God Does it Again

God never ceases to amaze us as we work for him overseas. A few days agao a man walked up to me and began to share his testimony. A few months ago he had come to me after a service and asked for special prayer. He was in a difficult financial situation (which is not uncommon here) and he asked me to pray that he would get a new job that would help him meet his financial obligations. I laid hands on him and prayed in faith, but, as often happens, I didn’t think of him again until he approached me this week. He told me that 10 days after I prayed for him one of the largest celluar phone companies in the country called him. To make a long story short, they offered him a job as a manager over their operations in 3 cities! It is rare for a Christian to be offered such a high position, but as always, God met the need! This was truly a blessing to be reminded that He does all things well!

A Hard Day Ahead

Early this morning one of the elders of the work in this country passed away. He had been in the hospital for 3 days on a ventilator while all of the family traveled home from around the world. Brother Javaid lived next door to us and we have become freinds with his family. He was an important part of the work of God in this country for many years and will be greatly missed. The funeral will be today and we need you all to keep his family in your prayers.

Holy Ghost Rain

We had another powerful service last night. We were with a pastor who is celebrating 20 years of pastoring his church. He told me that he was in the middle of a 20 day revival where he wanted to see 20 get the Holy Ghost. I was with him Sunday and we had 6 receive God’s wonderful gift. Last night I preached again and another 8 received God’s spirit!

 

I believe there were actually more how received it, but there were 8 who testified of receiving. So over the past 18 days he has now had 28 receive the Holy Ghost! We are thrilled about what God is doing.

 

And it is definitely God doing the work. While I was preaching last night the pastor kept interrupting me to tell me how much time he would let me keep preaching. It was a constant break in my focus. When I was talking the people through what was going to happen at the altar call, the pastor took the mic from my interpreter and started his own altar call. The whole thing made me rather upset. He had asked me to come to pray a prayer of faith and then was doing everything he could to distract and disrupt me.  

 

When the pastor finished his speech then he wanted me to lay hands on people. So, I asked God for forgiveness for my carnal attitude and I prayed that in spite of me and my bruised ego that God would do a work among the people.

 

I know this is not a great indicator of anything but as I laid my hands on people they immediately began speaking in tongues and were slain in the spirit. The first 4 ladies I touched (not man-handled but I simply put my thumb on their foreheads) instantly fell backwards talking in tongues. In all there were 8 who testified of receiving the Holy Ghost for the first time and another 9 who were refilled and slain in the spirit as the power of God touched them.

 

Thank God, not only for this display of his power, but that he once again has reminded me He is the one who deserves all the credit for any successes we have while serving Him.

Better then a Golden Calf

Over the last few weeks we have heard two awesome stories about the dedication of some of our pastors. Both of these events took place about 20 years ago but the stories are still inspiring. In one instance a local pastor was raising funds to build a larger church building. As he was casting vision the Holy Ghost moved into that place and the pastor asked for an offering to help see the vision completed. 75% of the people in this country live on less then $2 per day, so money is not often available for such offerings. However, people were so moved that they began to take off all of their gold jewelry and put it in the offering plates. Enough money was raised in that service to complete the building project!Last night, another pastor told us that he has been leading his church for 20 years now. He explained that when he began he had no money for a church or a house. So he and his wife took all of their golden jewelry and sold it for about $50. 20 years ago I guess that was enough for a small home and they bought a house and started to hold services in the building. Today they are still in that building running 3 adult services and one Sunday School service every Sunday morning. The church is about 12′ by 50′ and between the 3 adult services they would have about 400-500 people!

When I heard these stories I was reminded of Exodus 32 where Aaron explains to Moses how the people of God had taken golden jewelry from the spoils of Egypt and melted it down to make a golden calf to worship. As far as I am concerned, if people are going to be giving up their jewelry, 2 churches is better then a golden calf any day!

Another Exciting Sunday

Tomorrow will be an exciting day. We are preaching at the local church and are expecting to see some great miracles. After the service we are planning to go on a safari tour. It isn’t anything like the safaris we were on in Kenya, but it is more of a zoo that you drive through with the animals roaming free. I guess there are 2 lions and a few tigers.

 

The real excitement comes from the visitors. We were told that most weeks you can watch people get out of there cars and try to walk up to the tigers to get a picture! I guess people have been killed and seriously injured from their own stupidity. Sounds like a fun way to spend an afternoon to me!

 

Our Miracle

Most of you have probably read this in our newsletter but I know not all of you receive it.

 

     In January, we had to travel to the capital city for a visa extension.  Since we had already gotten an extension on our one month visa, we were unsure if we were able to further extend our stay.  If our application was not accepted, it would have meant returning to Canada. Many of the Pakistani saints joined with us in prayer for this matter and we left it in God’s hands.  In fact, without telling anyone of our need, we were chosen for focused prayer on the World Network of Prayer the same week we were applying for our extensions.  On Tuesday, January 29, we went into the visa office to pass in our application.  God’s hand was on these events from the very beginning.  Each person is given a number for their place in line. We were given #1!  When we arrived back at the office, we were able to sit in the first row of seats even though there were several people already seated.  Then, when the officials arrived, we were granted our extension within a few minutes.  While waiting for the appropriate signatures to be signed, we realized that we had been the only visa extensions granted by the gentleman that we had talked to. God was certainly in control! “Thank you” to all of those who prayed with us concerning this matter. 

A Great Day

I’ve been so busy this week I forgot to share the story about last Sunday. We were in service with one of the local pastors, I will post more about him in the next few days, for 2 services on Sunday. It was a great day. In the first service we had more then a dozen receive miracles of healing. During the second service 6 received the baptism of the Holy Ghost! It was very exciting. I didn’t even give an altar call during the second service. I was getting ready to give the call and asked people to worship God in anticipation for what would happen and the next thing I knew the place was going nuts! People just started talking in tongues as the power of God came into that place. It was one of the best days I’ve had so far! Thanks to everyone who is praying for us, you can take a lot of credit for the blessings we are seeing!

My Blog CD

I received a note from a friend encouraging me to find my Blog CD. It’s a fun thing that creates a fake band and album cover from your Blog posts.

Here’s how it works:

1. Band Name – The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. Album Title – The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. Album Cover Art – The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

 So without further adieu, here is my Blog CD: More Unhygenic and Dirty by A New Adventure!

Valentine’s Across the World

In case you were wondering what valentine’s is like half way around the world, the answer is that it is very much like home. Mandy and I went out to a fancy restaurant and had a nice meal. The price of a small bouqet of flowers which is usually 2 dollars is marked up to 60 dollars in some cases.

There were a few differences. I spent the majority of the day in a General Board meeting ad the recording secretary as the usual secretary could not make it. Then, on the way to the restaurant, we got a flat tire on the van. Then to top it off, when we got to the restaurant it was too full for us to dine in. We didn’t think to make reservations as we were told Valentine’s is “Un-Islamic” and that “no one celebrated” the day here. Anyway, Mandy got a trip to the spa and I’m on high-speed internet right now while I wait for her so it has been a good day for both of us.

Teens

Often on this blog I have mentioned the stark contrasts between life here and life at home. However, there are many things that are surprisingly consistent. In today’s newspaper there was a large article about how young people in our city will be celebrating Valentine’s Day. Many of their comments made the article sound as though the respondents were living in Canada. One comment really stuck out to me. Local universities have banned the use of cell phones on school grounds and one student is quoted as saying the “ban on cell phones in the educational institutions has made life hell for students.” To me, that sounded just like a Canadian teenager. I’m not sure of all the social implications but I think it is interesting that Teens around the world define ‘hell’ as not being able to use a cell phone. Maybe the recent surge of cell phone use is fulfillment of the scripture “hell has enlarged herself”.