On my recent and first trip to Nepal I saw the blind see, the deaf hear and the lame walk. I saw dozens of work weary women receive restored knees and backs; I saw healing touch a boy with cerebral palsy, movement restored to a stroke victim, gastric problems healed and demonic oppression lifted. I asked myself why we did not see this level of healing in New Zealand even as I rejoiced to see more than 80% of those we prayed for receive healing in the name of Jesus. We also saw approximately 1300 people commit to belief in Jesus and receive salvation.
My journey to Nepal and beyond started some two years ago. As Pastor at New Plymouth Central Baptist I received news that one of our women in the congregation had received a diagnosis for a life threatening cancer. Of course we would pray and organise pastoral support and care. A week later I heard of another woman under similar diagnosis. And in the next few weeks the number grew to four. My reaction moved from just care and compassion to a growing anger at the impact of Genesis 3 sin on good people amongst us and our own sense of helplessness in the face of it.
I was reading in John 11 at that time. In the story of the death and raising of Lazarus I realised, with the help of a good commentator, that the words “moved with compassion” barely began to describe how Jesus felt. What the original language conveyed was ‘moved with anger’ at Satan and sin. I knew that feeling. Only Jesus was not helpless in the face of it. I shared it with the church and declared that we would and should seek the Lord to know more of his healing power.
To that end we invited John Fergusson to bring to us his School of Healing, both in January and again in March of 2014. We dared to believe that we would see more of God’s healing power. John had more experience of this than we did and we asked him to share of his experience and insight. He also invited any that would like to do so to join him on a missions trip to Nepal where he went twice each year and had done so for the last eight years. He described a much wider experience of God’s healing in Nepal than he was seeing in New Zealand.
We saw some more healing during the year that followed the schools but not enough. Of the four women diagnosed with cancer and one other condition three were successfully treated medically and one went to be with the Lord. For the three healed we could not say that God had intervened because we saw no evidence of that directly other than through medical processes. We praised God for those successful treatments. But we so wanted to also to see the direct miraculous hand of God. Six congregation members signed up to go with John to Nepal in November of 2014 to make up a missions team of 12 persons. The focus of the mission was a partnership with the local churches in evangelism and healing…
Nepal is one of the poorer countries of the world. Nepal’s citizens experience a full range of diseases and injury that comes from poverty, minimal infrastructure and back breaking subsistence labour. In a traditional three day crusade meeting context amongst villages in Western Nepal we saw attendance grow each day from 2500 to 9000 as word spread that Jesus was present to save and to heal. Some 1300, mostly Hindus, responded to the invitation for salvation. The invitation for healing in Jesus name also produced immense interest.
And they came. Men and women with gastro problems evidenced by continued pain and excruciatingly tight abdominal muscles, lumps of various causes, migraines, limb injuries, blindness, deafness, demonic oppression…
God was faithful. The same scenarios can be told over and over so allow me to recount some unusual ones both from the crusade meetings and from the schools of healing that we held in two other centres.
We also ran into a lot of overt demonic oppression. In the presence of an active Holy Spirit they manifested. We were able to deal with these by the Holy Spirit. One particular incident taught me a lot.*
