Narasaraopet, India May 2006
Over 1200 saved and hundreds touched by God’s power.
Once again, it is a privilege to be able to report an exceptional move of God over 7 days on my latest visit to the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. I conducted a music and healing festival in the town of Narasaraopet over 4 nights and conducted many church meetings and gatherings in the towns of Guntur (the nearest main town) and Vikarabad on the west side of Hyderabad.
The people of Narasaropet are mainly Hindus and had never seen the power of God touching people’s lives before and many of the 30 supporting churches and pastors came alive as they began to see with their own eyes what they had been praying for.
The festival was held on school grounds just off the main street in the town centre and people arrived on foot, by bicycle, motorbike, 3 wheeler rickshaw, taxis, tractors and buses from the surrounding villages from 7pm. They sat on huge tarpaulins in the sweltering heat (around 40-42 degrees C) until past 11.30pm every night. The crowd grew from 2000 on the first night to between 5-6000 on Saturday and Sunday as God demonstrated his power with public healings, deliverance
and salvation in large numbers. The bug life was horrifically intense in the heat and under the stage lights! 
Thank you so much those of you who received a message to pray for me on the first night. I was asked not to make a public altar call for salvation for fear of offending and causing difficulties with the local authorities who had given permission to conduct the festival on the school grounds. A previous foreign visitor had had his visa revoked and the event cancelled for ‘publicly converting other faiths to Christianity’. Anxious to be wise but not compromise I agreed to ‘pray for healing’, figuring that we all need healing of body, mind and soul!! In the middle of preaching, I was miraculously given the all clear to make a clear call for salvation and I was amazed to see over 400 respond to surrender their lives to Jesus including the principal of the large school, whose grounds we were using, and his wife. I have never seen such a dramatic and positive turn around.
This set the scene for the next three nights and the church meetings with the local Baptist church and 2 Pentecostal churches which were awesome. Night after night people pushed forward to receive Jesus as their Saviour and receive prayer for healing and deliverance and the breaking of curses. The count for salvation was over 1200, which was the best the crusade organisers could agree on. The range was 1200-2000 and I took the lowest figure to publish.
Its difficult to describe actually what happens at these meetings. God sovereignly visits and touches people’s lives in a supernatural way. Many are overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit as they stand to receive an anointing and drop to the floor under His power. Others describe fire on their hands, feet and bodies which can look very dramatic to an onlooker. Some shake, others stand absolutely motionless with tears running down their faces. It is so amazing to see God touching each adult and child at their point of need. Seeing children weeping and crying out in prayer for India is very moving. I am often personally overwhelmed with compassion as I see such helplessness and desperation but stand back to see God at work in the lives of my brothers and sisters in India. My heart has been deeply touched and my love for Indian people is stretched on each visit.
Because of the crowds, my personal security has become a big issue. My security team of 5 were blitzed under the anointing one night and I literally had to run for protection from the hungry and desperate crowd pressing in for me to pray for them. It’s at these moments I feel terribly vulnerable- trying to say that its Jesus and not me they need. I have to deal with the awful sights of diseased bodies and huge teary eyes pleading with me to touch them for healing. Yet again I had a baby, dead or just alive I don’t know, thrust at me on the stage for prayer and I broke up on the inside!
I am overwhelmed at God’s goodness and protection on such visits. I am picking up hundreds of stories of healings, miracles and divine encounters from previous trips every time I go.
The meeting in Western Hyderabad for a Methodist group was outstanding. They had seen me two years previously in Secundarabad and pleaded with the organisers for me to visit this group of youth from different Methodist churches, about 400 in number. I travelled 8 hours by jeep from Narasaraopet, got out and then led ministry for 3 hours as God dropped in power on all of them. Many were saved, baptised in the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues for the first time. It was like the place had been spiritually bulldozered at the end. People pray for this kind of visitation and call it revival. I believe God always responds to desperation and spiritual hunger.
I do ask you to pray for wisdom as to what I do and where I go to in India. The invitations are too numerous and they all want me to go back and follow up in the towns I have already visited. New towns cry out for help! Pastors are demanding conferences and teaching on the power of God. The ladies are terribly oppressed and need to be released and the children are ignored in the crowd. All are crying for help!
Until now, my own church, The Ark Community Church has financed my travel and crusades. This is between £1500 and £2500 per crusade plus my airfare (about £500). We have decided to open up a missions account to help spread some of the load and to give opportunity for others to participate in the ministry in India and in similar work in Russia, Kenya and Uganda, where God has opened doors for me to preach the gospel. I have absolute confidence that God will provide for the gospel to be preached in towns and villages across the world.
I so value your prayer cover. This was a tough and physically exhausting trip as we rarely got to bed before 2am and I had to pray for hundreds personally each night. The roads are very dangerous and my personal safety is always at risk from crowds and potential troublemakers.
With my grateful thanks and love,
Bruce Oliver. |
