Our second trip in Russia was in the Ural Mountains in the small town of Sukhoi Log. The population at the time was 10,000. Before we arrived, the Russian Orthodox Church responded to our crusade posters and radio ads by warning the people of the town that if any man or woman attended our meetings, they could never return to the Orthodox Church. Up to this point, there was no Bible-believing church in that city. In four days, 2,600 people attended the crusade.

Working with Mission Possible, we planted a new church. On the first Sunday morning, I stood in the back of the church with tear-filled eyes as I watched 350 new believers with their hands raised high, singing praise to the Lord. The man who was in charge of the town’s auditorium gave his life to the Lord and said, “As long as I am in charge of this building, the church can meet here for free.”

We held our third crusade in a suburb of Saint Petersburg. We met in an old Russian town auditorium. Two thousand four hundred people gathered in four days. Hundreds were saved, and many were healed.

By the time we reached the sixth floor of the hospital, the woman who was my interpreter looked at me with tears in her eyes because of the sickness the radiation caused in the children. She said, “I can’t do this. It is too much for me.” However, she managed to push on, and we reached every child.

When we finished praying, I went back to my room to rest because I was scheduled to preach later that night. But I could not get the children out of my mind, and one young teenage girl in particular.

The nurse said the doctors had taken two liters of fluid out of the girl’s legs. She was in a lot of pain and had been in the hospital for a long time. The nurse had told me, “Her parents don’t come to see her. They just left her here alone.” When I looked into the girl’s eyes, my heart just broke for her.

So without a car or an interpreter, I walked a few miles to the hospital. I was only there once, so I prayed that I would not get lost. I was determined to do something to help her and show her that God cared about her.

The hospital had no elevator and no air conditioning. It was the middle of summer, and it was extremely hot. I found her room on the seventh floor. I sat in a chair next to her bed and prayed. Then with a small book, I fanned her to keep her cool for about 40 minutes.

As I was providing her this small bit of comfort, she was looking up and smiled at me. I heard the Lord say to me, “There are many hands holding that book with you.” I have never forgotten that look in her eyes and the smile on her face.

The door to work in Russia and the Ukraine was open. But when I returned home, the Lord spoke to my heart in the story of Philip the Evangelist in Acts 8:26. “… an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, ‘Get ready and go south.’” I got out an old map of the world I had and pinned it to the wall. I said, “Yes, Lord. South, but where?”

At that time, I was not a seasoned evangelist with years of experience behind me. I called the pastor of a very mission-minded church and shared my story with him and asked if he knew of anyone working in South America. He said, “A missionary I support started a new church 18 months ago in the city of Medellín, Colombia.”

I reached out to the missionary and shared my heart with him. He invited me to hold a three-day revival meeting in his church. The number of Christians who attended was 45 people. Each night, they invited their friends and family. In three days, 50 people had given their lives to the Lord.

At the end of each salvation call, I offered prayer for the sick. One young teenage girl saw that people were being healed and then were coming forward to testify about their healings. She asked if I would pray for her father who was in the hospital suffering from pneumonia. That night I prayed for her father.

The next day when I finished preaching, a young man came forward and said, “Yesterday you prayed with my sister for our father in the hospital suffering with pneumonia. Do you remember?” I replied, “Yes, I do.” He said, “This morning when I went to see him, he was walking. God has healed him, and I thought you would like to know.”

While on this trip, the Lord added two key members of our crusade team, an organizer and an interpreter. With the team in place, the Holy Spirit opened the door for us to hold crusades.

In spite of this, 20,000 people attended the five-day crusade in a field just outside of town. Over 2,000 new believers filled out decision cards. A physician confirmed healing. There were many people healed in the outreach. A teenager with leukemia was healed.

I always pray for the sick from the stage, but one night I felt led of the Lord to get off the stage and lay hands on all who came forward for healing. There were two long lines with hundreds of people standing before me.

A man stepped forward, and I asked him, “What do you want the Lord to do for you?” He said, “My son is very sick and has leukemia.” I had no idea what leukemia was. When I closed my eyes to pray, the Lord said to me, “Take what is in your pocket. Pray over it and have him place it on his son.” I replied to the Lord and said, “Lord, I don’t have anything in my pocket. I never carry anything.”

I reached into my pocket, and I did have something: a piece of purple toilet paper from the hotel room. I said to myself, “Oh no. This is something I would never do.” I asked the man, “Do you believe God will heal your son?” He said, “Yes!”

I asked him to put out his hand and said, “This is what I want you to do. I’m going to pray over this paper. And when you get home, I want you to put this tissue on your son and say to him, ‘I command you to be healed.’ And the Lord will heal him. Take him back to his doctor and have him check him again.”

The next day the father returned with his son and his doctor. I invited them up on the stage, and the doctor asked if he could say something. I handed him the microphone, and he said, “I am not one of you people. But two days ago, I told this family, ‘There is no more I can do for your son.’ His father came into my office and insisted I check him again. I took his blood and tested it, and I am here to tell you there is not a trace of leukemia in his blood.”

On the third day, I arrived at the bullfighting stadium early. The sky was dark with a light rain. I walked to the top of the bullfighting stadium and prayed for two hours. I walked down to the platform, and looking up, I said, “Lord, I pray you would open a circle above this stadium and that there would be no rain so that I can see the stars.”

That night, 4,000 attended. Halfway through the message, my organizer walked to the right front corner of the platform, and he pointed to heaven. Above the stadium was a perfect circle, and we could see the stars.

After the crusade, I wondered why the stadium wasn’t full. The pastors told me it was raining everywhere except at the stadium. So for the fourth day, I prayed that there would be no rain over the city. The Lord heard my prayer. On the fourth day, 14,000 people filled the bullfighting stadium to hear the Good News! Three thousand people came forward to receive Jesus as their Savior.

As I was praying for the sick and people were coming up on the platform to testify and give glory to the Lord, about 20 men at the back of the crowd of 3,000 were jumping and screaming. I asked the interpreter to call them forward. When they came to the front, I asked them what the Lord had done. They asked, “Do you see our friend’s face?” I said, “Yes, I see it.”

 His face had hundreds of lumps all over it and was all red. They said their friend had been shot in the face with a shotgun a few years ago. Then they said, “Do you see his left eye?” I said, “I see it.” They said, “When we came here today, he didn’t have a left eye.” The men started to jump and scream. The Lord gave him a brand-new eye!

Coming in for the landing, the pilot flew us just above some very large trees and then quickly drove the nose of the plane downward. As soon as we hit the ground, the pilot slammed on the brakes and threw the engine into reverse, just bringing the plane to a stop at the end of the runway which could have taken us down the other side of the mountain.

Once on the ground, hundreds of pastors and believers greeted us with shouts of praise to the Lord. After a 45-minute drive, we were once again greeted by thousands of people on the streets. I had never seen this type of reception before. I asked the bishop, “Why are there so many people?” He said, “You are the first Americans to come here since the colonial days.”

Just a few hours after we landed, we preached in a church that was filled to overflowing inside and outside. Hundreds made decisions for Christ as they heard the Word of God preached. In the open-air crusade alone, an estimated 34,000 people heard the gospel in four days. We also preached in many churches.

We have traveled back to Butembo two more times, preaching in two different locations and reaching an additional 18,000 people with the Good News. We have held pastors’ seminars and shared the gospel with businessmen and women of Butembo.

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