Any day now I should be receiving the official “decision card” count from our team in Nigeria letting us know how many people gave their lives to Jesus last week in UGEP.  In the meantime I have been hearing wonderful reports and the testimonies are continuing to come in of what the Lord did there.  Here are just a few that I received on this blog followed by some interesting pictures from UGEP:

“We are grateful to God for the blessings we received through that Crusade: the blind saw, the crippled walked, cancers and many diseases were healed by Jesus and many denounced cultism and idolatory as idols were publicly burnt with fire. To God be glory, many testimonies abound in our churches.” ~ Rev. ThankGod Ogujiuba

“Finally the land of Ugep has been set free from all the captivity of the devil, The land is made hold and set fee to go…! praise be to the name of God. Jesus is Lord.” ~ Ubtex

“I was in ugep right from the first day and it was my first time to be under Evang Daniel Kolenda’s ministration…it was thrilling and cant but praise God for such a wonderful thing…the whole atmosphere was charged with miracles!” ~ Anonymous

I was also at the fire conference on thursday morning and cant just forget the illustrations from judges and the almost drowning in the river which evag kolenda used…also Peter Vandenburg was creative and captivating while preaching tht he left me spellbound with the rich and wonderful illustrations… I know Ugep wont remain the same after this crusade because i was there and am no longer the same.” ~ olusola oludapo adeyemi

That's one way to get your face on the poster

A mobile billboard

Dusty Dancing

The cripples walk

Derek needs a few more gadgets in his life

One of the volunteer workers saw the black cable (snake) coming out of the ground and thought it was a real snake. He proceeded to chop it in half with his machette which created a lot of extra work for Rob who had to splice each individual wire into a connector whereby the two halves could be re-joined

Evangelist Bonnke and I greet our friends around the world by way of video

Reinhard Bonnke is welcomed by the king of Ugep

King and Queen

One soul saved among thousands

I ran across an article online where someone was accusing CfaN for fleecing the African people.  This article said that since no other evangelists go to Africa nearly as often as Evangelist Bonnke and I, that is proof that we are “making millions of dollars from the African people”.  While this accusation is so ludicrous it is actually laughable, I wanted to share what we did receive as a gift on this last trip.  In UGEP, the pastors were so blessed by what the Lord did that, together, as a group, they offered a gift to our team: a pickup truck full of cassava, bananas and a goat.  Our Nigerian team took them back to the office and I’m sure they had a wonderful feast.

To all the critics I would say this; you may not be able to imagine why someone would go to these remote places of the world time and time again.  You may think that the only thing that could make such an effort worth while is a payoff of millions of dollars.  But our reward is so much greater than any amount of money.  We have the privilege of working in some of the most fruitful harvest fields of the world.  We have the blessing of seeing millions of people’s lives changed.  We have the honor of preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ – true greatness in any mouth, as Evangelist Bonnke has often said.  We have the gratification of doing something with eternal implications.  We have the joy of serving people who are hungry for God, receptive, humble and grateful.  To us, that goat, those bananas and those cassava are worth more than a million dollars because they are a gift of love; a token of gratitude from the heart of precious people who are truly thankful to God.  Though they are poor in material things, they possess riches that many in the western world will never touch; riches of a spiritual kind.  If you are one of the cynics  that cannot understand why we would pour out our lives in this way without a huge payoff, perhaps that is actually an indication of something wrong within your own heart.  You will never know true satisfaction in life, until you find something worth giving your life for.  We have found something; “Africa Shall be Saved!”

Occultists Born Again

Another great Gospel campaign has come to an end and, as always, we feel mixed emotions.  We will miss Ugep and it’s people very much, but we rejoice with what God has done here.  It is a miracle.  Ugep is only a small village, but tonight 185,000 people were present and received the Word of God with great joy.  Many thousands were born again including a group of young men who came forward to testify tonight that they were part of an occult movement in the local university, but they have now given their lives to Jesus and renounced occultism! (pictured above)

We have often been told that the local churches are filled with miracle testimonies of what God did in the campaign every Sunday even a year after we are gone.  Im sure this will be the case in Ugep.  There is no doubt in our minds that Jesus has done something extraordinary here:

A well-known local man who has been a lunatic for the past 26 years was instantly healed…the crowd was extatic.  A man crippled for 24 years walked without aid tonight along with a child who was also crippled.  A woman was healed of breast cancer and a man’s paralyzed arm was totally restored.  These miracles and others were just a sampling of the thousands of miracles that took place over the past few days.

In three weeks we will be back in Africa for another Gospel campaign in the city of Numan.  We are burned with a sense of urgency to reap this mighty harvest while it is ripe.  There is no time to waste.  In the words of Leonard Ravenhill, “The opportunity of a lifetime must be seized in the lifetime of the opportunity.” Thank you for continuing to stand shoulder to shoulder with us in this historic harvest of souls.

(Pictures by O. Volyk)

What we are experiencing here in Nigeria defies all description. It is nothing less than a sovereign outpouring. This morning the Holy Spirit fell in the Fire Conference before I had a chance to preach. After Rev Peter Vandenburg ministered the people began to cry out to the Lord and the Holy Spirit swept across that field with a tangible presence. I interrupted the normal schedule and began to prophecy over the people and even as I was speaking the Fire fell. All over that field men and woman were laid prostrate and the Holy Spirit filled many thousands in a spontaneous way. I laid hands on a couple hundred pastors and sent them into the crowd to lay hands on all the people. As they moved through the crowd cripples began to walk and the sick were healed. It was glorious!

Tonight after I preached the Gospel and prayed with thousands of people who wanted to receive Jesus, we prayed again over that massive crowd to receive the Baptism into the Holy Spirit and the Fire fell once again. We heard amazing miracle testimonies:

A woman said that her son had died yesterday and so she brought him to the crusade field. She laid his lifeless body on the ground during the meeting. When I began to pray I said, “If there is anyone dead within the sound of my voice, I command life to return to your body in Jesus name.” Suddenly, she said, he opened his eyes, turned to her and said, “Momma – I’m thirsty”!

One man who’s right arm has been paralyzed for the last 17 years said that during the prayer he felt like there was a wire moving through his arm, into his shoulder, up his neck and into his head. He said when it reached his brain his arm was instantly able to move perfectly.

On Thursday I prayed especially for those with AIDS and told them to go get tested again. One young man who had been diagnosed HIV Positive just 2 weeks ago was retested yesterday and brought his report from the doctor tonight. I saw it with my own eyes…he is now HIV Negative!

The miracle testimonies just kept coming until we had to turn them away; a woman with breast cancer said her lumps instantly vanished. A lady deaf since she the age of three demonstrated perfect hearing and a crippled man walked.

These are not just church meetings. What is happening here in Nigeria is an ongoing outpouring the likes of which I have never seen. More than 55 million have been saved in the last 10 years alone. The sick are healed, the blind see, the lame walk, the dead are raised! I am sure that history will remember this as one of the most remarkable waves of Holy Spirit impact the world has ever seen. This is the Great African Outpouring.

Tonight, when we arrived at the Crusade ground we discovered that someone had brought an entire idolatrous shrine to be destroyed. Together with idols, charms, fetishes and many occult paraphernalia we burned it and the people rejoiced. I also called out the local curses – names so feared most people are not willing to speak them out loud – one by one I took authority over them, breaking them off the people of Ugep in the name of Jesus. The joy was uncontainable. The people danced until the sky was thick with dust. Today is a day of Salvation and freedom.

After the prayer for salvation many miracles happened, and we saw an extraordinary proportion of paralytics healed. Have a look at the picture of one young man who lived with so much pain from a motorcycle accident that it had left him nearly crippled. Now he jumped like an athlete and testified that all pain has gone. Praise the Lord!

Tomorrow is our Holy Spirit Baptism day and also the conclusion of the Fire Conference. Please pray for a mighty outpouring of God’s fire that will transform the Body of Christ in Ugep into a Gospel powerhouse that will continue to impact this region long after our team has gone.

We are experiencing a mighty surge of Gospel impact here in Ugep. Even now I can hear outside my window the thousands of people who have literally flooded the streets on their way home from the meeting, which doubled in size from last night. The word is out…Jesus is here – and all of Ugep is buzzing!

The response to the Gospel message tonight was overwhelming and the miracles were popping like popcorn. A 23-year-old woman deaf and dumb from birth heard and spoke tonight with amazing clarity. The crowd could hardly contain their joy when she repeated after me; “One”, “Two”, “JESUS!” It was glorious!

A woman who had been paralyzed on her right side demonstrated how she had received full use of her arms and legs. She went walking and leaping and praising God like the man at the “Beautiful Gate”. I choke back the tears as I think of it now.

A woman brought her son who had been insane for last 15 years. He had been completely mad; violent and uncontrollable. Now he spoke softly and was in his right mind. He told me that Jesus had healed him. Praise the Lord!

This morning was also the start of the Fire Conference and Rev. Peter Vandenburg and I were amazed by the responsiveness of the people. They have not come just to be spectators; they have come to receive and I am sure that they will in Jesus name. Stay tuned, much more to come…

Dear Mission-Partners,

What a wonderful start here in Ugep! Have a look at the crowd-picture. The Gospel rang out as clear as a bell and a wave of salvation followed. The prayer for the sick yielded glorious healings: A blind man saw, a crippled walked…. The atmosphere was charged with faith – gripping the congregation as well as the preachers. Faith breeds boldness. The leading men in Jerusalem “saw the courage of Peter and John” (Acts 4:13). Their fearlessness was plain for all to see. Israel’s supreme judges with their fossilised traditions were shocked into wide-eyed astonishment at the sight of mere Galilean fishermen addressing the court with the confidence of kings issuing edicts. The Bible is the book of the bold, not the cringing. We will continue to preach this glorious gospel with great boldness here in Ugep. Please continue to pray for us.

Yours on God’s harvest-fields,
Reinhard Bonnke, Daniel Kolenda and the whole CfaN Team.

Dear Mission-Partners,

Yes, we arrived today in Ugep/Cross River State/Nigeria to a tumultuous welcome. Such excitement and expectation! It stirs our hearts. What an honor and privilege to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Tomorrow the Crusade begins and we expect great things from God. Please for us as we stand at the frontline of the Gospel. In spirit we are here together with you, our dear partners in the Gospel. Please stay tuned to “the mighty acts of God”.

Yours here from Ugep,
Daniel Kolenda, Reinhard Bonnke and the whole CfaN Team.

Pictures by Oleksandr Volyk

Please visit our websites at http://www.cfan.org