Good News Vizag • January 10-14, 2006 • Visakhapatnam, India ( 50,000 Decisions for Christ! )
January 10-14, 2006 we ministered in Visakhapatnam, India, for five days in a mass soul-winning crusade called Good News Vizag, organized for us by an American evangelist, Mark Swiger, who h
as conducted more than 50 crusades all over India.
It was quite an ordeal just to get there, taking more than 50 hours in all, and included an unscheduled 12-hour wild ride, from about 4:30 PM on Saturday to nearly 5 AM Sunday, from Hyderabad to Visakhapatnam with a driver who did not speak English–a 670 kilometer (420 mile) drive that should have taken no more than nine hours–most of it was spent trying to keep our driver awake!
We dodged buses, taxis, trucks, motorbikes, cows, goats, and people with plenty of near-misses! Fortunately, we know that our lives are in God’s hands and the angels are watching over us at all times, until the Lord is done with us here on earth, and so we can afford to walk in peace and joy in almost any circumstance!
The crusade workers stayed up all night to greet us and when we arrived they welcomed us with showers of flower petals and fireworks in the middle of the road, stopping all traffic while they did it! It was certainly an arrival to remember!
When we arrived we found out that there were several Pentecostal churches involved and they held meetings for the Christians in the mornings. We preached a couple of times in the morning and so did Eric Gonyon, our international crusade director.
It was a good opportunity to minister to the Christians on revival and see them impacted by the power of God. Thousands of people felt the anointing of God for the first time ever. They were filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking in other tongues, shaking, cry
ing, and laughing. Many children were powerfully touched by God as well. There were even pastors who fell out under the power of God for the first time ever in their lives.
Even though the meeting was scheduled at a bad time, in the middle of a major Hindu festival, we still had a great response, with 50,000 people giving their lives to the Lord. Many people were baptized in the Holy Spirit and many were wonderfully healed and delivered–some of excruciating pain that they had had for many years.
Many, many people reported seeing a light or a ball of fire coming toward them and hitting them at the moment they received their healing!
