Forty Days in India and Pakistan
During this extraordinary five-week trip, I experienced the indescribable. In Karachi I was driven from a Crusade meeting by an armed mob enraged because I repeatedly proclaimed that "Jesus is the Son of God" as the Holy Spirit performed miracles of healing in their midst. In Manipur my team and I enjoyed living quarters devoid of running water, a sink, a toilet to sit on. In Senapati I witnessed deaf-mutes hear and speak, the blind beginning to see, and countless other miracles as Jesus confirmed the gospel to thousands in open-air Crusade meetings. We saw storm, wind, and lightning turn away from our open-air meeting after we prayed and rebuked them in Jesus' name. The storm touched down with fury a short distance to the north and south of us, leaving the skies over our heads calm. Later that evening after the preaching of the Word, showers of blessing fell as Jesus healed many sick people and souls came to Him.
So many things cannot be recounted because of lack of space. But there were two things recurring throughout the trip I want to share with you. First, the Lord is doing a new thing. He is restoring His power for proclaiming the gospel to every believer. (Mark 16:15-20) In every city or town I visited the power to heal the sick and cast out demons was imparted to "ordinary" believers for the purpose of winning unbelievers to Christ. Miracles were multiplied as they laid hands on the sick in the name of Jesus. Even the authority to minister "mass healing," in which masses of sick people are miraculously healed through a single prayer, was imparted to some. Houston team members Steve Austin and Donna Rienstra began to minister in this way, as well as local preachers, who are now emboldened to hold their own mass crusades to win the multitudes of Pakistan and India. I am convinced that God desires to restore power and authority to every believer in order that we might complete the Great Commission without further delay. And He is doing so without regard to denomination, for great miracles were done through Baptist believers in the Crusade sponsored by STABU (Senapati Town Area Baptist Union, India). Second, it is the Lord's will to confirm the gospel He has given us to preach. "Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it." (Mark 16:20) As I preached the gospel in Crusades in Pakistan and India, the Lord performed miracles that astounded me. He made me keenly aware that my own faith in ministering to the sick had little to do with the powerful New Testament miracles I saw. But He did them simply because I preached the gospel of Jesus Christ. The miracles confirmed the gospel so that those who witnessed them could believe unto eternal life. "God so loved the world..." that He will graciously perform miracles to draw the lost to the gospel of Christ.
The response to this ministry of imparting the power to heal the sick to every believer for the sake of winning the lost was unanimous. Pastor S. M. S. of Karachi said "in his fifty years of ministry, he has never seen anything like it." He has invited me to return next year for large Crusades in Karachi, Lahore, and Isl--mabad. Pastor Oliver Z. of the city of Quetta, a provincial capital of Pakistan, added, "Such a ministry has NEVER BEFORE been seen in Quetta…foreign evangelists usually come to our city and [through large evangelistic Crusades] serve us fish, but you have taught us how to fish." God is doing a new thing! This paralleled the response of the 500 believers representing thirty churches who attended the three-day Conference in Kalimpong, India, where I was the keynote speaker. Many were so encouraged by the authority for signs and wonders the Lord had given them that they committed themselves to serving the Lord as soul-winners to the precious souls who live around them. The Lord is doing a new thing!
Dr. Lorho P., a prominent Baptist community leader in Senapati and Manipur, asked us to return next year. On the last night in Senapati the local Baptist pastors and believers were overflowing with joy at the great miracles done through the believers resulting in an estimated 10,000 souls repenting from sin and inviting Jesus to rule over their town as their King.
Manipur: March 2000
Historic Mission Trip to Manipur, North India
March 2000In 1894 Bill and Elizabeth Pettigrew, American Baptist missionaries from Ireland, brought the gospel to the spirit-worshipping headhunters of Manipur who inhabited the northeast corner of India. Their initial foray brought them to the Mao people, one of several Naga tribes who originated from China many centuries ago. The Mao people rejected the Pettigrews and their gospel message. Eventually they turned to a neighboring Naga tribe called the Tangkul who welcomed the gospel. When the Tangkul gave up their animistic practices to enter into a personal relationship with Christ, God blessed them with a standard of living and health that became the envy of their neighbors, the Maos. Eventually many Mao people accepted Christianity to get these outward benefits without understanding the priority of spiritual regeneration. The anticipated benefits didn't materialize and the Mao people remained backward and weak. Seventy years later…
The four of us settled into our front-row seats in the cavernous Mao church in Manipur, India. The large choir of Mao women had assembled directly in front of us. The Mao people had written a special song to honor and welcome us to their village. As they began to sing, an unforgettably haunting wail pierced my heart. Translated into English, their words were…
Among the races God created
He gave the white man…
Love and the desire to love
To herald the gospel of Jesus
To all four corners of the earth…Despising their very own lives
To bring the gospel of life to the Mao people
They come bringing the good newsBut our revered forefathers
Did not accord them happy welcome
Therefore our ancestors
Lived a life of head-hunting
Not seeking the Giver of Life
But the boast of worldly livingThis is why the Mao tribe
Suffers backwardness and weakness…
Today we look forward
To the kind visit by you
We wait to welcome you
You who come to bestow with blessings to bless
May the Holy Spirit work healing in and through you…According to a Mao leader, by the late 1920s the Mao tribe knew they had made a mistake when they refused the white missionaries. But those who became Christians did so just to get material blessings from the Lord. And since they lacked solid Bible teaching their Christianity became just another thread in the fabric of their predominantly animistic culture. Their faith was lifeless, powerless, and institutionalized. To make things worse, the government had sealed off the area from foreigners because of violence between tribes. No foreign missionary had ever spent more than a day among the Mao people to teach them. But God had not forgotten them. In the Mao tribe He had kept a remnant of believers who would humble themselves before Him. Among them was a prominent medical doctor and his wife, Dr. Lorho and Apin.
These believers, the leaders of the churches, were convinced that the stubborn backwardness of their tribe was due to their ancestors' rejection of the gospel. They set aside land for a House of Prayer and a Prayer Mountain. During a week of prayer and fasting in 1994, these Mao leaders dedicated their entire tribe to God in repentance for the sin of their ancestors. The Lord heard their cries.
In October, 1999, God sent Brent K., Steve K., and their team from Window of Opportunity into the area. During this one-day trip they led the Mao leaders in a prayer service of identificational repentance to God for the sins of their ancestors. Brent repented on behalf of the British who had colonized the Nagas and the Maos on behalf of their forbears who had rejected the gospel. The curse was broken. The stage was set for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit during Window of Opportunity's return visit in March 2000.
God assembled a "special" team for the mission. Joining Brent and medical missionary Steve were Ann J. of the U. S. Center for World Mission and myself with The Elijah Challenge. The Maos always refer to missionaries as "the whites." They were surprised to see among "the whites" two missionaries who were not white but rather looked very much like them.
That first night, as I sat listening to the Mao women welcome us with their eerily beautiful hymn, I felt that God had brought us to the Mao people on an historic mission. "Today we look forward to the kind visit by you," they sang. "We wait to welcome you, you who come to bestow with blessings to bless. May the Holy Spirit work healing in and through you." They had waited decades for God to send someone to bring healing and restoration. Were we the ones?
The Maos had scheduled three full days of ministry for our team. Morning and afternoon we conducted outdoor crusades in a large field, and in the evenings the team split up to minister in different local churches. God poured out His Spirit in a way the Mao people had never seen. Thousands came forward, sometimes nearly every soul in a meeting, to give up animism and institutional religion to receive Christ as sole Lord and Savior. During these meetings, Steve K., Ann J., and local doctors conducted free medical clinics in a tent on the edge of the field.
Hundreds of people came forward during the meetings to be healed by Jesus of their infirmities. On the first day I stood in front of them and asked Jesus to show His power and grace to them. I asked the people to wave their hands at me if they had been healed after the prayer. A sea of hands went up to testify that the Holy Spirit had released His power. Immediately, people testified publicly about what the Lord had done. Young people said they had been delivered from the spirits of pornography, profanity, and depression.
On the morning of the third day, Brent K. and Simon Haqq ministered to a crowd of five to ten thousand people. Many of these came forward to receive the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Cripples were touched by the power of God and stood up to walk as the Holy Spirit came upon the people.
The climax of the three days for me was the last crusade meeting. We had come not just to win souls, but to set a revival fire that would spread after we left. At this meeting I taught about the impartation of God's power for all believers to preach the gospel. I invited those who wanted this power to come forward. Hundreds of Mao believers stepped forward. Laying my hands on each one according to 2 Timothy 1:6-7, I prayed for the impartation of the spirit of love, power, and a sound mind. I challenged them put to use immediately what God had just given them by faith. I asked those in the crowd with eyesight problems to come up for ministry by the believers. People streamed to the front. I instructed the newly-empowered believers, some of whom had just been saved during the meetings, to lay their hands on these blind and visually-impaired. In Mark 16:17-18 Jesus promises that believers will lay hands on the sick, and they will get well. In front of that great crowd of people, Jesus kept His word and performed powerful miracles through "ordinary" believers. Blind eyes were opened…people whose sight was severely impaired testified that they could now see clearly! The testimonies multiplied. The lame walked and other miracles took place as believers ministered in the name of Jesus. Among these believers was an exuberant Dr. Lorho. That day God equipped His Mao army to win souls with power.
God heard the believers who had come together in unity to repent and seek healing for their tribe. He sent us, giving us the privilege of bringing blessing, healing, and restoration. Let us pray that God will send more workers to the Mao people to help the leaders teach and disciple the believers in preparation for an even greater endtime harvest.
