Newly-saved upper-caste Hindus make up the foundation of more new church plants

Encouraging reports after our latest crusade in eastern Nepal continue to pour in. We had planned to start up one church, but because so many Hindus were saved in the mountain villages where no churches existed, the number of church plants is now growing. One of them is made up of about 20 upper-caste Hindus, the Brahmins. They were powerfully impacted by their encounter with Jesus and the unbelievable healings that either they or their loved ones experienced.

Death threats and bomb threats: the truth about the latest crusade

Dear friends,

Thank you for all of your prayers and encouragement. It’s been a few days since I came home, and now I can tell you a bit more about what really happened in eastern Nepal.

The truth is that the first bomb threat actually came two weeks before the crusade. The marketing campaign had just gotten underway when our coordinator got the first phone call. “Cancel this crusade or we will bomb it.” Was it a serious threat? Yes, absolutely, since only a few months have passed since a Catholic priest lost his life in a bombing.

But that wasn’t all. The pastors in the committee received death threats as well, which resulted in them backing out. Two weeks before the crusade nearly everyone had backed out. This led to big problems, because a crusade is built up around a leadership committee, where each leader represents a department. The department in its turn is responsible for different tasks based on a job description in the PTL Gospel Crusade Manual.

So we had to quickly call in people from Kathmandu whom we had worked with before, and so it continued. Letters were spread throughout the region that both threatened and slandered the purpose of the crusade.

That’s why there weren’t many people there on the first evening of the crusade. We had three levels of security. The local police collaborated with us, so they were there. We had also hired a private security force, and in addition there were some plainclothes former Maoist freedom fighters mixed in among the crowd.

When the first meeting started there weren’t more than 1000 visitors, and I would estimate that 90% were low-caste Hindus who had come down from the mountain villages. When I started to preach I felt the presence of Jesus right away, and the Holy Spirit and the anointing grew as the meeting went on, and when I finally invited them to pray the sinner’s prayer, everyone wanted to receive Jesus. They were incredibly willing, and when I started to pray for the sick in Jesus’ name more people were healed in proportion to the size of the crowd than I’ve ever seen, and it continued. Amazing healings like deformed feet that were turned to the correct position, eyes that were opened and as you’ll read further down, one woman had been healed was even able to report back that the doctors confirmed her healing.

Each evening more and more Hindus came, and Jesus really met them. However, each day the threats increased. But when Saturday came and the final meeting was over, none of the threats had been carried out.

What’s happening there now? Now we are starting a church in this place, and it is already underway. In the villages the pastors are following up the ones who got saved and we really stirred up something in eastern Nepal!

Nepal is the only country in the world where it is stated in the constitution that the country is to be a Hindu nation. Nepal is extremely poor and under-developed, and they need all kinds of help.

There are currently about 200 pastors in our network. They all have small churches and none of them has any training. Lots of churches are in the process of being established, but the problem is that the pastors have no training whatsoever. What they need is a helping hand, not just from PTL, but from many, many people.

We would like to reach in and help this network, with training, support and friendship. But it is a big step to be responsible for so many people. We are asking for resources: we know that if we can help these 200 churches and pastors get established and start to grow, then Jesus, through them, will be able to reach so many of the Nepalese.

Please, if you are reading this, stand with us in prayer. Nepal is like the roof of India, and if the gospel can have a huge impact on this nation, then Nepal can begin to impact the parts of northern India that are very closed today.

Doctor confirms a miraculous healing

I’ve just landed in Delhi. Tomorrow I’ll be visiting our Bible school as well as PTL Children AID here in Delhi.

The woman in the photo above had an unusual testimony. She had attended our first crusade meeting on Wednesday, at which time she had a cancer tumor growing in her stomach. On Thursday she was scheduled for a follow-up doctor’s appointment. He could confirm what the woman had already felt, that the tumor was completely gone! On Friday she came to the crusade again, and this time could testify to what Jesus had done! Fantastic.

I am still processing everything that has happened during this trip. We have seldom confronted such resistance. Our Kathmandu team and PTL’s leader, pastor Peter Rai, has done an amazing job. They have really been tested and tried these past three months. I am so thankful for the work they have put in to prepare for this crusade. Without pastor Peter and his team’s hard work, Jesus would not have been able to do all the wonderful things He did these past few days. The bomb threats caused most of the volunteers to decide not to help us, and many Christians did not come to the crusade. But the Hindus did, and that is what counts: the salvation of new souls.

Completely blind since the age of 2, now he sees crystal clear!

It is two in the morning, and I landed in Kathmandu after a late-night flight. The crusade ended this afternoon and I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many healings in proportion to the size of the crowd.

The boy in this photo had been completely blind since the age of 2, and during prayer this afternoon, Jesus opened his eyes.

I’ll write again tomorrow, to tell about a miracle that the doctors had time to check. The woman was healed on Thursday, had a doctor’s appointment on Friday, and could report that even the doctor confirmed that the tumor in her stomach was gone.

Now I will travel to Delhi, where I will, among other things, visit the children we help who have been affected by HIV/AIDS.

Bus driver's life threatened in Nepal

For the crusade in Nepal we have rented 25 busses to go pick up people who live up in the mountains. Today, when the bus driver was going to drive away from a Hindu village with a packed buss, he was stopped by close to 150 Hindus who demanded: “We want to go to the healing crusade too, get more busses or we will kill you!”

Shaking with fear, the bus driver made a phone call to see if we could send more busses, and we were able to find two more, which we filled with low-caste Hindus from the mountain tribes in Nepal.

EVERYONE came forward to the altar call and EVERYONE confessed Jesus as Lord and God when I prayed the sinner’s prayer with them!

Shocking miracles and bomb threats in Nepal

The girl in this photo had a completely deformed lower leg. Her right foot was at a 90 degree angle to her body. When she was prayed for in Jesus’ name, her foot twisted 90 degrees back to its correct position. When she came up on stage to share what happened, her foot was pointing forward! An enormous miracle, but she was still limping, and it seemed like there was still something wrong with her foot. But Jesus wasn’t done with her yet!

I told her that I thought she could be completely healed. We started to walk together, calling on Jesus, then walked even faster, and finally we were running. The miracle was complete, and as the crowd rejoiced she was completely healed, and the crowd could really see how the girl’s lower leg had been healed, as her entire posture changed.

Unfortunately we didn’t get a picture of this young woman in the photo above from the front. Right when I started to pray for the sick and people started to get healed, she manifested in a major way. Many pastors rushed toward her, intending to carry her away. But she was possessed by inhuman strength and knocked two (!) full-grown pastors out– and was close to knocking out Bertil from Sweden – with karate kicks. It took five full-grown men to carry this woman away, and she couldn’t have weighed more than 40 kg.

So what happened to her? As you can see, she came up on stage. She was completely delivered, but more than that! She told us that despite her young age she had been heavily crippled by pain, but when the darkness fled at the name of Jesus, all of her pain disappeared! She was completely delivered and healed!

The Internet connection is slow here, so I will show you more photos at a later time, but that same evening a woman who had been completely deaf for 18 years was healed. Another woman who had been completely blind for 20 years got her sight back, etc. While all of this is happening we are surrounded by total chaos. Many more people want to come, but they don’t dare to because the crusade is under bomb threats. We have therefore called in a large security force. Both the police and the military are protecting us, as well as private bodyguards. Two meetings are over, and there are two to go. The third evening is usually when things really start to get going, and now the people can’t stay away because the rumors say that many people are going to come despite the bomb threats – why? Because what Jesus is doing is just too wonderful to miss out on!