Report by Albert Kang, Coordinator, Elijah Challenge Asia
Dhaka
Note: Bangladesh follows primarily the religion of the prophet M originally from the Middle East
On 15th February 2014, my wife Grace and I held a concise Elijah Challenge training with the congregation of The House Church of Bangladesh in the city of Dhaka. The pastor is Pastor James Jipu Roy. In a simple sanctuary that was covered with mats and a couple of Persian carpet, the Church members worshiped with great exuberance. As the time allotted was short, I explained from Luke 9 and 10 about power and authority that were given to the disciples. And emphasized that “today, we have the same God- given power and authority”.
The participants were very receptive to the message. When it was time for the healing demonstration, The Lord filled my heart with thrill and joy. Somehow, watching the reaction of these believers, I knew that The Lord would honor His promise to heal. As the infirm stood to receive healing, I explained to those believers about the necessity to forgive the hurts, bitterness, hatred, pain and misunderstanding before they could receive healing. Pastor James led them in a prayer of confession and repentance. Those who were doing the healing were shown how to lay hands and command the diseases to go in the name of Jesus. The healing session then began with great enthusiasm. After the first command, people were being healed. Then, their faith continued to soar, more people were healed. They came forward, giving glory to the Lord for their miracles. Many were in tears. Some were in disbelief that their pain was gone. A man approached me to say that he had no faith in believing that his wife would be healed. A few moments after his negative comment, his wife was healed, from the top of the head to the bottom of the feet. Pastor James was so excited that such miracles actually happened when his members laid hands on the infirm and commanded healing. Praise God for this first night of service at this church in Dhaka.
The second night in Dhaka was filled with miracles. This was the Healing Service where people from other religions also attended. By their dress code, we could roughly guess which religion they were from. The sanctuary was crowded with mostly ladies. All the men sat to one corner. In their culture, the husbands do not sit with their wives and daughters. They did not sit on chairs but on the floor which was covered with mats and a Persian carpet. With Pastor James interpreting, I shared the Creation Story, explaining about the source of Sin and how everybody was affected. Then I carefully emphasized about the love of God and His way of salvation through His only Son, Jesus Christ. I challenged the visitors from other religions to accept God’s only Son as their Savior. It was a wonderful sight to see those hands being raised. Pastor James then led them in a prayer of salvation.
After that, I continued with the story of the woman with the issue of blood. How by faith, she pushed the crowd to touch the hem of the garment of Christ. The people responded to message and many stood up for healing. The trained believers responded rapidly and moved to stand in front of all those who wanted to be healed. As the commands rang out, the people echoed them with much faith. Then the results of the faith commands began to come in. People were being healed.
After the service a young man from another religion asked me to pray for his memory so that he could study well. Before I prayed for Him, The Holy Spirit revealed that this young man was ready to be saved. I took time to explain the Gospel to him while his friend interpreted with fervor. When it came to the crucial moment for the salvation decision, he happily said that he wanted Jesus to be his Savior. As I led him in the salvation prayer, he repeated after the interpreted version offered by his friend. The reason why this young man was so receptive to the salvation message was because during the healing session, he was healed of pain in his neck and back which had affected him for a long time.
When we were about to leave the Church, we met a young agnostic. He was receptive to the Gospel message but had many intelligent questions. Thankfully, he was satisfied with all the answers that I gave. After the session, he asked whether he could hug me. Praise God for the seeds of the Gospel that were being sown into the life of this young man.
House Church Of Bangladesh, Post Box No – 6132, Gulshan, Dhaka- 1212, Bangladesh
Please click below for more exciting reports from Albert’s mission trip to Bangladesh