Papar District, State of Sabah, Malaysia
August 2013
The Elijah Challenge Training was taught over two very full days of meetings in Sabah, a state in East Malaysia. The Training event was hosted by Evangelical Assembly of Borneo (SIB) in the town of Papar, just outside of the city of Kota Kinabalu. The physical conditions in this hot region could be relatively difficult for outsiders.
The challenges in Papar are mostly from the religion centered in the Middle East—the official religion of Malaysia. Malay people are born into this religion and by law cannot convert to any other religion, especially what is known as “Christianity.”
Each day I met with the believers who had gathered from different churches for three training sessions in the morning and afternoon followed by an evangelistic healing service in the evening. The teaching was eye-opening for the believers inasmuch as it followed New Testament Scripture closely and when applied actually resulted in miraculous healings.
Dying man in coma regains consciousness
During the final session which included teaching on healing at a distance as Jesus performed in Luke 7, something remarkable took place. We were applying the teaching by having the believers minister healing via mobile telephone to infirm people who were not actually present in the meeting. A man in the church lay dying in the ICU of a local hospital. He had been in a coma for two weeks, and the doctor had given him no hope. They were literally waiting for him to die. An elder present at the session in the church called his son who was at the dying man’s side, physically separated from him by a glass partition. Over the mobile phone the elder issued authoritative commands to the dying man in the name of Jesus Christ.
Not long after that later that day the elder received the news that the dying man had regained consciousness!
During the two evening evangelistic healing services, the Lord’s healing power was evident. After I preached the gospel the trained disciples stepped forward to heal the infirm. People were healed and stepped up to the stage to testify and give the glory to Jesus Christ. The miracles were the proof that Jesus had authority to forgive sin and that He was in fact the only way to the Father.
Now the disciples are going to reach out to the lost using the weapons they have just been taught to use. They will especially target the Malay people who by law must remain in the religion into which they were born. The Lord has already granted us wisdom how to reach such people effectively and fruitfully in the neighboring country of Indonesia—which has the largest population of such adherents of any country in the world.