San Cristobal is on the western border of Venezuela
August 2001
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“Yesterday I returned from a five-day trip to San Cristobal, Venezuela, where I participated in an historic Congress on Unity. For the first time in the history of the city (perhaps in the country), over 300 pastors and leaders from different denominations and traditions came together in one accord for the sake of reaching the city. Also participating in this Congress were several pastors and leaders from Houston, among them Dr. Charles Wisdom of First Baptist Church Katy, Jim Herrington of Mission Houston, and Dr. Doug Hodo, President of Houston Baptist University.
During the daytime, different workshops centering on unity in the Body of Christ were offered to the Congress participants. I was given the privilege of teaching the pastors and leaders how to minister healing to the sick for the sake of the gospel—power is unleashed when believers come together in unity for the gospel. During these sessions, God’s healing power flowed through some of these pastors and leaders to heal the sick.
In the evenings, we held evangelistic crusades in a local baseball stadium. Dr. Wisdom preached the gospel on two nights, and we rejoiced to see hundreds of precious souls stream forward to the platform as he invited them to receive Christ. Afterwards, I went up to the stage and from the podium invited those who needed healing to come forward for healing prayer. Again, many came forward to trust the Lord for their healing. The pastors and leaders I had trained in the Congress were there to lay hands on them in the name of Jesus. The Lord proved gracious, and people came up to the podium to report to the crowd what they had experienced. Some of the testimonies from the two evenings….
A woman who had a fibroid tumor in her womb could not longer find or feel the growth. A man who was totally blind and severely hearing-impaired was now able to see the full moon suspended over the stadium in the sky. When my interpreter asked him a question, he could hear clearly, jerking his head away as if it was now too loud! A woman’s face had been paralyzed on her right side. But she said she was almost completely healed! A man with AIDS said his symptoms had disappeared and believed he was healed of the disease. A boy who had been severely pigeon-toed came up to the platform with his feet pointing straight ahead! A mother carried a young boy up to the platform and reported that her son’s foot had been flat and had no arch. But the Lord healed the boy’s foot. I looked at his foot and saw a normal arch! A woman had come to the stadium with a tumor in her breast. But after the healing prayer she could not longer find it; it had vanished! A man had come to the meeting suffering from both depression and the entire right side of his body without feeling. But during the ministry time, normal feeling was restored to his body, and he also felt he was delivered from his depression! (There were others who were also miraculously healed as well as those who were not healed.)
The name of the Lord Jesus was glorified those evenings as precious souls were saved, healed, and delivered. The key ingredients to these glorious meetings were: unity of the Body of Christ; fervent, focused, and united prayer; the preaching of the gospel; and an understanding of how to operate in public power encounters (signs and wonders). The pastors and leaders of San Cristobal have taken a big step forward in reaching their city for Jesus Christ!”
Jim Herrington, Founder of Mission Houston and Baptist leader, made an intriguing remark to me at the airport on the way home to Houston about the miracles which had taken place during the Crusades.
“Brother,” Jim quipped, “that was just like a Baptist healing service. Problem is, there’s no such thing as a Baptist healing service. But if there were, it would be just like that!”