Carl trained with The Elijah Challenge in 2006, and after that served as a very fruitful missionary and Senior Pastor of Baguio International Church in the Philippines. Carl and his family are now back in Texas. He shared the following testimony in January 2009.
A testimony of persistence with mountain-moving faith
“I want to tell you a story about using The Elijah Challenge in the USA four years ago. We earned our Elijah Challenge and Way of the Master experience at home preaching on the streets of Houston, Galveston, and Dallas, Texas, and Mexico. These were our “Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria” before we went to “the ends of the earth” in Asia. (Acts 1:8)
My 84-year-old mother was a bedridden Alzheimer patient. She had not walked in over four months, and had not eaten solid food in over a month. The hospice people said she was dying. We drove a long distance to say our last goodbyes to her but I came with a plan to use God’s authority and the name of Jesus to heal her.
After my family sang hymns, ministered to her and loved on her, they left the room in tears. There was a dark, palpable spirit of death in the room. I ministered the Elijah Challenge “A-bomb” to her for over an hour continuously, taking authority many times over her many symptoms—those I could remember or that she could tell me about. She experienced some gradual improvement in some lesser symptoms: headache, blurry vision, and weakness, etc. I also explained to her God’s authority to heal her, while I rubbed lotion on her painful feet. I did this to show my love for her and so that she could believe also.
She was in and out of consciousnesses during this time. I continued speaking to her and rebuking the disease. I even rebuked the spirit of death many times.
Many, many times I continued to command healing to her from head to toe, and at the end of an hour she said she felt tingling and warmth in her legs. At that point, I commanded her to get up and walk in Jesus name! I helped her to her feet and walked her around her room. At first she walked slowly, but within five minutes with confidence and without help. She walked into the living room with me holding her hand (she said “I was her date”) and continued on to the dining room table where she sat down. She announced, no longer whispering faint words, that she was hungry and wanted to eat “real food.”
My shocked family could not believe what they were seeing. My mother’s face was even glowing and had color. The deathly pallor was gone and her voice was strong.
My sister who is her caretaker said, “What did you do?” I told her, “God healed her.” They made her dinner and she ate heartily and she followed it up with a big piece of pie. She then walked to a chair in the living room and sat down with my 3-year-old son, her grandson. They sat together, talked and watched TV; he was meeting her for the first time. After an hour she announced she was tired and wanted to go back to bed. We helped her from the chair and she walked back to bed for a nap.
The next day she was still walking around the house and eating by herself. She was actually getting into the refrigerator and frustrating my poor sister. When we left for our long drive home she wanted to come out on the porch to see us off. We hugged her and left her standing at the door as we drove away.
That was four years ago. She went from her deathbed to a nuisance in about an hour because of the The Elijah Challenge A-bomb. My sister tells me that at 89 years old, she is going downhill again with Alzheimer’s disease and is more in bed than out. However, she already has had four more years of life because of the authority and power of Jesus’ name. She says now “she is tired and is ready to go home to the Lord.”
Long story made short, don’t give up. No one in my family believed after we viewed her terrible condition that she would live—let alone be healed. She was obviously dying; in fact, it was hard to keep from weeping at the sight of her. I still hoped and believed she could be healed. Someone who believes with “Mountain-Moving Faith” is more than enough for God. It took some perseverance but our God was and is faithful.”
If you believe you will see the glory of the Lord.” John 11:40
– Pastor Carl Henderson Former Missionary to the Philippines