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July 2014
For three evenings we trained Tamil believers in Malaysia whose roots are in Tamil Nadu, a state at the southernmost trip of India. They (or their forbears) left India and migrated to Malaysia in search of a better life. After coming to Malaysia they came to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, leaving behind all their Hindu gods. Some also have come from a Muslim background.
Pastor Henry Liew was our host here in Ipoh and the Director of the Foursquare Churches in Malaysia. The city of Ipoh is about 2.5 hours north of Kuala Lumpur by car.
Our challenge was to train the Tamil believers and mobilize them to go back to India on mission trips to hold evangelistic healing Feeding Events in unreached villages. Such ministry is already being done very fruitfully in India by our co-workers Subodh Kumar Jena in Orissa and Simon Haqq in North India.
According to Pastor Henry, it has been difficult to get the Tamil believers in leave the comfort of Malaysia to go back to India to preach the gospel to their own people. There are also excuses not to obey the Lord’s Great Commission.
And so for three nights we taught them The Elijah Challenge, training them how to heal the sick to confirm to gospel-resistant peoples that our God is the only true God and that Jesus is the only way to Him. At the same time we strongly encouraged them to take the gospel back to India, giving them cogent reasons to obey the Lord—especially looking ahead to the Judgment Seat of Christ where each believer will receive their eternal reward from Jesus according to what they have done for Him, whether good or bad (2 Corinthians 5:10).
The Lord graciously enabled us to use the Scriptures powerfully to train the Tamil believers, and infirm people were healed as the believers laid hands on them during the demonstrations. The Lord was stirring in them by His Spirit.
On the final and third evening one of the women leaders brought two Hindu women along with the son of one of them. The young man had shuttered himself in his room and not bathed in a month because of severe oppression by an unclean spirit. The family said that if the young man could be set free, they would all follow Jesus. During the time of ministry at the end of the evening, one of the pastors ministered to the young man. He was wearing charms (one around his neck and another around a wrist) to ward off evil spirits but refused to take them off. Consequently he felt no change as the pastor ministered to him. Generally the Lord will not manifest his power to heal and deliver unless such abominable objects are first removed.
Then the young man was brought to us. We told him again that he needed to remove the charms. His mother told him to remove the charms for us to minister to him, and afterwards he could always put them back on. He agreed, and the charms were cut off.
Then we along with two leaders rebuked the spirit forcefully in the name of Jesus Christ, commanding it to leave the young man. Afterwards he said that he felt better. We ministered a second time after which he said that he felt OK. He and the two Hindu ladies then accepted Jesus Christ. The charm would not go back on.
There was another young man who had a problem with his wrist going down into his hand and fingers. Two of our team members had already ministered to him at length without any change—he was also wearing a red charm around the wrist just like the first young man. We asked him to remove it. He agreed, and it was cut off.
Then holding his wrist we rebuked the pain and the infirm spirit in Jesus’ name. We could feel tiny pulses of movement in his wrist as we ministered. It was the healing power of Jesus Christ. When we were done he said that his wrist and hand were fine, and he also accepted the Lord as well.
Other infirm people were also healed during the evening, and they each testified. One woman was either so dizzy or weak in her legs that she could barely stand at the front without holding on to something. Her vision was also blurry. But after a Tamil sister ministered to her, she was walking back and forth normally, and she could see normally.
During those three evenings the Lord did much through His word and through miraculous healings to encourage His people to obey the Great Commission by going back to India to preach the gospel, to heal the sick, and to plant new churches.
A Tamil Woman’s Encounter with the Living God in Malaysia
During our day off Brother Nagu drove us up to the mountains of Cameron Highlands over an hour away to escape the heat of daytime Malaysia and enjoy some cool air. One of his fellow pastors in the Ipoh Foursquare Church, Sister Patsy, had an older sister named Molly who lived with her husband in the Highlands. Patsy asked us to visit her and to pray with her, and told Molly that people would be coming to see her.
After a healthy and satisfying lunch at a “Steamboat” Restaurant in the Highlands where you boil your own food in a common pot in the middle of the round table, we dropped by Molly’s home. Molly’s background was Tamil Indian from the state of Tamil Nadu. She lived in a very nice home, and her husband Nathan was the manager of a large and successful strawberry and vegetable farm in the area.
After a long round of pleasantries, we asked if we could pray with her. She shared with us that she suffered from constant pain in her shoulders and upper arms due to insufficient calcium in her bones which made them brittle. Her doctor had given her medication.
It happened that their daughter-in-law in Luxembourg was about to give birth, and they were about to leave on a long international flight to visit her and their son. But Molly was very apprehensive about going on such a long trip while suffering from such a painful condition.
Teammate Effie Remmel and we laid hands on her shoulders and upper arms, rebuking the pain and commanding her to be healed in the name of Jesus Christ. She felt some relief. Then we ministered to her a second time. She then felt the tangible healing power of the Lord come upon her body. Weeping she raised her arms to heaven and cried out to the Lord, thanking Him and giving praise to Him. The pain had completely disappeared and she was able to move her arms about freely—just moments earlier she had been unable to extend her arms all the way behind her back without pain.
Brother Nagu shared the gospel with Molly, and then she prayed to Jesus Christ to accept Him as Lord and Savior. The Lord had visited her and touched her deeply—soul, spirit and body.
We then challenged her to invite her friends to her home where Brother Nagu could come from Ipoh to preach the gospel to them, heal their sick, and minister to them. She agreed.
We believe that a new Foursquare Church is going to be planted soon starting in Molly’s home. For years Brother Nagu has been praying to the Lord for an opportunity to plant a Tamil church in Cameron Highlands. The Lord has begun to answer his prayer.
Below is a map of Southeast Asia showing West Malaysia within the square.
