“Thank you so much for your intercessory and financial support.  I wanted to share a very interesting testimony regarding an uneducated and illiterate woman.

Toward the end of January 2021 Purnima Sabitri, living in an unreached Fundamentalist Hindu region, was miraculously delivered from demons. She accepted Christ and without delay was baptized. She began witnessing for Jesus. (See God uses brand-new believer to perform extraordinary miracle and to witness for Jesus BOLDLY.)

A few days later sick and demonized people began coming to her home. Many were healed and delivered from demons. (If she had to deal with something difficult, she would call me.) More and more people started coming to her from her village as well as from a nearby village. By the grace of God, many of them accepted Jesus Christ.

Purnima started a house church in her home, and now every evening between twelve and fifteen people would gather for teaching and prayer. Since she is illiterate, her daughter would read from the Bible for her. Purnima also calls us for prayer. In this way, she has reached three villages as she testifies about the Lord’s power to heal, deliver, and save.

Yesterday Purnima brought fifteen of her new believers to our home—far away from her village. We had prayer with them, and encouraged Purnima to continue growing in the Lord.

In India women, especially among the Hindus, are very attached to their culture and related religious traditions. But thank God for Sister Purnima whom He has chosen to follow and serve Him.

Please pray for Purnima and her new ministry.”

Elijah Challenge Co-Worker in India
June 10, 2021

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Why doesn’t something like this take place more often? An explanation is provided down below.
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Purnima Sabitri standing second from the right

Why this doesn’t happen with disciples today

First let’s understand how the Lord used Purnima Sabitri after she accepted Jesus.
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“Purnima, who had recently been delivered from a legion of demons and accepted Jesus for only 18 to 20 days, called us to share about something most extraordinary.

A month ago a young man she knew had broken his lower back in an accident, and had been taken to the district hospital of the town of Bhawanipatna, but due to the severity of the injury was advised to go for more advanced treatment at the hospital in the city of Cuttack. Following treatment there he was told to go home. He was to take prescription medication along with complete bed rest for three months. He was ordered not to stand up—or even sit up in bed.

One day our brand-new believer Purnima went to see him. Without saying a word, she laid her hand on him and commanded healing in the name of Jesus Christ—just as she had seen us doing when ministering to the sick.

Astonishingly, within a few minutes the young man sat up in bed. His mother who was present rushed to him and scolded him for disobeying the doctor’s orders for complete bedrest—no sitting or standing. Purnima shared with her about how Jesus had delivered her from the legion of demons.

The young man said that while Purnima ministered to him he felt someone touch him and help him to sit up. Then he got up out of bed and began to walk around slowly.

Purnima had accepted Jesus only a few weeks ago and knew very little about the Lord. But God graciously used her. Soon she was sharing her testimony with many Hindus. Glory to God!”
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Note that Purnima, a brand-new believer, had never been exposed to the tradition of praying to God for the sick—as nearly all Christians are. All she knew was what she observed our trained co-worker do when he healed the sick: laying his hand on the sick and commanding healing in Jesus’ name. Therefore that is exactly what she did for the bedridden young man. In this way the Lord used her to perform a powerful miracle.

In the gospels Jesus never taught his disciples to pray to God for the sick and then to leave the results up to Him—as is done traditionally in the Church today. Rather he taught his disciples to heal the sick using the authority and power he had given them.

Therefore when we teach disciples today, we must focus on and emphasize the crucial difference between the tradition of praying for the sick and actually healing the sick as Jesus taught and commanded his disciples to do. This includes teaching disciples today the correct terminology: they are not “to pray for” the sick, but rather “to heal the sick”.

Someday those we train today will become trainers themselves. Therefore we must train them as precisely as possible; otherwise those they train in the future can fall short.

An illustration of this: if a sniper wants to take out a target 3,000 meters away, his aim must be precisely on the target. But if he is just one degree off the target, by the time the bullet reaches the target 3,000 meters away, it will miss the target by many meters.