Report: Quetta, Pakistan during the US Invasion of Afghanistan
During this extraordinary five-week trip in 2000, I experienced the indescribable. In Karachi I was driven from a Crusade meeting by an armed mob enraged because I repeatedly proclaimed that “Jesus is the Son of God” as the Holy Spirit performed miracles of healing in their midst. In Manipur my team and I enjoyed living quarters devoid of running water, a sink, a toilet to sit on. In Senapati I witnessed deaf-mutes hear and speak, the blind beginning to see, and countless other miracles as Jesus confirmed the gospel to thousands in open-air Crusade meetings.
Powerful storm threatening open-air meeting rebuked in Jesus’ name; splits in half
We saw storm, wind, and lightning turn away from our open-air meeting after we prayed and rebuked them in Jesus’ name. The storm touched down with fury a short distance to the north and south of us, leaving the skies over our heads calm. Later that evening after the preaching of the Word, showers of blessing fell as Jesus healed many sick people and souls came to Him.
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So many things cannot be recounted because of lack of space. But there were two things recurring throughout the trip I want to share with you. First, the Lord is doing a new thing. He is restoring His power for proclaiming the gospel to every believer. (Mark 16:15-20) In every city or town I visited the power to heal the sick and cast out demons was imparted to “ordinary” believers for the purpose of winning unbelievers to Christ. Miracles were multiplied as they laid hands on the sick in the name of Jesus.
Even the authority to minister “mass healing,” in which masses of sick people are miraculously healed through a single prayer, was imparted to some. Houston team members Steve Austin and Donna Rienstra began to minister in this way, as well as local preachers, who are now emboldened to hold their own mass crusades to win the multitudes of Pakistan and India. I am convinced that God desires to restore power and authority to every believer in order that we might complete the Great Commission without further delay. And He is doing so without regard to denomination, for great miracles were done through Baptist believers in the Crusade sponsored by STABU (Senapati Town Area Baptist Union, India).
Second, it is the Lord’s will to confirm the gospel He has given us to preach. “Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.” (Mark 16:20) As I preached the gospel in Crusades in Pakistan and India, the Lord performed miracles that astounded me. He made me keenly aware that my own faith in ministering to the sick had little to do with the powerful New Testament miracles I saw. But He did them simply because I preached the gospel of Jesus Christ. The miracles confirmed the gospel so that those who witnessed them could believe unto eternal life. “God so loved the world…” that He will graciously perform miracles to draw the lost to the gospel of Christ.
The response to this ministry of imparting the power to heal the sick to every believer for the sake of winning the lost was unanimous. Pastor S. M. S. of Karachi said “in his fifty years of ministry, he has never seen anything like it.” He has invited me to return next year for large Crusades in Karachi, Lahore, and Isl–mabad. Pastor Oliver Z. of the city of Quetta, a provincial capital of Pakistan, added, “Such a ministry has NEVER BEFORE been seen in Quetta…foreign evangelists usually come to our city and [through large evangelistic Crusades] serve us fish, but you have taught us how to fish.”
At the end of this trip to Pakistan, Pastor Oliver and his team took me from Quetta to an enclave of Hindus living in a remote area called Sibi a few hours drive through the arid desert near Afghanistan. A first-ever Evangelistic Crusade was planned. During the Crusade the Lord performed many miraculous healings among the Hindus, and many of them repented from idolatry to make Jesus Christ their Lord and Savior. A church was immediately planted in this previously unreached village. This church today is a vibrant congregation.
Below is Pastor Oliver’s 2008 report on that work.
“It has progressed like the church in Antioch in the book of Acts. The brother who arranged the meeting has graduated from an Assembly of God Bible School and running that church. In the year 2005 they started to construct a church building that could hold three hundred people. It was constructed within ten months without the support of any outside. Now almost three hundred people gather in this church. Now other students who have converted have completed their Bible School and are now doing evangelism in this biggest province of Balochistan.”
God is doing a new thing! This paralleled what the Lord did among the 500 believers representing thirty churches who attended the three-day Conference in Kalimpong, India, where I was the keynote speaker. Many were so encouraged by the authority for signs and wonders the Lord had given them that they committed themselves to serving the Lord as soul-winners to the precious souls who live around them. The Lord is doing a new thing!
Dr. Lorho P., a prominent Baptist community leader in Senapati and Manipur, asked us to return next year. On the last night in Senapati the local Baptist pastors and believers were overflowing with joy at the great miracles done through the believers resulting in an estimated 10,000 souls repenting from sin and inviting Jesus to rule over their town as their King.