Sarah gave me some medicine for the cold. It helped, but the cold had become pretty bad, even with the medicine. In addition to the sneezing and coughing and hoarseness, I also had fever and chills. And I still had constant diarrhea-- so bad that I had to have a portion of my intimacy time with God that morning on the toilet.
Since I was there, I asked Him what was causing all this diarrhea. I expected Him to show me some food that I was eating that I should not eat but instead He showed me a picture of the purified water dispenser. Since God showed me that, I asked for bottled water from that point forward. At breakfast, Jessie told me the water was 80% pure, so I should not be afraid to drink it. I told him that I was worried about the other 20% and would prefer to stick to bottled water. So they honored my request and got me some bottled water. But even after I stopped drinking the filtered water, it took some hours for my system to clear up.
They had brought in about 300 to 350 of the pastors who lived/worked in this region, as well as about 30 or 40 of their church planting women. I was supposed to have two meetings with them, one in the morning and one after lunch. God told me to teach the same spiritual warfare teaching I had done for the pastors and bible college students in Razole. He also told me, "Don't be surprised if it comes out differently this time, because I will alter it a bit to customize it for this group."
I knew it was going to be a good meeting. But I was so sick that I could hardly stand up, and I wondered how I was going to speak at the meetings. I went to the computer and sent the following e-mail to my intercessors and to the people at my church:
This morning my voice is almost totally gone and I am very hoarse. I still have diarrhea problems. I am supposed to spend two sessions (e.g. all morning and all afternoon) prophesying and teaching 300 of their pastors, some of whom have traveled some distance to be here. I believe God wants to release His word to these people and the devil wants to stop it from going forth. I was also running a fever last night and overall felt pretty sick. Most people would probably exercise their emergency medical evacuation insurance at this point. But I believe the attack is spiritual in nature to prevent God's word from being released.I am going to preach and prophesy today, even if I have to croak it out. Please pray for me. I need to hear God clearly, despite being sick, so I can speak His words and ONLY His words. Also, please pray for my protection and health for this final day of meetings in India. Pray that there will be much anointing and impartation released. I am strongly reminded of that verse, "In your weakness, I am made strong." Please pray the Lord will move strongly through me, despite the physical limitations I seem to have fallen under.
I ate a small breakfast, which was a mistake because I spent the last 40 minutes before the service on the toilet. They had set up a tent that was more sophisticated than the typical Indian tent -- this one had sides. They had a raised platform and a sound system. They had chairs for everyone to sit on, no sitting on the ground on mats. It looked a lot like the type of tent meetings you sometimes see in the US. There were about four or five chairs on the side of the platform for myself, Sharath, James and Sarah to sit in. They ushered me to my chair, but I did not sit down. Some really good worship was going and I wanted to stand to worship.
I tried to sing, but my voice was totally gone. I could not speak, I could only croak. It was like laryngitis set in. I silently prayed that God would somehow enable Sharath to hear me so he could interpret for me. I decided to worship without trying to sing out loud. Soon I was lost in God's presence and it felt so good.
Unfortunately I had a little accident that tried to pull me out of God's presence. The diarrhea hit me again, and I ended up with a small deposit in my undies just before I was supposed to go to the platform to preach. There was no time to go back inside and change without disrupting the flow of the meeting. So I decided to ignore it and go ahead and preach.
I took the microphone and planned to croak out a short apology for losing my voice. But as I spoke my first word, my voice came totally back and the diarrhea problems stopped. The hoarseness in my voice left and I was able to preach unencumbered by physical problems (except, of course, for the wet/dirty undies that occurred just before I was called up to the platform. It was a bit uncomfortable to preach/prophesy that way for over three hours.) But the symptoms of the sickness were gone. God's anointing was on me, overcoming my physical limitations and enabling me to preach. The Lord gave me very sharp and keen words and His presence was obvious in the meeting.
During the lunch break, I was able to go change my undies.
During the break God instructed me to anoint all of the pastors with oil at the end of the afternoon session. He told me to go get my oil bottle and bring it to the meeting. This is a little tiny bottle of scented oil that can anoint maybe 400 people when it is totally full. However, the bottle was already 2/3 empty. So I asked James to have some type of anointing oil present I could switch over to when my bottle ran out. He said they use coconut oil for anointing here. I mentioned that I had brought olive oil that was scented with Frankincense and Myrrh. He said, "Oh, they'll love that. Be sure to tell them about your oil."
The afternoon session was a stronger presence of the Lord and an anointing to smash enemy strongholds against the pastors. It was a good meeting, because God showed up.
Then it came time to anoint the people. I explained the type of anointing God would be releasing at this service. I also took James' suggestion and told them about the special anointing oil I had brought. It did not occur to me that I did not have enough of this "special oil" to anoint everyone until the words were already out of my mouth. There was not enough oil in my little jar to anoint half of them. I did not know what else to do, so I just prayed one of those quick "help God!" prayers. I had talked about God multiplying the widow's oil and flour for Elijah earlier that morning. Who knows, maybe God would do some of that?
The bottle got empty about one third of the way through anointing the group. I wondered if I should minister to the rest of them by praying for impartation without using anointing oil. Or should I get some coconut oil from James and keep anointing them?
I was in this sort of rhythm of tipping the bottle onto my finger and then anointing the next person in the very long line of people coming up to me for impartation. I saw the bottle run out and become totally empty. But when I went to pray for the next person, out of habit, I tipped the bottle to get more anointing oil for the next person. Suddenly oil touched my finger and the bottle was not empty anymore! There was maybe 1/8 of a bottle of oil in there.
WOW! I was impressed with God. He multiplied the oil!
The bottle ran out again about 1/2 way through praying for the people, and then it miraculously refilled again to 1/8 of the bottle. It stayed at 1/8 of a bottle no matter how many people I anointed after that. God multiplied the oil and it simply did not run out! When I was done praying for all 350+ people, the bottle of oil was still 1/8 full! (In fact, I brought that miracle bottle home with me and from time to time I pull it out and look at it. It is still 1/8 full and it still serves to build my faith.)
Then God released a prophetic word about how He had chosen and called each of the pastors who were there, and that He was placing His anointing on their lives. He said that was why He multiplied this oil, as a prophetic enactment of His anointing on each of their lives.
After the meeting, James asked me to plan to come back to India for 2004. He wanted to set up a series of meetings in several different cities and villages for me to teach a one or two-day conference on hearing God and prophesying. He even offered to pay for the in-country expenses if I would just cover my own airfare. I told him that I could not do that because I had already committed my 2004 budget for two trips to Africa. We decided to wait until 2005.
But after I got home, God began to speak to me that I needed to go back to India in 2004 to work with James. He spoke to me strongly about it for two days in a row. On the second day God was speaking to me, James sent me an e-mail. It said that he knew I'd already committed my travel budget to other missions trips, but God kept telling him that I needed to come back to work with him in 2004.
That was two days before my church's next missions committee meeting. So I took the request to the mission's committee and they agreed to fund half of the airfare if I would raise the other half. I know, by faith, that God will supply the money for this extra trip to India in 2004. I am sure He has great things planned for that trip, just as He had great things planned for the trip that you have been reading about.
God has revival plans for India and He desires to win the lost to Himself. I am excited that He is allowing me to participate with Him in a portion of His plans for India.
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