Monthly Archives: March 2014

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A Father’s Prayer Saved His Son’s Life

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Charles and Rene White with son Sean and daughter Loren

Charles and Rene White with son Sean and daughter Loren

Charles White is a full time pastor with AOG Association and works as a business coach and mentor with several corporations and businesses in South Africa. During our first term we became very good friends and he helped us gain insight into the culture of South Africa and the churches. He also trained Mark in Mentors and Business Coaches International (MBCI). This organization has its headquarters in Australia with offices all around the world. Charles is one of their executives and is responsible for the continuous professional development of coaches internationally.

Charles told Mark about a story concerning his 17 year-old son, Sean, which happened in the later part of 2011. Sean had grown a half a meter (19 inches) in one year. One day when he came home from school he went straight to his room and went to sleep. Charles tried to wake him for dinner and he looked up and went right back to sleep. For the next several days, all he did was sleep. Several doctors examined him and put him through all kinds of tests over a three week period and they couldn’t find anything wrong with him. They thought he may have been drugged by someone at school but his blood work was clear. They thought it was meningitis and did a spinal tap and everything was fine. During this time when he was awake, he couldn’t remember who anybody was, didn’t know people at church, he couldn’t speak coherently, he wandered around in a daze.

Eventually, the doctors came to think it was something neurological and expected to find a brain tumor. A brain scan proved them wrong. At the end of three weeks on a Friday, they ruled out anything physical and decided it had to be psychotic in nature. The doctors made an appointment for the following Monday to meet with a team of psychiatrists and psychologists. Charles and his wife took Sean home on that Friday afternoon sad and exhausted. The next day Charles got away by himself and enquired of the Lord as to why prayers were not answered.

The Lord’s immediate response was that he was praying incorrectly. Charles then asked the Holy Spirit to teach him how to pray for his son. Charles said it was like an audible voice that said, “Pray that his body, mind, and spirit be in unity.” That Saturday night when Sean was asleep, Charles went into his room and through prayer, commanded that his body, soul and spirit would be in unity. Sean suddenly woke from his sleep, looked at Charles for a few minutes and went back to sleep. The next morning he was still the same.

Again, Charles prayed the same prayer before driving the family to church. Charles ministered a sermon entitled From the Pit of the Valley, and Rene sang In the Name of the Lord by Sandi Patti. All this time Sean was present physically but not mentally and emotionally. Without knowing what each other was going to do at church they had each decided to minister to the body of Christ in spite of the fact that they were facing one of the biggest storm of their lives with their son. There was not one dry eye in church that Sunday morning and the room was filled with the presence of the Lord.

On their way home after church Sean asked Charles for his cell phone and started asking about the date and time. As the family walked into their home it started raining and then stopped as abruptly as it had started. The family ran outside to see what was happening since it seemed as if the rain was floating through the air and the sunlight shone through their living room. As they walked back inside Sean started behaving completely normal. They couldn’t believe what they saw. Sean looked at his dad and said, “I was in a dream, and I couldn’t get out.” He has been perfectly normal ever since. The team of psychiatrists were completely confused when they examined Sean the following day.

Sean felt like he was locked in a dark place and couldn’t get out. He couldn’t communicate with anyone and it was as if he was in a walking coma. Charles believes his son was under deep oppression of the enemy. As a result of prayer, Charles heard from His Father exactly how to pray for his son which ultimately saved his life. We know that spiritual warfare is a reality and that Christians are on the front lines of this battle. Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans that the Holy Spirit within us will teach us how to pray when we don’t know what to pray (Romans 8:26, 27).

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Prayer Takes out a Witch Doctor in Malawi

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Dan and Noreen McGaffee

Dan and Noreen McGaffee

It was a pleasant, late Monday afternoon when I visited with Pastor Benson. We had a Sunday service with him the previous day (March 9th) and the presence of the Lord was ministering to different ones according to their needs; spiritual and physical. I asked Pastor Benson about some things related to witchcraft in his area. He began to share about a witch who lived near where he pastors a church and how she had put a curse on a strong, young man. As a result of the curse, his stomach began to expand and when examined by doctors at the hospital they could find nothing wrong. The man died shortly after his examination. Pastor Benson said this is common among cases that deal with curses. A physical problem can be seen and felt but no logical explanation can be given. The witch has made threats to others that if anyone tries to defeat her, she will put a curse on them. Obviously this would leave the people feeling very afraid.

Upon hearing this, we were led by the Spirit to immediately bind the strong man of evil and for the Lord to destroy this wickedness. We prayed intensely for a short season and then I left to go home. The next morning I received a text from Pastor Benson which read: “The witch is dead!” I called Pastor Benson immediately to find out what happened. He told me during the night he dreamt that as he and I were praying, the witch was shrinking. On Tuesday morning she suddenly died for no apparent reason. She was not sick or suffering in any way. God intervened and took care of the problem! The people of the area are rejoicing because the witch is dead and along with her a stronghold of evil. God be praised!!! This is an example of a present-day power encounter.  These things are real because we are engaged in a real war between evil and the goodness of our God. It is an honor to serve the Living God and see how He works in protecting, saving and redeeming people for His glory by destroying strongholds of evil! Keep praying against evil and binding it, God will break down the strongholds!

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God Always Knows Where We Are

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A few months ago, Mark preached a sermon at one of our local churches in Cape Town and shared a personal testimony with the congregation which brought back memories of a difficult time in our lives as a family. This story took place after Jennifer returned to the States following her graduation from high school in Kenya in 1994. About one year later, she was battling an eating disorder.

Our normally fun-loving and bubbly daughter had changed.  Mark and I became even more concerned when we noticed that she started looking thinner and thinner but still complained that she felt fat.  We talked to her about our concerns and after a period of time, the Lord opened the door for her to be admitted to the Remuda Ranch Treatment Center for women with eating disorders in Wickenburg, Arizona. 

The program required that the family members come to the ranch for a week of intensive family therapy at the midpoint of the patient’s therapy. When it was time for Jennifer’s Family Week, Mark and I flew to Wickenburg and after talking with her personal therapist, we were alarmed when he said he had some concerns about her.  We had no idea what to expect during our session with her the next day.  That night, the two of us sat in our hotel room on the backside of the Arizona desert and cried out to God. We desperately wanted to talk to Alta—our prayer warrior and intercessor friend who came into our lives during our early years on the mission field.

Alta Stahn was in her eighties and was a member of a small church in Huntington, Indiana. During our first furlough in 1987 we were visiting her church for a missionary service—Mark preached, Judy testified, and Judy, Amy and Jennifer sang “Greater is He that is In Me.” At the conclusion of the service, this sweet little old lady introduced herself to us and said she was an intercessor and that she prayed for our family every day.  We kept in touch with her off and on over the years and especially during this difficult time. We communicated mostly through letters and a couple of phone calls since this was before internet and e-mail.  We didn’t have her phone number with us and we were desperately wanting to talk to her and ask her to pray for us and for Jennifer.  As we were sitting in our hotel room trying to figure out who we could call to track down her number, all of a sudden the phone rang, which was surprising because very few people knew where we were.  When I picked up the receiver, it was Alta.  She had been trying to find us and by some miracle, she found out we were in Wickenburg at a hotel and she finally tracked us down instead.  God had given her a message for us. 

Alta explained that one day she had to drive past a school where a teacher’s strike was in progress.  She said the Lord told her to stop and give them a message: The Lord told Alta to tell them if they would praise Him and trust Him, He would intervene on their behalf and do incredible things for them.  She dismissed it and kept on driving telling herself that surely wasn’t God. The next day when she passed the picketers she again felt something telling her to stop and give the picketers the same message. She said she brushed it off and thought it couldn’t be God and kept driving.  In the meantime, the newspapers were declaring the strike was in a stalemate and that there was no resolution in sight.  The third time Alta passed the picketers she heard the Lord speak again that she was to stop and deliver His message.  Finally she decided that she had better deliver the message whether it was God or not, just to be on the safe side. She stopped the car and rolled down her window and one of the picketers walked up to the car.  She apologized for interrupting but had a message from the Lord for the teachers.  She told him that God said if they would praise Him and trust Him, He would intervene and they would see Him do incredible things for them.  She drove away and felt relieved that she had obeyed the Lord.  The next day the headlines announced an end to the strike.  In fact, the word that was used to describe it was “MIRACLE”!  Alta was overwhelmed with joy and thanksgiving that she had obeyed the Lord. 

However, the Lord wasn’t finished with Alta’s assignment. She said that the Lord then told her to call Mark and Judy Hayburn and give them the same message.  He told her to tell us to praise Him and that He would intervene and do incredible things for our family.  That was the message Alta was determined to deliver to us on that particular day.  She told us all about the strike and the picketers and how God performed a miracle and wanted us to know that God was with us and would intervene on our behalf if we would just praise Him and trust Him. Mark and I burst into tears of joy and thanked her so much for calling us with this word from the Lord.  We began to fill the hotel room with praise and worship to the Lord and knew that God was in control of the situation. That was the turning point with Jennifer.  Her total recovery didn’t happen overnight, but Jennifer not only overcame her eating-disorder, but she has also faced some other major disappointments and challenges that have come her way with a courageous faith in God. In April of 2013, she completed her nursing degree at Georgetown University and is a licensed registered nurse in Washington D.C. in the Cardio Vascular Recovery Ward at Washington Hospital.

From that moment on, we decided never to allow fear to enter our minds when disappointments come or we are faced with impossible situations.  We have made it a practice to trust God and praise Him in everything and always thank Him in advance for working things out for our good because we know that God truly does know where we are. “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus…Faithful is He who calls you, and He will also bring it to pass.” (1 Thessalonians 5:16 – 18, 24).

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Angels on Assignment

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Gwilym Hesselman Third Year Student at GST-WC

Gwilym Hesselman
Third Year Student at GST-WC

Gwilym Hesselman, a third year student at GST-WC, told me about a remarkable story that happened to three ladies he had worked with two years ago. I arranged a time to meet with him so he could share the details with me for this post.

In 2011 the country of South Africa conducted a census and Gwilym was hired to work for them as a supervisor of a team. Four other people were assigned to work with him and were responsible for a particular part of the city. He said he prayed for the Lord to give him a Christian team because he wanted to use this job to preach the gospel and win the lost for Christ. Sure enough, God honored his prayer and three of the four people were Christians— two of the three ladies and one man. However, the third lady, whose name was Keshia was not saved. Before they started going house to house, the group met every day for 45 days praying for God’s anointing and favor in reaching the lost and it was at the first of these prayer meetings that Keshia gave her heart to the Lord.

Now that the entire team was born again and zealous to preach the gospel, the Lord began to do some amazing things. One particular night, Gwilym and the other young man were unable to go out with the three ladies and so they went without any male assistance. They went into an area called Banjo Walk, which was especially dangerous at night. One thing was certain, if there were lots of people and noise on the streets, it was safe. However, if it was quiet, you needed to be on your guard because that was usually a sign that danger was looming. That night, the three ladies were walking along and it was eerily quiet. They told Gwilym that they saw a group of men that looked like ruffians coming toward them and they began praying that God would protect them. However, when the men came up to the ladies, the leader asked them who that “big man” was walking with them. The ladies said there wasn’t anyone with them because Gwilym and the other male team member weren’t able to assist them. He insisted that there was a “big man” and then they quickly walked away and didn’t bother them anymore.

After that experience, the three ladies went into one of the houses, which happened to be the home where Christians lived. They sat down and the woman of the house went into the kitchen to get them some drinks. When she returned, she had brought four drinks with her. The ladies wondered why she brought four drinks and she told them the forth one was for that “big man” who was with them. They insisted that there was no man in their group but the hostess insisted that there really was a very “big man” sitting in her living room.

The Bible tells us in Hebrews 13:1, 2 about angels in our midst: “Let love of the brethren continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.”