was there, but he wasn’t there.  He said to me, “Brother David, look at him.  Look at him, Brother David!  Who is it?  Look how big he is!  Oh, he’s got his white robe on.  He’s got a golden girdle.”  It was Jesus.  He said, “Brother David, how did we get into this big palace?”

I looked around.  I was still on the dirt floor.  I still had a grass roof over me, but he was in a marble palace, pure white.  I crawled over to look at him.  He was seeing things we could not see.  Another of the elders, a prophet from America, who had been working with me for thirteen years, crawled over and we were watching this pastor who was in a trance.  It was amazing.

The three of us were inside something like a force field of energy.  Anybody who tried to come into it was knocked out.  It was scary.  The pastor said, “He’s got a list, Brother David.”  And the pastor started reading out aloud from the list.  I was looking around, and as he was reading from the list people went flying through the air, getting healed and delivered.  It was phenomenal, what God was doing.  And he’s done it in every service in our work that I’ve been in since then.  It’s been over a year.  It’s amazing.  Wonderful.

Between 150 and 500 people per month are being saved because of it, just through what the North American missionaries are doing (Waugh 1998, 139-144).

Sunday, 24 March, 1996, Smithton, Missouri (Steve Gray)

Like thousands of pastors across America, Steve Gray was discouraged and disappointed.  He was even considering leaving the ministry.  For twelve years he had pastored the Smithton Community Church in the sleepy little town of Smithton, Missouri, nestled among the wheat.  Steve Gray was discouraged and disappointed.  He was even considering leaving the ministry.  Steve Gray was ready to quit.

Knowing he had to get away from the church for some “R and R,” he chose revival over relaxation.  In March 1996, he drove from Missouri to Florida to visit the Brownsville Outpouring at Pensacola that was then in its 37^th week.  Gray attended the services each night and spent the days in his motel room, praying and seeking God’s face.

During the Tuesday night prayer meeting, while hundreds gathered around the “Pastor’s Banner” to pray for the nation’s shepherds, Gray was praying especially for one pastor, himself.  He knew if he continued in the ministry, he had to be restored.  After about three days, he felt some recovery and his focus began to change.  God was restoring his hope and he found this to be the first signal of his personal revival.

Before this change in focus, Gray didn’t even know what to ask from God.  Gray says he came to Brownsville not to “get something” but to “see something,” as Moses went to “see” the burning bush.  After several more days, Gray was “seeing” again.  One night, in what Gray described as a “perfect atmosphere,” God spoke to him and said, “I want you to have a revival.” The very thought was too much to accept.  Smithton, Missouri, is not Pensacola, Florida, and Gray could not imagine himself in the role of revivalist.  Then God spoke again, “I didn’t say I want you to be a revival, I said I want you to have a revival.”

On Sunday morning, 17 March 1996, Pastor Kilpatrick shared part of his personal testimony of how revival came to Brownsville.  Gray reached the place of faith and could believe “there is a place for me in revival.”  He observed Kilpatick as he was “watching, guiding, and pastoring a truly sovereign move of God that was changing the world.”  Kilpatrick’s words and example showed Gray that “revival needs to be pastored and can be pastored.”

After Sunday worship, Gray called his wife, Kathy, and said, “I have just been in the best Sunday morning service I have ever been in.  Tell our church.” Near the end of his second week in Brownsville, Gray headed for home, repentant and on the road to revival and restoration.

While God was working on Gray, he was also working on the members of Smithton Community Church.  For two and one-half years the church had held a Tuesday night prayer meeting, but as God prepared the church for revival, the prayers became more intense.  Associate Elder Randy Lohman says there was “lots of brokenness” in the months immediately preceding the outpouring.

As the pastor sought God in Florida, the congregation sought him at home.  On Sunday night, March 17, Kathy Gray relayed the pastor’s message about the great Sunday morning service in Brownsville.  David Cordes, one of the elders, was deeply convicted.  Weeping, he asked the congregation, “Why should our pastor have to travel a thousand miles to be in the best service he has ever been in?”  He fell on the floor in repentance.  Soon he was followed by several other men in the church, repenting for their lack of support and crying out to God to do the same thing at Smithton that he was doing for the pastor in Florida.  God continued his work on Wednesday night as a five year old girl prophesied and said, “It’s coming!  It’s coming!”  The Lord had seen their brokenness.

When the pastor arrived on Sunday night, the glory fell.  To be exact, at 6:12 p.m. on 24 March 1996 God the Holy Ghost arrived in his awesome power at Smithton Community Church.  They will never be the same.  Immediately they added services to their church schedule.  Now, the outpouring has continued for two years with five services every week.  Visitors have come from all fifty states and many foreign countries, often in numbers that vastly exceed the population of the town.

Thousands of lives have been changed.  Sick bodies have been healed.  Visiting pastors have taken the fire back to their congregation.  Steve, Kathy, and teams from the church are taking the revival all around the world.  As for the future of the revival, Lohman said, “God started it and we are going to let him do what he is doing.”

Move to Kansas.  Smithton Community Church (SCC) in the tiny town of Smithton, is relocating to Kansas City to allow the almost-four-year “outpouring” to continue to spread.  Weekly revival meetings have been held at the church in Smithton – population around 500 – since March 1996.

Services last for three or more hours, with intense prayer for visitors.  Many have testified of healings and renewal of their love for God.  Similar revivals have been sparked in other churches as a result of visits to the Smithton church.

Now Steve Gray and his small staff are moving 90 minutes away to take over the former property of Raytown Baptist Church, in suburban Kansas City.  The building has seating for 1,400 and other facilities that can better meet the demand for space created by visitors to the Smithton church, who even come from overseas.

The last revival services were be held in Smithton on Thanksgiving weekend, with a transition period leading to the first service at the new church in January, 2000.  Gray said that many of SCC’s 300 local members are considering making the move to another part of the state.

“I don’t have any doubt that the glory of God will show because it’s the same people, same staff, same everything.  When we go to another city or another country it’s not like nothing happens.  Something always happens,” he said.  “But maybe the city isn’t ready for this kind of commitment.  That’s what this is; it’s a revival in your heart.”

Gray said he was approached out of the blue by the leaders at Raytown Baptist, wondering if he could use their former property.  Revival services will be held Fridays and Saturdays at the new church.  Other services will focus on the local congregation.  The new property is fitted for a TV ministry, which may follow the radio program “Prepare the Way,” started on a Christian station in the city over the summer.

“We feel that we are hopefully getting ready for the next move of God in the United States, which is a great awakening,” said Gray.  “We never intended for this to happen, but for whatever reason we feel the lifting and the moving.”

Sources: http://members.aol.com/azusa/index.html from The Remnant International;  Daily News Update from Charisma magazine, 29 October, 1999.

Sunday, 28 April, 1996, Hampton, Virginia

Bethel Temple Assembly of God has been experiencing a move of the Holy Spirit since April 1996. Church membership is 2,200.  Revival meetings are held Wednesday, Thursday & Friday. 

During 1-6 April the drama Heaven’s Gates, Hell’s Flames drew large crowds with nearly 3,000 responding to the altar call for salvation.  Later, 75 were baptized in an outdoor baptismal service.

During the week, 22-27 April, several pastors journeyed to Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, to a revival conference.

On Saturday 27^th, at a Women’s Ministry Outreach, revival broke out in the parking lot and at a meeting.  People rested in the Spirit, and miracles occurred with the prophetic gifting of pastor Don Rogers.  He opened the sanctuary for a prayer meeting which extended to midnight. 

On 28 April, the Sunday 7.30 am service started and did not end till 3.24 pm which bypassed the 10.30 am service.  Church members were repenting, numerous people converted to Christ, and many were delivered of evil spirits.  The pastors displayed manifestations similar to those in past historical moves of God.  Powerful conviction fell on the people, with many overwhelmed.

Hampton, Virginia is the oldest English speaking settlement in America.  Bethel Temple Church is racially diverse: 40% African-American, 50% white, 10% Hispanic and Asian.

In 1996 the Senior Associate Pastor, Don Rogers, had an open vision of the Holy Spirit coming to Hampton.  He saw the Spirit of the Lord coming like a storm and it blew into their church.  In his vision when this happened it blew out a glass window in the church. 

Fourteen months later, on 1 June, 1997, the Sunday service at Bethel Temple was starting.  Senior Pastor Ron Johnson was praying and asking God to come “like a pent-up flood”.  Suddenly Pastor Johnson looked at his hands and oil was dripping from his hands.  The pastor began to tell the congregation of what was happening to his hands.  The head usher told the pastor the front window of the church just blew out. 

The pastor began telling the congregation of what happened.  People ran to the altar.  Many publicly repented of sins.  God’s manifest presence filled the building.  Marriages are being restored, sexually broken people healed, myriad conversions to Christ, and many being filled with the Holy Spirit.

The vision was beginning to be fulfilled.  Part of the interpretation of the glass breaking signified the Spirit of the Lord blowing into Bethel church and blowing out.  The mission of Bethel church is to proclaim God’s glory to the nation.  The breaking of the glass window is a prophetic symbol of God’s power to release the church to carry the gospel to the nations.  Also that week, several “signs and wonders” happened.  An unexplained earthquake tremor and circular rainbow 360 degrees appeared over the city.

Unity of churches in the Hampton area is growing.  Twenty churches gathered for Easter Services this year in the town’s coliseum.  According to Pastor Don Rodgers it’s unprecedented to get twenty churches to lay down the most important service of the year.  Eleven thousand people attended.

Sunday, 29 September, 1996, Mobile, Alabama (Cecil Turner)

Joel Kilpatrick described revival in Mobile, Alabama:

Cecil Turner was a shy man with a stutter – a pipe-fitter with no Bible college education – when God called him to lead Calvary Assembly of God in Mobile, Alabama, in 1963.   Even family members questioned whether or not Turner could pastor the young congregation. 

Now, 34 years later, the church literally overflows with people coming to see what’s been happening since Sunday, 29 September, 1996, when God’s presence came in power during the church’s annual “camp meeting.”

“I’ve thought we’d close out a number of times,” Turner says.  “But the Holy Spirit says we’re going on.”

The church has been in continuous revival from week to week, meeting Tuesdays for intercessory prayer, and Wednesdays through Fridays for services that draw 250 to 300 people.   Sunday mornings draw 400, the maximum number they can pack into the sanctuary. 

Some services are exuberant and intense; others so heavy all they can do is “lay on the ground.”  Sometimes the Spirit is so strong during praise and worship that they throw open the altars.  “We come in each night and never know what’s going to happen,” Cecil says, pausing for a moment.  “I like it.”  

The church started praying for revival in 1992, says Cecil’s son Kevin, who has been on staff for 11 years.  “At times we wondered if revival would happen,” Kevin says.  “But we saw the intensity and the hunger growing.”

After five years of prayer and some dry stretches, God came mightily when a travelling evangelist, Wayne Headrick, came to preach.  God spoke to Headrick that if they got out of the way, God would make something happen.  That “something” keeps on happening. 

“It seems like it’s accelerating,” Headrick told the Mobile Register in May 1997.  “Each service there’s more . . . anointing and more of the power of God.”

Unchurched people are coming in droves to this church that sits at a 3-way stop on the western city limit of Mobile.  “They may not understand it,” says music pastor Kevin Turner, Cecil’s son, “but they want more of it.”

Many come from other denominations:  Nazarene, Catholic, Methodist, to name a few.  “We agreed from the beginning that this wasn’t an Assembly of God revival – it was for the whole church,” Cecil says. 

People are saved in every service – and some 150 were saved in the last two months alone, Kevin says.   Some say afterwards that they felt a need to come, and several testify that they were drawn in as if to a beacon.   One man pulled into the parking lot, not fully understanding why he was there.   The congregation prays regularly that people will be drawn by the Lord’s presence. 

The Mobile revival is redefining Calvary’s concept of pastoral leadership, steering them away from man-generated structure and teaching them to encounter God together. 

“It’s like God said, ‘I’ve been trying to move.  Now get out of the way,’” says Kevin.  “It’s liberating for both pastors and the people.”

Kevin, who grew up a pastor’s kid, testifies that the move of God now enveloping their church has brought him to a new level of faith.  “I’ve always loved the Lord, but this has changed my life,” Kevin says.  “I want to be intimate with him.”

Revival has also redefined his ministry.  Kevin and his 10-piece music team keep a greulling schedule, sometimes singing for 3 hours straight.  Before revival began,  Kevin would lose his voice after a week of services, he says.  But he asked God to sustain him, and has gone 10 months with few problems. 

Revival has also forced him to be more in tune with the Holy Spirit before leading worship.  “I make a song list, but often it gets tossed out,” he says.  “Some nights it’s like being held over a cliff.  I know God wants to do something, and I’m asking, ‘What is it?’  I’ve had to become comfortable with silence.  Sometimes he just says to wait.”

The revival is not personality-driven.  Headrick is often gone for weeks at a time, and the river continues to flow.  The pastors say the move of God keeps changing colours as God takes the church to different places in him. 

Glenn McCall, pastor of Crawford United Methodist church, frequently takes members of his congregation to Calvary for revival services.  “[People] are looking for something, and only God can meet that need in their spirit,” he says.  “I feel like it’s a nationwide thing.  I’ve heard a lot of testimonies from around the country and the world.  There’s some phenomenal things happening in the church world.”

McCall believes the fact that Calvary is drawing from other denominations signifies that America is ready for awakening.  “I think people are wanting a revival regardless of what the name is on the [church] doorpost.  They’re willing to crawl through barriers to get a touch from God,” he says.

Sunday, October 20, 1996, Houston, Texas (R Heard)

Dr R Heard led the Christian Tabernacle in Houston in growth from 250 to 3,000 members.  On Sunday October 20, 1996, a move of God exploded in the church.

During the previous year the church had a strong emphasis on knowing Christ intimately.  That August of 1996 Hector Giminez from Argentina ministered there with great power and many significant healings.  Awareness of the presence and glory of the Lord increased during October, especially with the ministry of an evangelist friend of Richard, Tommy Tenny, who was to speak that morning.  Richard was preparing to welcome him and had just read about God’s promise of revival from 2 Chronicles 7:14 when God’s power hit the place even splitting the plexiglas pulpit.

He spoke about it by telephone in November 1996 with Norman Pope of New Wine Ministries in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, who put the transcript of the discussion on the Awakening E-mail.  The following account is an edited selection of Richard Heard’s comments: 

I felt the presence of the Lord come on me so powerfully I grabbed the podium, the pulpit, to keep from falling, and that was a mistake.  Instantly I was hurled a number of feet in a different direction, and the people said it was like someone just threw me across the platform.  The pulpit fell over that I had been holding for support, and I was out for an hour and a half. …  I could not move.  And I saw a manifestation of the glory of God.  …  There were thick clouds, dark clouds, edged in golden white and the clouds would ‑ there would be bursts of light that would come through that, that would just go through me absolutely like electricity. …  There was literally a pulsating feeling of ‑ as though I was being fanned by the presence of the glory of God.  …  There were angelic manifestations that surrounded the glory and I didn’t know how long I was out.  They said later that I was there for an hour and a half. 

In the meanwhile, all across the building people, they tell me, were falling under the presence of God.  That’s not something that has happened much in our church, but people were stretched out everywhere, and at the altar.  We have three services on Sunday and people would enter the hallways that lead to the foyer and then into the auditorium and they would enter the hallways and begin to weep.  There was such a glory of God and they would come into the foyer and not stop ‑ they would just go straight to the altar ‑ people stretched out everywhere. …  There were all kinds of angelic visitations that people had experienced.  And we’ve got professional people in our church ‑ doctors, professors, their bodies were strewn everywhere. 

When I felt the glory of God lift, I tried to get up and couldn’t.  It was as though every electrical mechanism in my body had short‑circuited.  I couldn’t make my hands or my feet respond to what I was trying to tell them to do.  It was as though I was paralysed.  …  And we had one service that day, and the service literally never ended ‑ it went all the way through the day until 2:00 that morning.  It had started at 8:30, and we decided to have church the next night, and I didn’t want to be presumptuous, but we went on a nightly basis on that order, just announcing one night at a time, and as we got deeper into the week I could begin to see that God was doing something that was probably going to be more extended.  … 

There have been numerous healings. The evangelist didn’t speak at all that Sunday.  In fact, the entire week he spoke maybe twenty minutes.  There’s been a really deep call of God to repentance.  People come in and they just fall on their faces. …

We had a great choir.  We’re a multi‑ethnic congregation.  A Brooklyn Tabernacle kind of sound, if you’re familiar with that.  Great worship and praise.  Sunday morning there wasn’t a choir member standing on the platform.  They were all scattered like logs all over the platform.   And we go in ‑ [musicians] begin to play, to lead us into the presence of the Lord, and they play very softly.  Because of our background, usually our worship is very strong, very dynamic, a lot of energy.  Not any more.  It’s like you’re afraid to even lift your voice. …

We’ve cancelled everything that we had planned.  We have a lot of outside activities. We have 122 ministries within the church that have helped our church to grow, and these ministries were primarily either for getting people here or holding people once they’ve converted.  …  I was telling our staff  ‑  they were asking, “Are we going to have Christmas musicals and children’s pageants ever?”  And we do a big passion play every year that brings in thousands and thousands of people.  And I asked them, “Why do we do all of this?” and they said, “Well, we want people to come here so they can encounter God.”  I said, “Look at what’s happening.  We’ve got people storming in here that we’ve never seen, never heard of, never talked to.  And God’s doing it in a way that is so far superior to what we could do that whatever we’ve got going on, we’re cancelling everything.”  And that’s literally what we’ve done. …  And there hasn’t been a single objection.  That’s what amazes me.

I think that this is probably going to end up ‑ whatever this season is that the Holy Spirit is bringing us through in terms of our commitment to Him and the deep searching of our own hearts, it has the feeling at this point like it’s going to ‑ like it’s building toward even a greater evangelistic outpouring. …

There’s a big difference in renewal and revival.  I had the same scepticism of the laughter.  I was raised in a classical Pentecostal background.  I saw that from time to time, but the latest thing ‑ I just ‑ something inside of me just had a difficult time with it.  And there are people that are laughing like crazy now, and, I mean, all of this stuff I said that I had reservations about and didn’t particularly care to see ‑ I mean it’s just as though God has said, “This is My Church.  It’s not yours.”  And I see the reality of it now.  I think it’s going to end up turning strongly evangelistic.  It has that feeling and a lot of people are coming and being saved each night.  There are many being saved, and there’s not even really an altar call made that distinguishes between people that are already saved ‑ that just need renewal and those that need conversion [because] it’s just so intense right now (Waugh 1998, 144-147).

A year later people were still being converted, often 30-40 a week.  Richard Heard commented that everywhere in the church the carpet is stained with the tears of people touched by God and repenting.

Sunday, 19 January, 1997, Baltimore, Maryland (Tommy Tenny)

Elizabeth Moll Stalcup interviewed Bart Pierce and Tommy Tenny at Baltimore, as reported in Charisma, July 1998:

When Baltimore pastor Bart Pierce cried out for more of God in January 1997, he had no idea the Holy Spirit would change his life, and his congregation, forever.  Bart Pierce will never forget the day the Holy Spirit fell at his church in the rolling suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland.  It wasn’t gradual, nor was it subtle.  God showed up during the Sunday morning service on January 19, 1997. 

Pierce, pastor of Rock Church in Baltimore, and his wife, Coralee, had just returned from a pastors’ retreat in St. Augustine, Florida.  Pierce says he went to the retreat with “a desperate, deep hunger for more of God.”

While there, he heard Tommy Tenney recount an event that occurred in a Houston church a few months earlier.  Without warning, during the early morning service on 20 October, 1996, God had sovereignly split a Plexiglas pulpit in two before the amazed congregation.  Afterward, an unusual movement of repentance broke out at the Houston church. 

Tenney, a third-generation travelling evangelist, told the gathered pastors that the drama of the split pulpit was totally eclipsed by the awesome presence of God that filled the sanctuary immediately after the supernatural event.  “The revival,” Tenney told them, “was characterized by a deep sense of humility, brokenness and repentance.”

While Tenney spoke, many of the pastors, including Pierce, fell on their faces weeping.  Pierce spent much of his time at the retreat prostrated and weeping before the Lord.  When it ended, he asked Tenney to come back to Baltimore with him for the weekend.  On the 18-hour drive home, Pierce, his wife and Tenney had “an encounter of God as we talked about what God was doing and what we believed,” Pierce says.  “We would sit in the car and weep,” recalls Tenney.  They reached Baltimore on Saturday night, filled with a hunger for more of the Lord.

The next morning Pierce knew something was up as soon as he got to the church building.  “Two of my elders were standing inside the door weeping,” he says.   “We started worshiping, then people began standing up all over the building crying out loud.”  Some came forward to the altar; others would “start for the altar and crumple in the aisle.”

Even those outside the sanctuary were affected.  “Back in the hallways, people were going down under the power of God.  We never really got to preach,” Pierce says.  Tenney and Pierce were supposed to be leading the service, but both were too overcome by the intense presence of God to do anything but cry. 

“There was a deep sense of repentance that grew increasingly more intense,” Pierce recounts.  At 4 pm there were still bodies lying all over the church floor.  Pierce and Tenney tried several times to speak, but each time they were overwhelmed by tears.

“Finally,” says Pierce, “we told our leadership team, ‘We’re going home to change clothes.’  We were a mess from lying on the floor and weeping.”  The two men went home and changed.  When they got back to the church at 6 pm, people were still there, and more were coming.  That first “service” continued until 2 in the morning.

Monday night, people returned, and the same thing happened.  It happened again Tuesday night.  “Many people simply crawled under the pews to hide and weep and cry,” remembers Pierce.  “At times the crying was so loud, it was eerie.”

Pierce noticed new faces in the congregation.  “We didn’t have a clue as to how they knew about the service, because we don’t advertise at all,” he says.  When he asked, some of the visitors told amazing stories.

One man said he was driving down the road when God told him, “Go to Rock Church.”  Another woman said she was sitting at her kitchen table when she got the same message.  She didn’t know what a “Rock Church” was, but she found a listing in the phone book.  After the service she tearfully confided that she had been planning to leave her husband the next morning.  “God had totally turned her heart,” says Pierce.  “She and her husband have been totally restored.”

For the first few weeks, Pierce says, “every ministry at the church was turned upside down.”  The church has always been known for its mercy ministries — its homeless shelter for men, its home for women in crisis, its food distribution program, which moves 7 million pounds of food a year, and its ministry to revive Baltimore’s inner city.

But when the revival started, everything took a back seat to what God was doing.  Pierce would find his staff lying on the floor in the hallways or hear a thump against the wall and find someone lying on the floor in the next room, crying uncontrollably.

People reported supernatural events in their homes, too.  One woman’s unsaved husband had a dream in which everyone spoke Chinese.  He came downstairs and found his wife lying on the floor speaking Chinese.  His son, who was supposed to be getting ready for school, was lying on the floor in the living room, weeping and crying.  That day, the man got saved.

One night a boy from a local gang came forward weeping while Tenney was still preaching.  “He came to the front, looked up at me and said, ‘You’ve got to help me, because I just can’t take it anymore,’” Tenney recalls.  “This type of brokenness is what draws God’s presence,” he says.  “God will never turn away from a broken heart and a contrite spirit.”

Pierce agrees.  He believes the congregation has “opened the heavens somehow by our crying for him.  He has become our pleasure.” Both he and Tenney say they have “turned to seek his face, from seeking his hands,” meaning they are seeking to know God intimately rather than seeking him for his benefits. 

“We don’t have any agenda,” says Pierce.  “We come in and begin to worship, and his manifest presence comes in.  It is overwhelming.  Sometimes there is nothing any of us can do.  We have turned from trying to control the meeting to letting him be the object of why we have come.”

Tenney calls it “presence evangelism.” He explains, “We understand ‘program evangelism,’ where you pass out tracts or put on an evangelistic play or host Alpha classes.  John Wimber helped us understand ‘power evangelism,’ where people encounter the power of God as you pray for the needs in their lives.

“But what happened in Houston and what is happening in Baltimore we call ‘presence evangelism.’  The presence of God becomes incredibly strong to where people are literally overwhelmed.  They are drawn to his presence.  They aren’t drawn by the preaching; they aren’t drawn by the music; they are drawn by the presence of God.  It is hard to talk about without weeping.”

The church doesn’t keep figures on the numbers of people who have come to faith in Jesus since the revival started because they encourage people to go back to their home churches.  Many pastors bring their people to the services in Baltimore because they know that Rock Church won’t steal their flock.

In contrast to the Toronto Blessing services that have drawn people by the thousands from all over the world to the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship in Canada, most of the people who have come to the Baltimore revival services have been from the local area, including pastors from other churches.  “On any given night we have 12 to 20 pastors from the Baltimore area,” Pierce says. 

Still, some do come long distances.  One night they looked out and saw 47 Koreans who had chartered a plane to come.  Another time a group from Iceland was there.  They have had visitors from Britain, Germany, the Ukraine and all across America.

Before Easter, the church put on a play about heaven and hell called Eternity.   Crowds filled the 3,000-seat sanctuary.  Some nights several hundred people had to be turned away because there was no more room.  And during one two-day period, more than 700 came forward to give their lives to Christ.  The church originally planned to host the play for two weeks, but they continued an extra week because of the tremendous response. 

Tenney believes there is “a connection between what the Rock Church has traditionally done” — meaning the church’s strong ministries to hurting people outside the church — and the way the heavens have opened in Baltimore. 

Today, services in Baltimore are quieter and gentler than they were during the first few months of revival.  But the worship music is powerful, and the singing draws the congregation to Jesus.  Most of the songs were written by people in the church after the revival began. 

After an hour or so of worship, Tommy Tenney takes the microphone and begins to preach.  He asks the audience to worship Jesus in a way they never have before — to worship Him the way Mary did when she broke the alabaster jar, poured the ointment on Jesus’ feet and wiped His feet with her hair. 

As Tenney continues to speak, people begin to cry, most quietly, but some more openly.  He invites people to come forward.  Almost everyone does.  “Just for one night in your life, worship Him,” Tenney encourages them.  “He wants to manifest himself to his people.  For once in your life set aside what you want from God, and give him the glory.”

Those looking for dramatic supernatural displays won’t find them here.  But they will feel the intense presence of God.  The impact of the revival is seen in the lives that have been changed for eternity.  There have been physical healings, healed marriages, burned-out people empowered to follow God, prodigals returned and hundreds of people who have found Jesus for the first time.

“It is not for us to point the way to a lost world.  It is for us to lead the way.  If the church will begin to walk in humility and repentance, then the world will see his glory.”

June, 1997 – Kawana Waters, Queensland (Peter Barr)

Australian Evangelist Jeff Beacham describes a weekend at Kawana Waters, Queensland, which has been experiencing revival blessing since June 1997:

For the last few days I have been ministering at Living Waters Christian Centre, a church that is moving greatly in revival.  Revival began here in June 1997 with a visit from Darrell Stott and a team from Seattle, USA.  Darrell returned here in September and stayed until Easter 1998.  Since October 1997 they have been having extended meetings, sometimes up to 12 meetings a week.

At one point, they were having 3000 come through for several weeks in a row.  However, they do have a wise pastor, Peter Barr, who is committed to revival but understands that good pastoring and discipleship need to be maintained and developed if this church is going to get to where it is destined to be.

They have guest speakers in every second week or so including some prominent international, national and local speakers that have a heart for revival.  People from many parts of Australia have been coming, with awesome testimonies of healing, restoration, reconciliations, re‑direction of lives and salvations.  Many have testified of a fresh encounter with God and a new personal intimacy with Him.

There is certainly no lack of life here.  It is not just emotional hype, but a genuine excitement for the things of God and it is a joy to preach to this very responsive audience.  The church was full for the first two nights.  On Friday night the power of God hit the young people in a big way.  I called every one under the age of 25 to the front.  Time after time they were all flattened to the floor, all together and without any one touching them. 

Saturday night was a youth rally and young people came from all over the district.  There was bedlam as the leader was introducing me with most of the kids talking or walking around.  But by the time I was giving my challenge to them to rise up and be Champions of the Truth, God’s word must have been going straight to their hearts because there was not a sound, and we saw a huge altar call in response.

Many visitors came to the services on Sunday, some from as far away as Toowoomba, a large rural city two and a half hours drive from here.  Several of the young people publicly testified today about how their lives had been changed and that this weekend had made them more happy and excited about God than they had ever been before.  One man in his fifties sent this testimony: “Not only did I have a good time but my life has been forever changed.  I realize that you are only the messenger and do not seek earthly rewards but, it is good to know of and sometimes see the results of the Holy Spirit moving through you.”

I believe that this church will accomplish much for the Kingdom of God.  They have a vision to be a thousand strong by the year 2000, and to extend their building to be twice the size that it is now.  There is a tremendous enthusiasm, and a great anticipation and excitement about the future.  They know where they are going and many will want to go with them.

Thursday, 10 July, 1997, Caloundra, Queensland (Ken Kilah)

Pastor Ken Kilah, senior pastor at Caloundra Baptist Church on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland reports on a move of God in the church and at Caloundra Christian College:

Since February 1995 the Caloundra Baptist Church has experienced several waves of the Spirit as he has sovereignly moved on the congregation.  At times people would fall in their seats as the Spirit moved in power.  Since that time the church has consistently made altar calls at the end of services with various manifestations occurring.

These manifestations increased during and after a ‘Catch the Fire’ conference in October 1996.  Guy Chevreaux was the guest speaker.  Many people were touched by the power of God and testified to healings, refreshing, release from fears and a whole lot more.

On Thursday 10 July, 1997, the Holy Spirit unexpectedly came upon students in a Year 7 class at the Caloundra Christian College.  The College is a ministry of the Caloundra Baptist Church.

Students began shaking, and falling to the floor.  The teacher, well aware of what was occurring took several of the students from class to the prayer room in the church where they were prayed for and cared for by church staff.

This caused a strong reaction from certain parents who protested by collecting a petition asking the school to stop what was happening or they would remove their students from the school.  The church and school responded by saying we believed that this was God at work.

A letter sent to the entire parent body explaining this position.  This letter reaches the local press which carried front page articles in the weekend papers.  During the next week the TV channels ran news and current affairs reports on the school and the views of opponents.  Some of the major newspapers also ran magazine and news reports, and radio stations called for interviews.

Ultimately some parents did respond by withdrawing 30 children from the 371 enrolled.  However, new enrolments occurred and schools across the country sent encouraging reports. 

The most encouraging result has been to see the lives of children changed.  The children were not afraid of what God is doing and continues to do in their lives.  They were the ones who praised God for his grace towards them, and so do all at the Caloundra Baptist Church and school.

Sunday 12 October, 1997, Greenville, Alabama (Ken Owen)

Ken Owen, Senior Pastor of First Assembly of God Greenville, South Carolina, reports:

In April 1995 a first wave of revival began to crest over the congregation at First Assembly of God, Greenville, South Carolina.  Nightly meetings were held for a month with Ed Nelson.  Since then a number of waves have rolled in, building into what is now a tsunami of revival.

In August, 1997, the tide began to significantly deepen.  I called Ed – a director of  a mission work to unreached peoples – to return immediately.  On October 11, 1997, Ed returned to us from Asia.  The Sunday morning service flowed like a mighty river — hundreds came forward to repent of sins.  The meeting carried on through the day till 4:00 pm.  With an hour break, it began again at 5:00 pm with a large prayer meeting and evening service.  Since then there has been no let up, only an increase. 

More than two thousand people have repented of sins, converts being baptized weekly.  Many miracles and healings are accompanying the revival.

People from a variety of church backgrounds and denominations are driving to the meetings from several cities and states as momentum continues to strengthen.  There has been almost no promotion of the revival, but word-of-mouth has brought thousands of people to the meetings.

November, 1997 – Pilbara, Western Australia (Craig Siggins)

The closure of a pub through lack of customers is big news in Australia.  This is what drew the media to a small town called Nullagine in the far north of Western Australia.  But the media didn’t know quite how to report the religious revival that is keeping people out of the pubs‑as well as the jails and hospitals.  Aboriginal church worker Craig Siggins wrote this account of the spiritual awakening that is changing Aboriginal communities in Western Australia.

“Kuurti yarrarni kuwarri ngangka mungkangka” (“Holy Spirit, we welcome you in this place tonight”) is the first line of a song being sung at many Aboriginal communities around the Pilbara.  It was composed by Len “Nyaparu” Brooks, also known as Kurutakurru, one of the many leaders God has raised up among the Martu Wangka, Nyangumarta and other peoples of the Pilbara.

A spiritual awakening took place in many communities last year, in 1997.  Things started at Warralong, where many became Christians and were baptised after being influenced by three Christian Aboriginal leaders.  Then just before Christmas, Kurutakurru joined two other leaders at Nullagine, and many from Nullagine and other communities became Christians and came across to the dam at Newman to be baptised.

Many communities started having meetings almost every night and prayer meetings every day.  Leaders travelled to different communities for the meetings and to encourage people, sometimes holding meetings at night after a funeral service when hundreds of people were gathered.  Some meetings went on for eight hours or more as people shared in song, testimony, prayer, Bible reading and preaching.

When Franklin Graham visited Perth in early February, over 200 Martu people travelled the 1150 km for his meetings.  It was like one long church service all the way there and back.  Everyone was bursting to sing and witness to the people in Perth.

When we got back there were more meetings and baptisms, even from communities that had previously rejected Christianity.  Old people, Aboriginal elders, were turning to Christ and being baptised.  Four hundred people gathered at the Coongan River near Marble Bar for three days of meetings, with many more being baptised.

Our Easter Convention, 1998, was a wonderful time of celebrating Jesus.  Over 1000 people came, including many new Christians from communities that had never come before.  The meetings went nearly non-stop over the Easter period.  Singing is a prominent feature of the revival.  There is a real sense of joy that comes out in song.  Many new songs have been written and many old songs translated into Martu Wangka, Nyangurnartu and other languages.  Everywhere you go you bear kids singing and tapes playing songs of the revival.  

So many people were becoming Christians and giving up the grog that the pub in Nuilagine lost a lot of its business and went into receivership.  The story made news around Australia.  Nyaparu Landy and I were interviewed on Perth radio!  A Current Affair went to Nuilagine.  Police, hospitals and others have noticed a decrease in alcohol related incidents.  The media has begun to take notice. 

Amazingly, a simultaneous and apparently quite separate revival began at about the same time among the Pintubi people and others across the border in the Northern Territory.  A team from Kiwirrkura, just on the WA side of the border, travelled across the desert and joined up with the Pilbara meetings, arriving early for our Easter Convention held in a wide dry river bed near Newman.  More than 1000 people from different communities and Christian traditions came together to celebrate.

Why the revival?  It is nothing more or less more than a work of the Holy Spirit.  It has similarities to the revival that spread to many Aboriginal communities in the early ’80s, which reached the Pilbara but never really took hold.  Like that revival, people have had dreams and visions.  Recently Mitchell, a leader from Punmu, got up and read from Acts 2 about Joel’s prophecy and said it was being fulfilled.  Not long ago, people told me they had seen a cross in the sky one morning.  And like the ‘80s revival, it is the Aboriginal people taking the Wangka Kunyjunyu (Good News) to their own people in their own way and their own language. 

The revival has not stopped.  The Martu people themselves are reaching out to other Martu people.  Neilie Bidu from Yandeyarra came back, fired up from hearing Franklin Graham, to reach out to his own community.  He began a small prayer meeting and then invited Kurutakurru and other leaders from Warralong and Punmu to help him.  So they went to Warralong and many there became Christians.  Yandeyarra people in turn have reached out to Banjima people near Tom Price.  Other communities have also been reached, including some that were closed to Christianity.  Some of these communities had turned away Crusade teams from the 1981 revival.  Now they have turned to the Lord.

Aboriginal leaders empowered by the Holy Spirit are leading the revival.  These leaders would like to see the revival reaching the wider Kartiya (non‑Aboriginal) society.  But for these shy desert people to reach out to Kartiya in these days of Mabo, Wik and the struggle for reconciliation will only be by the hand of God.

But there have also been some excesses and difficulties in the revival.  Some still struggle with alcoholism and some have gone back to the drink.  Many are new Christians with little knowledge of Christianity.  Even the leaders are in the main untrained.  Some are illiterate.  And other groups have come in with different ideas and practices that have caused division even within families and have led to much debate and argument, some of it bitter.  One is a legalistic group that stresses the keeping of the 10 commandments, especially the fourth (keeping the Sabbath).  Another is a fairly extreme charismatic group.

Then there are issues of a more cultural nature.  Some couples who have become Christians are married the wrong way in a tribal (though not biblical) sense, including some leaders.  What to do?  What to do about some of the tribal laws and ceremonies?  Reject them all?  Keep some?  These are big issues to be worked through.

We are encouraging the leaders to read the Bible for themselves and to come to solid biblical conclusions as they struggle through these issues with the help of the Holy Spirit, but it will take time.  Pray for the people and the revival!

Adapted from Alive magazine, June 1998 and Vision magazine, July 1998.

Pentecost Sunday, 31 May, 1998, St Helens, Tasmania, Australia (Stuart Lumsden)

Pastor Stuart Lumsden is the pastor of St. Helens Christian Fellowship in the town of St. Helens, 3,000 population, on the east coast of Tasmania.  He wrote this article two months after revival began in their church at the end of May, 1998.

Here is a brief report as to what happened on 31 May, Pentecost Sunday, in St. Helens Christian Fellowship.  We had Ronnie Fynn, a South African Zulu evangelist, doing a two day ministry, which had been planned during the previous six months.  Through prayer and fasting (we were in the latter days of a 40 day corporate fast), the expectancy of what God would do was very high.  During the meetings, it was obvious that we had moved to another level in the praise and worship, especially in the areas of clapping and shouting. 

We really sensed we had broken through by the end of Sunday’s meeting.  Ronnie had shared from Isaiah 40:31, pointing out that the word ‘wait’ means ‘expect’ God to be God.  This word increased the faith level of the people.  As we were closing (well, we thought we were closing), Ronnie was sensing the Lord speaking to him and taking him back to the revivals in South Africa of the mid-seventies, in which he was involved.  He saw the same signs that God was about to do something significant and so he was waiting to share that with me, and really felt the urgency as I was beginning to close the meeting.  In my heart I felt the same, although at that point I was unaware of what Ronnie was experiencing.  I called him over, and as soon as he shared it with me, he asked me, “What are we gonna do?”  I said “Go for it!”

A word of knowledge came, that as a church we were to go out into the town and get all the sick and infirm who would come.  At that moment it was like great boldness fell on the church, as in Acts 1:8 ‘You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.’

With that, the presence of God was tangible.  It was as if heaven had opened up; awesome, but also very gentle.  The love of God filled the house.  Not long after that, folk started to return with the sick and infirm.  Incidentally, all these people that came, were not born again. 

The first lady who came had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was experiencing a lot of pain, especially at night.  We prayed for her and not much seemed to happen, although by faith we declared the word of healing over her.  She had a brother in the church, and their relationship had been strained over the years.  The brother went and asked her for forgiveness, and the moment he did, she felt the presence of God all over her, a warm tingly feeling, and now testifies that although the lumps are still there, the pain has gone. 

Another lady, a Sister at the local hospital, had a bad car accident a few years ago.  She has suffered migraine headaches and energy drain and dizzy spells ever since.  We prayed for her and she now testifies to feeling great.  Even her countenance has changed; no headaches, dizzy spells or fatigue since Sunday. 

Another lady who, together with her husband, are well known and well loved in the local community for their work with children and within the local school, was brought in for healing.  She has been in callipers and on crutches since contracting polio at the age of ten years.  She is now in her fifties.  After she was prayed for, she raised her hands above her shoulders, something which she has not been able to do before without severe pain, she also walked without the aid of her crutches, hands above her head, for several metres around the church.  There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.  The children particularly were moved with the compassion of God and gathered around her, embracing her and loving her.  She testified later that she had never felt so loved in her life.  I told her how much she loved children and had given herself for them, and how today she had experienced the true love of God for her, that being a significant reality she had not experienced before.

My daughter, Asha, (12 years old), had a vision that the heavens were opened up, and God dropped a mustard seed into our midst.  The seed represented an impartation of faith into the body, and I encouraged everyone to partake of it that they would have their own personal burning bush experience.  Another child, Rose (12 years old), spoke prophetically and declared with tears and weeping that ‘Revival has begun’.  All in all it was an amazing day, and the meeting which started at the usual time of 10 a.m. didn’t end until 5.30 p.m.

In the ensuing three weeks, we had meetings every night, with attendance ranging around 180 ‑ 200 people during the first two weeks, with many travelling from all parts of the State.  Again, to this date we have witnessed 48 conversions, that is, first time decisions.  We’ve seen numerous miraculous healings, such as curvature of the spine being straightened, ulcers instantly healed; a gentleman with a history of kidney disease testified to being healed, this being evidenced by his constantly yellow eyes becoming white overnight.  One man, testified that a constant ringing in his ears, which been there for many years, stopped after prayer for healing.  We have witnessed several instant healings from back pain. 

Another lady, unsaved, received prayer for severe kidney disorder and a stomach ulcer, and was at the time in severe pain from this disorder.  She immediately experienced quite a measure of healing, then accepted Jesus as her Lord and Saviour.  She testified, the following day, that the pain had returned, however, she stood on the Word and claimed her healing, and had the best night’s sleep she has had in years, and did not need to use her painkillers.  She was clearly very much at ease and not in any pain whatsoever.  Further testimony concerning this lady is that she is attending church in Hobart and has already been instrumental in bringing another lady to the Lord.

A husband and wife, unsaved, who attended one of the meetings, came forward for prayer as the man was suffering from a severe muscular degenerative disease.  Doctors told him that he would be in a wheelchair in a couple of months.  He had a fused neck, no feeling in his hands or legs of feet and was in constant pain.  As we prayed for him, God flooded him with fire, he felt hot all over, his neck was freed and he received feeling in his hands and feet and legs, and was jumping up and down as the pain was released from him.  They returned the next night, came forward again for more prayer, and he again experienced intense heat throughout his body as God touched him.  They stood together and received Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. 

On another evening, an elderly couple came.  The lady, in her seventies, has had two strokes and could barely walk even with the aid of crutches and her husband’s help.  As we prayed for her healing, Ronnie told her to follow him.  She began to walk, without her crutches, and as she shuffled you could see her freeing up, she was almost scurrying around after Ronnie.  We were told later, that at home, she was actually raising her legs higher and lifting her knees above her hips.  This couple also, accepted Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.

Only a few nights ago, a lady in well-advanced stages of cancer came forward for healing.  As we prayed for her, Ronnie testified to seeing a ‘lump’ leaving her body, she also testified to a ‘warmth’ flooding through her.  She has since testified to being relieved of much discomfort, sleeping better and has turned her heart back to the Lord.

We have seen in numerous families, the hearts of the fathers being turned to the children; testimonies of deep reconciliation and forgiveness between fathers and sons.  We have witnessed deliverance of addictions, rejection, secret sin being exposed with repentance following.

We have been very encouraged by testimonies from pastors and visitors from other churches.  Many have experienced personal breakthroughs and have seen God begin to move amazingly among the people in their churches.  Praise God!

August, 1998 – Kimberleys, Western Auswtralia (Max Wiltshire)

Robert McQuillan reported in The Evangel:

An enthusiastic Max Wiltshire, Australian Aboriginal Outreach (AAO) coordinator, shared briefly at the Assemblies of God Western Australia state conference some of the > exciting things God is doing in the Kimberley region in the north of Western Australia in 1998.

A number of Aboriginal leaders had accompanied him to the conference, including Kenny Boomer who received his ministry credential.  Pastor Wiltshire also acknowledged the role Western Australia Women’s Ministries had played in supplying a bus for the work.

“Fire is falling in the Kimberleys,” he reported.  “Thousands are being powerfully touched by God in salvation, healing and release.  And in many other ways too, some of which are unbelievable.  Hundreds of people are falling out – not with each other, but ‘falling out’ under the anointing.”

Affectionately known by Aboriginals as ‘the man in the big hat,’ the AAO coordinator went on to add that so much has happened since their outstanding Christmas meetings.  He reported:

The Kimberleys are ablaze.  The fire of God in the hearts of his people burns brighter than ever, new churches have been started, others have doubled in size – one leaping from 10 percent of the community to 90 percent in just a few weeks.  Further afield in the Pilbara area the move of God has been so intense that the local hotel went into receivership.

his move has seen the number of Christians doubled in the area over the last twelve months, which means our conventions are climbing toward a thousand people in the evening meetings.  Are the manifestations still occurring as at first in this move of God?  Yes, in fact the increase that > we are seeing is in direct relationship to the outstanding manifestations of the Spirit.

But – what manifestations are we talking about?  The usual?  Yes, laughing, shaking, rolling, crying, running and so on continue.  However, if these are the normal, what are the outstanding ones?  In truth, some would make you cry in awe and wonder.  Such as seeing people falling under the power of the Spirit as they give their offering to the Lord.  As they have come to the front and put their offering in the containers, they ‘fall out’ there and then as the blessing of giving overcomes them. 

After a recent crusade, one Aboriginal lady handed a ministry offering to the speaker on behalf of the church, and fell at his feet, again under the power and blessing of giving.

We have also seen folks falling out in the opening prayer as the very name of Jesus is mentioned.  They just fall from the seats to the floor, not knowing they are meant to wait until the altar call before they let the Lord touch them.  Back up singers are unable to stand, also people bringing items are unable to finish them because the anointing is so great.

Actually, it’s a case of the mores!  We need more buses to pick up more people to receive more of the blessing!  Transporting Aboriginals to > services is a cultural thing.  It shows you care and that the meetings are very important.  Provide transport and they’ll be there with open hearts.

Sunday, 25 October, 1998, Vancouver, Canada (Charles Ndifon)

David Culley reports from Glad Tidings Assembly in Vancouver, Canada.

“And it shall come to pass in the last days that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh …”  We are seeing it!  For the past months Glad Tidings in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada has been experiencing the same renewal that is happening all over the world. Yesterday, we crossed over into full blown revival.  The morning service started much like any other.  The worship was anointed as usual, and we had a visiting revival minister as we often had before.  The thing that was different was the sea of turbans and saris in the building.  Vancouver is a multi-national city with a large Sikh population, and over 200 had come to our morning meeting. 

Our guest minister, Charles Ndifon from Nigeria and New York, had been in Victoria, British Columbia, for some meetings a few weeks ago, and a young Sikh woman, who had been invited by her Christian husband was healed of blindness and deafness.  She went back and brought her favourite uncle, Charnjit, who was dying of cancer, and he left the meeting healed and saved. 

Since then Charnjit has been witnessing to all his relatives, and when Charles Ndifon came to our church in Vancouver, this man invited his whole extended family.  Yesterday, after watching many people be healed of athsma (as an example of how simple it is for God to heal anything), and a 90 year old woman receive a new ear-drum, about 200 Sikhs came forward to give their hearts to God.  And it’s real.  They had already heard the Gospel from Charnjit, and to make sure, the altar call was translated into Punjabi.  After the service, the people were so excited to have found Jesus, and to be so accepted by these white people.  At the evening service another 104 Punjab Sikh people responded to the altar call.

We saw many miracles.  A 14 year old boy born blind saw his mother for the first time, deaf ears were opened, cancers were healed.  But the greatest miracle of all was that God now seems to be bringing in the Sikh population that we have been so unable to reach for all this time.

Bob Brasset from Victoria, Canada, writes about the move of the Holy Spirit in British Columbia:

The outpourings continue.  In fact, it seems to be getting stronger.  We now meet four nights a week.  The response of the pastors in the area is simply an overwhelming gratitude for the goodness of God for deigning to visit us in such an awesome way.  There is an amazing, astounding hunger in North America right now.  People know that we are on the edge of not only revival but a genuine Awakening: perhaps the greatest since the day of Pentecost.  This Awakening, I feel, will be characterized by the very kabod glorious presence of God coming and abiding in a room, a church and even a city, or a whole region (as in Charles Finney’s revivals). 

The worship in our services now continues and flows for 1½  to 2 hours, unabated with spontaneous songs of the Lord from worship team and congregation.  Bodies lie on the floor, prostrate in worship.  People report seeing angels.  Visions, mighty, inspiring ones, are plenteous.  Healings happen during the preaching of the word or worship without anyone praying or laying on hands.  We are not advertising this.  People are just coming.  Salvations are happening in each service – even when we don’t give specific calls.  We now have reported healings of fibromylagia, diabetes, cancer, chronic pain, ears opening, many necks and backs healed and severe allergies gone.

Sunday, 14 March, 1999, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia (Ian Turton)

Pastor Ian Turton of River Christian Church in Kingston, Hobart, reported in April, 1999 on their series of miracle meetings:

We have been hearing about what God has been doing overseas filling people’s teeth with gold, silver and platinum, and even braces turning to gold.  At River Christian Church in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia we have been believing the Lord for miracles, signs & wonders like we have never seen before for a while now.  He led us into a time of intense warfare for a few months and then began to put on our hearts the real desire to see the miracles happen and that souls would be added because of what He is doing like in Acts 4 where the disciples asked the Lord to give them boldness to preach the gospel by stretching forth His healing power and that signs & wonders be done in the name of Jesus.

On Sunday night, 14th March, 1999, we asked all present to lay hands on their mouths and we prayed that the Lord would fill the teeth with gold.  By Monday night we were amazed as we actually saw fillings change into gold before our eyes.  Personally gold fillings appeared in my mouth, my wife also and others are getting blown away by their fillings changing before their eyes.  God is awesome.  …

We had a couple of crew from the USS Carl Vincent in port for a few days visit come to some of the meetings.  One of them received gold fillings, praise the Lord. What a thing to carry back on board.  We prayed that revival would break out onboard that warship. …

Jeannette (my wife) was ministering in Richmond at a ladies night (when) … a whole bunch of them including the pastor’s wife saw their teeth turn to gold.  Some of the ladies when they returned home prayed for their husbands who in turn received gold fillings. The pastor apparently didn’t believe what had happened but when the pastor’s wife prayed for him he received gold.  One lady had just had her teeth refilled at the dentist last week with white porcelain.  They were gold also.  She was a little put out by it at first!

This is our first – gold dust appeared on people’s faces.  One unsaved guy had it and got saved.  He shared that his wife has been coming along and has been gloriously healed and her life completely changed, as has his mother in law.  His other unsaved family members are coming along and in his own words ‘they are next’.

Thanks especially for your prayer; it is so very much needed.  Alas there are the knockers and sceptics but let me assure you we have seen more lives changed, more healings and more salvations in the last four weeks then in many previous years.

The church continues to experience God’s powerful presence, and from mid-1999 Ian Turton began leading and speaking at meetings around Australia and beyond where similar healings and manifestations have continued.

July, 1999 –Tacoma, Washington (Bill Wolfson)

Aggressive fasting is fuelling hunger for God at a Tacoma, Washington, church that has baptized more than 700 new converts during 90 weeks of revival.  During the first year of the move of God at Bethel Church, members fasted a total of 165 days.  The church sets 40 days at the start of each year and four days at the beginning of each month for fasting.

“This radical fasting is not normative, and we do not recommend it to others,” said pastor Bill Wolfson, who completed a 70-day liquids-only fast.  “But it is what God has for us.  Fasting causes unbelief to come out of our lives.”

Prostitutes and gang members are among those who have come to Christ at the four-nights-a-week services, which can often last for hours.  One man was even reportedly raised from the dead through prayer after CPR failed to revive him.  “I can only conclude that he was miraculously revived,” said retired paramedic Cornelius Winesberry Jr., who attended the man.

The revival began at the church – recently renamed Church for All Nations, to mark its renewed commitment to interracial outreach – after Wolfson travelled to an Illinois church to witness the Smithton-like revival happening there.

Source: News Update from Charisma magazine, Friday, October 15, 1999.

July, 1999 –Caldwell, Texas (Deon Hockey)

Caldwell, approximately an hour north of Houston, has experienced revival also.

Revival has hit a small Assemblies of God church in Caldwell.  The church has been having nightly services, drawing people from all across the area.  All sorts of physical healings are reported, including eyes and backs healed.  Deon Hockey was the visiting speaker and because of what is happening there, has cancelled his future engagements and will stay for the time being.

The presence of God is so strong that people are being frozen-like against the walls of the church for an hour or more.  Praise and worship has continued for two hours at a time.  Someone will run to the altar and get on their face before God, and twenty others will follow.  The power of God will cause twenty or so people to fall out on the floor all at once.

People from all around the area are coming to the church.  When asked how they found out about it, they’ll say they heard of someone being healed which drew them.  We are entering into a period of time in the church of signs and wonders.  These will be signs that God is still alive.  God still heals.  God still speaks.  God still loves his children.  And God still cares.

Church services continued nightly at First Assembly of God.

Source: Awakening List via grn@crown-house.com, 16 July, 1999 (Guido Kuwas)

Tuesday, 27 July, 1999, Mornington Island, Queensland, Australia

The following account, adapted from reports Brian Pickering and Jesse Padayache, gives details of a powerful move of God that has occurred among Aboriginal communities on Mornington Island, Arakun and Weipa in the Gulf of Carpentaria, North Queensland, as well as on Psalm Island north east of Townsville.

Mornington Island was a pretty awful place, noted for its drunkenness and violence.  Iranale Tadulala, a Fijian Pastor was posted there five years ago.  About two years ago, an angel appeared to him and told him that there was to be a revival on Mornington Island and he was to facilitate it.  However it would not be easy.

He began a 40 day fast from 1st June until 11th July, 1999.  A colleague visited Mornington Island when Iranale was 28 days into his fast and was deeply challenged just being with the man.  He was so committed, close to tears all the time.

During the fast one of the scriptures impressed on him was the similarity between the city of Pergamum (Rev 2:12-17) and Mornington Island.  So much awful stuff kept on happening there that it had to be something like Satan’s throne.  And, just like Pergamum, a good Christian man had been martyred there in the early days of the Mission.  At the end of his 40 day fast he believed he had to go out to the site of the killing and fast there a further seven days.  This was a rather harrowing experience and he was conscious of doing battle with cosmic forces throughout.

At the conclusion of the fast (only days after the national prayer gathering at Uluru in July), they planned meetings at Mornington Island which began on 27th July. At the end of the first meeting 100 stayed behind for prayer and counselling.  By the end of the crusade there had been 300 conversions (25% of the population) and they were still going on with 500 reported by September.

Five other pastors helped with this marvellous happening.  Two are Fijians from Palm Island and Weipa.  The pastor from Aurukun and a white pastor from Townsville are also involved as is an Indian South African from Brisbane.  They are working on discipleship, want Bibles, and are already getting phone calls from surrounding areas asking them to go there, but are saying: “When God says it is right!”

One of the team leaders was Pastor Jesse Padayache, the South African Indian.  He has ministered in Australia for many years.  His wife Cookie was healed miraculously through prayer from a tumour on the brain.  They have x-rays showing total healing.

In February and May, Jesse had spoken at revival meetings in Palm Island north east of Townsville, among the tribes there, where there has been much drunkeness.  Many were converted, delivered and set free from addiction to alcohol, tobacco and fornication.  A man, angry with Jesse because his de-facto wife was converted in February and wanted to get married, was later converted.  He asked Jesse to marry them during the meetings in May.  Now money formerly spent on addictions is spend on food, clothes and shelter and many people are prospering for the first time.

News of the revival meetings on Palm Island reached Mornington Island.  In Mornington Island, alcohol abuse has been extreme.  Drunkenness was everywhere.  The place was littered with piles of beer cans.  About 10 people attended the services.

On the first night, Tuesday, 27 July, 1999, the team was casting out demons till midnight. 

People were healed – the deaf, cripples, back pain, diabetes, blood pressure, heart diseases.  Many committed their lives to the Lord Jesus Christ and were freed from generational curses.  A report from the pastors says: “Spirits of suicide, alcoholism were driven out and old curses of sorcery and witchcraft were broken.”

On the second night, Wednesday, an angry lady with a beer can came in abusing Jesse and the team for casting out spirits.  She yelled, “Me and my beer, we live together.  Don’t listen to this man.”  But the people wanted to be delivered because of the changes they saw in their friends.  Many were healed and delivered.  Two healed people threw away their crutches.  A lady with a stroke was healed and freed from her wheelchair.  The drunk lady saw the healings and eventually wanted prayer.  She gave her life to Jesus and became instantly sober.  She said, “Pastor, I don’t want this stupid habit” and gave her six pack of beer to the pastor.

Their report tells of a young boy, born disabled – dumb, deaf and unable to walk – was healed, running around.  His first word was “Mom”.  A woman with a stroke who could not speak and could hardly walk is walking around testifying about what God had done for her.  A woman came to the meeting with a walking frame, but left the frame and walked home without it when the Lord healed her.

They have a Women’s Refuge which is usually chock-a-block on Thursday and Friday nights.  It had one customer!  Around midnight one night, a man called his family together and spoke of what God had been doing in bringing the whole family to the Lord, saying, “Everyone is welcome in this home, but from now on there never to be any alcohol in this house.”

A white policeman came to a meeting, drawn to what Aborigines were experiencing but feeling too ashamed to go forward.  Next day, a pastor found him sitting in a corner, spoke to him about his shame, took him home and led him to the Lord.  The pub shut an hour early, with no customers.  Next day there was no one at the women’s shelter – they didn’t need that sort of help any more!

Many leaders in the community were saved, and the sale of beer dropped dramatically.  Around 500 in that community of 1200 became Christians.  Now former enemies are reconciled.  Revival has brought reconciliation between blacks and whites also.  Community leaders encouraged people to kick the demon drink out and give themselves to God.

A young man, lying in bed at home heard the loud speakers, and so came to the meetings to give his life to God.  On Sunday the church was packed with people standing outside to listen.  Many were healed in the morning, and many more on Sunday night.

Large numbers, formerly in de-facto relationships, have now married.  The pastor has been busy performing marriages.  Within weeks, beer consumption dropped by over 9,000 cans a week.

On the Monday they started classes for believers.  More were converted then also.  A drunk man came from the pub to the believers class, seeking God. The believers also follow up each other, because they all know who is involved.  

When Jesse passed through Weipa on his way to Arakun in the gulf of north west Queensland in August, he met an aboriginal lady from a community of 400 people in Mapoon, north of Weipa.  Her 34 year old son, looking wild, saliva dripping, and shaking, had been in a psychotic state receiving treatment for six years.  He’d been separated from his de-facto wife and children for that time.  The pastor saw them at the shopping centre so invited them to his place for healing prayer.  The son was frightened of the pastors, staring with wild eyes.  They bound spirits and cast them out.  When he went back to the hospital he was pronounced totally healed.  He now lives with his family and got married.

The mother asked for prayer also. She had asthma, a heart moniter, sugar diabetes, and a huge lump like a rock melon on her stomach.  The lump disappeared, and the arthritis, asthma, diabetes and blood pressure were all healed immediately, medically verified.  Later she came back to Weipa for meetings with a bus load of people, all seeking God because of those healings.  Most of that bus load were saved, and now a church as been started in Marpoon.  The previous church had been destroyed in the 1960s, and the people there had hated the gospel, till now.

Jesse caught the small plane from Weipa to Arakun.  Many were drunk there.  People ignored or hated the church, regarding Christianity as a religion for whites.  Only about 6 members went to the church. 

One the first night of meetings at Arakun, about 50 came into the hall with another 40 people sitting around outside listening.  Noisy dogs came in.  An old man, deaf in his left ear and partially deaf in his right ear was totally healed.  Three weeks earlier, in a dream he had seen the dark skinned Jesse pray for his healing, and he knew he would be healed at that meeting.  Then, nearly all in the hall and some from outside gave their lives to Christ that first night.  Many were healed, including a man lame in his right leg.

Word spread fast.  Everyone knows what is happening in the community.  The next night the church was packed.  Crowds stood around outside.  By the end of the meetings, 170 aboriginals had given their lives to Christ for the first time.  Many were healed including people blind or partially blind and deaf.  Great joy filled the community.  Many were delivered from alcohol addiction. 

One of the council officers in the building next door told the community leaders that Jesse and the pastor needed to go on casting out demons because so many people were being delivered of drunkenness and diseases. 

Demons associated with suicide came out of a man who had tried to kill himself four times.  Now he is whole.  Everyone talked about the changes in the atmosphere of the community.  Then he returned to his de-facto wife and was married.  His witness brought large numbers to the Lord. 

Back again at Weipa for meetings, the same things kept happening.  A young white lady in her twenties was delivered with loud cries and healed on the second night of the meetings in Weipa, to the surprise of the aboriginals who thought only aboriginals had demons.  The news spread like wildfire, and many more came for salvation, deliverance and healing. 

The bus load from Mapoon north of Weipa – brought by the lady and her son who had been healed at the pastor’s home previously – returned full of saved, healed and delivered people, determined to start their church in their community.

Just as revival on Elcho Island in 1979-1980 sparked revival across Arnhem Land, and teams went out to many aboriginal communities, so this revival is touching many communities in north Queensland.  Pray for the mighty had of God to bring powerful revival to the land.

Revivals into the 21 Century

The year 2000 dawned with increasing reports of revival movements among the world’s 6 billion people.  The previous forty years saw the world’s population double.  What will the next 40 years bring?

Amid growing reports of social and physical upheavals, terrorism, the awful threat of nuclear holocaust, and the increase of epidemics of fatal diseases, reports of revivals continue to grow.  Independent churches in Africa, house churches in China, and grassroots communities in Latin America all experience amazing revival, amid persecutions.  Now revival reports continue to spread in the West also.  We too can cry out to God for mercy and revival as we humble ourselves, pray, repent and seek God. 

This past century began with many thousands of prayer groups seeking God.  Revivals broke out across the globe, the best known being the mighty Welsh revival of 1904-5 which sparked so many other revival movements.  A year later prayer groups in Los Angeles saw the disturbing and powerful Azusa Street revival break out.  Both these revivals impacted countless lives in quite different ways.  Both issued in Spirit-filled evangelism and mission which spread around the globe.

The Welsh revival impacted 100,000 people for God.  Azusa Street touched thousands more from a little meeting in an old barn crowded when they had 500 people.  Yet the 500 million Pentecostal and charismatic movement in the world now usually acknowledges it’s roots in that revival.

Now a single crusade with Reinhard Bonnke may reach more than 500,000 people in Africa.  David Yonggi Cho’s church in Seoul, Korea, has over 800,000 and has impacted thousands more and planted other huge churches.  Over 100,000 people have encountered God recently in Toronto and more than 100,000 have made commitments to God in Pensacola.

Like the rippling waves from a boulder dropped into a pond, these waves of revival have spread worldwide.  And we have heard only a little of the amazing accounts of revival movements in China, Africa, Latin America, India or the island nations!

God said, “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh.”  The year 2000 and another millennium are now set to see that fulfilled more than ever before in history.   

Contemporary Witness

Unprecedented revival continues in China especially in house churches, in Africa especially in independent church movements, in Latin America especially in evangelical/pentecostal churches such as currently in Argentina, and in proliferating revival movements throughout the world.  All of these now involve powerful charismatic impacts of the Spirit of God and increasing awareness and use of the charismata.

Renewal and evangelism have increased throughout the nineties, even in the West.  Focal points for renewal and revival have included Toronto in Canada, Brompton in London, Sunderland in England, and Pensacola in America.  However, reports continue to multiply of renewed churches, empowered evangelism, and significant social involvement (such as crime rates significantly reduced in Sunderland and Pensacola).  David Barrett’s global research indicates that pentecostal/charismatic membership has grown from small beginnings early this century to over 460 million by 1995 and over 500 million now (Synan 1997: 281; Hollenweger 1998:42).

In Australia, the 1991 National Church Life Survey indicated that two thirds of church attenders were involved with or sympathetic to charismatic/pentecostal Christianity.  Charismatic congregations, whether denominational, independent or Pentecostal, continue to multiply, evagelise actively, and many have significant social caring programs. 

These indicators suggest a massive shift in global Christianity, which increasingly acknowledges and rediscovers charisma in revival.    It holds enormous promise for “the reshaping of religion in the twenty-first century” (Cox 1995).  Charisma in revival offers a paradigm in which differing denominational perspectives on charismatic Spirit movements may find common ground in evangelism, equipping of Christians for ministry, and in social reform.

References

Balcombe, D. (1991)  “Hong Kong and China Report.”  Hong Kong: Revival Christian Church.

Coleman, Robert (1970) One Divine Moment.  Old Tappan: Revell.

Cox, H.  (1995)  Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-first Century.  New York: Addison-Wesley.

Dunn, James D. G. (1970)  Baptism in the Holy Spirit.  London: S.C.M.

Evans, E.  (1969)  The Welsh Revival of 1904.  Bridgend: Evangelical Press.

Frodsham, S. H. (1946)  With Signs Following.  Springfield: Gospel Publishing House.

Gondarra, D.  (1991)  “Pentecost in Arnhem Land” in Waugh, G.  Church on Fire,

Melbourne: JBCE, pp. 14-19.

Green, M.  (1985)  I Believe in the Holy Spirit.  London: Hodder & Stoughton.

Greenfield, J.  (1927)  Power from on High.  Reprinted 1950, London: Christian Literature Crusade.

Griffin, S. C.  (1992)  A Forgotten Revival.  Bromley: One Day Publications.

Griffiths, A.  (1977)  Fire in the Islands.  Wheaton: Shaw.

Howard, P. E.  (1949)  The Life and Diary of David Brainerd. Edited by Jonathan Edwards.  Reprinted 1989. Grand Rapids: Baker.

Hollenweger, W. J.  (1998)  “Pentecostalism’s Global Language.”  Christian History, Issue 58, pp. 42-44.

Hyatt, E.  (1997)  200 Years of Charismatic Christianity.  Tulsa: Hyatt.

Idle, C. ed.  (1986)  The Journal of John Wesley.  Tring: Lion.

Koch, K.  (1968)  The Revival in Indonesia.  Grand Rapids: Kregel

McDonnell, Kilian & Montague, George, eds. (1991)  Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit.  New York: Paulist. 

Moody, W. R.  (1900)  The Life of D. L. Moody.  New York: Revell.

Overend,  R.  (1986)  The Truth will Set you Free.  Laurieton: S.S.E.M.

Pratney, W.  (1994)  Revival.  Lafayette: Huntington House.

Riss, Richard (1995)  The Worldwide Awakening of 1992-1995. http://www.grmi.org.renewal.Richard_Riss/history.html

Riss, Richard (1998) “Worldwide Awakening” in Renewal Journal #8: Awakening, page 31.

Stacy, J.  (1842)  The Great Awakening.  Reprinted 1989.  Edinburgh: Banner of Truth.

Synan, Vinson  (1997)  The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century.  Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Warfield, Benjamin  (1918)  Counterfield Miracles.  Carlile, PA.

Waugh, G.  (1991)  Church of Fire.  Melbourne: JBCE.                       

Waugh, G.  (1998, 2009)  Flashpoints of Revival.  Shippensburg: Revival Press.

Waugh, G. (2009)  Revival Fires, Global Awakening

Wessel, H. ed.  (1977)  The Autobiography of Charles Finney. Minneapolis: Bethany

Williams, Rodman  (1992)    Renewal Theology.  Grand Rapids; Zondervan. 

Worldwide Evangelization Crusade.  (1954)  This is That.  London: Worldwide Evangelization Crusade.

 

The story continues – see 21st Century Revivals in the South Pacific

See also individual accounts in Blogs Contents

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Travelling with Geoff, by Don Hill

Travelling with Geoff, by Don Hill

with colour photos

Travelling with Geoff – PDF

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From the Preface:

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 over simplifying 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

Table of Contents

Condensed versions of the chapters in bold type are included in these books:

Journey into Mission

Journey into Ministry and Mission

Pentecost on Pentecost and in the South Pacific

1. Chapter 1- The Seven Cities of Revelations (1987)

2. Chapter 2 – Mauritius and VW Kombi Vans (1989)

3. Chapter 3 – HCJB Heralding Christ Jesus Blessings (1991)

4. Chapter 4 – Burma Third Visit (1992)

5. Chapter 5 – Burma Fourth Visit (1992)

6. Chapter 6 – Burma Fifth Visit (1992)

7. Chapter 7 – China (1992)

8. Chapter 8 – Elcho Island (1994)

9. Chapter 9 – Rwanda (1994)

10. Chapter 10 – Solomon Islands First Visit (1994)

11. Chapter 11 – South Africa, Ghana, UK, Canada (1995)

12. Chapter 12 – Solomon Island Second Visit (1996)

13. Chapter 13 – South Africa (1996)

14. Chapter 14 – Brunei (1996)

15. Chapter 15 – Indonesia (1998)

16. Chapter 16 – Nepal, India, and Sri Lanka (1998)

17. Chapter 17 – Solomon Islands Third Visit (2003)

18. Chapter 18 – Brunei and Sarawak ( 2004)

19. Chapter 19 – Vanuatu First Visit (2004)

20. Chapter 20 – Vanuatu Second Visit (2005)

21. Chapter 21 – Vanuatu Third Visit (2005)

22. Chapter 22 – Solomon Islands Fourth Visit (2007)

23. Appendix 1 – Elcho Island

24. Appendix 2 – Nepal – Overseas Aid

25. Appendix 3 – Bhutan Refugees

Related Books

Some of Don’s chapters are condensed in these books by Geoff Waugh

Journey into Mission – Blog

Journey into Mission – PDF

Journey into Ministry and Mission – Blog

Journey into Ministry and Mission – PDF

Pentecost on Pentecost and in the South Pacific – Blog

Pentecost on Pentecost & in the South Pacific – PDF

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Some photos from the book

Turkey

Burma

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Ghana

Nepal

Nepal

Nepal

Nepal

Himalayas, Darjeeling, India

Darjeeling

Sri Lanka

Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands & sharks

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