Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Final Thoughts From Brazil

God is always moving everywhere and in all of history, but there are sovereign moves of the Holy Spirit that take place at specific points in space and time. On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit was sovereignly poured out in the upper room 2000 years ago. The privilege of experiencing that first outpouring only belonged to the 120 that managed to align themselves with the place and the time of Gods appointment. I remember years ago I visited Moriah Chapel where the Welsh Revival took place a century ago. I remember walking around on the grounds and imagining what it must have been like. I was in the right place, but 100 years too late. I can also remember going back to Pensacola and visiting Brownsville shortly after the revival was over. I can still remember the feeling of depression that came over me when i realized that it was over and it would never be quite the same again. I had lived there during the years of great outpouring but I didn’t realize then how limited of an experience it would be. Its hard to describe the emotions that you experience when you visit an old dry well...a place where the Holy Spirit once moved in an extraordinary way. On the other hand, it is a priceless privilege to be in the middle of what God is doing, where and when He is doing it. That is what I felt this past week as I visited Brazil. I wondered if the people even realize what they have. They are in the middle of a historical move of God that I believe will impact the nation like the Great Awakenings and the Reformation did in other parts of the world at different points in history. All I can say is…Brazil, this is your moment – seize it.

Goiania, Brazil

I just arrived home a few hours ago and I am reflecting on the events of the past week. What a powerful move of the Holy Spirit we experienced in Brazil. After leaving Belo Horizonte, we traveled to a city called Goiania and ministered in a church there called Videira. It is a church of about 15,000 yet it is only about 10 years old. I ministered on Monday night before Reinhard Bonnke preached and then to the Bible school on Tuesday morning. The atmosphere was charged and God moved mightily in the service. I feel like this is a special time for Brazil. The church across the country is exploding with growth. The maturity level and passion of the people is something I have not seen since my Brownsville days. It seems to be a national revival. Even though I went to be a blessing to Brazil, I feel as though I was the one that received the blessing.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Belo Horizonte, Brazil

The meetings tonight were powerful and so refreshing for me personally. There was a sweet presence of the Holy Spirit and many salvations and notible miracles took place.


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Today is the first day of meetings here in Belo Horizonte and God is moving in a mighty way. The people are so fired up and responsive...it was a wonderful crowd to speak to. We are looking forward to powerful things tonight at the Crusade in Jesus Name.Reinhard Bonnke Preaching at the Conference

Am Meeting at Lagoinha Baptist Church



View Cityscape...the View out My Hotel Window

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Off To Brazil

I am sitting here in Orlando International Airport, about to board my flight for Brazil. Please keep us in your prayers this week; both for the CfaN Crusade in Belo Horizonte and for me as I minister to the pastors and leaders there.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Feeling Better


I am finally feeling much better and very much looking forward to my trip to Brazil in a couple of days. I have been invited to speak at the pastors conference in Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke's Crusade in Belo Horizonte and my spirit is full of the Word of God for the people there...I feel like I am about to burst! Please keep me in your prayers for continued recovery and for safe travel.

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Meetings Cancelled

I was scheduled to preach at a church this weekend that cancelled the meetings at the last minute and left me unable to schedule anything else in their place (tisk, tisk). Then, ironically, a couple of days ago I came down with a terrible staph infection in my foot that has left me unable to get around (so the meetings would have been cancelled anyways).

GLORY IN THE CITY
Unfortunately, I will also be missing the Glory in the City Conference which I was supposed to leave for early Monday morning. Evangelist John Shiver will go ahead with the meetings and I am praying that they will experience a mighty breakthrough in the Philadelphia area. Please keep me in your prayers. I am still scheduled to leave for Brazil on Thursday. I am believing for a complete and quick recovery in Jesus name!

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Buy this Motorcycle and Support Missions

A while back I was preaching at a small church on a Sunday night. I didn't think that much could come from such a small gathering, but when I finished preaching a man came up to me with tears in his eyes and gave me a big bear hug. He shared with me his desire to see the Gospel go into all the world...I was blessed. A couple of days later, he called me and said that the Lord had laid it upon his heart to sell his practically new, mint condition Harley Davidson motorcycle and donate the proceeds towards a crusade. If you are in the market for a Harley, this would be a wonderful investment...not only in an exquisite piece of machinery, but in eternal souls as well. If you are interested in this motorcycle please call our office at 813-407-9410

Sunday, May 13, 2007

From Bride to Mother

Happy Mothers Day!

This morning I was thinking about an encounter that I had when I first launched out into Evangelistic ministry. I called a pastor of a church that I had heard a lot of great things about and he was a friend of a friend so I figured he would be eager to help me in my new endeavors. I called him one day and asked if I could share my vision with him for a few minutes. He hesitantly agreed so I began to pour out my heart and passionately shared with him my desire to see millions of souls saved around the world. After ranting for a couple of minutes he abruptly cut me off and said, “son, I’m sure that what you are doing is fine, but we have a lot of our own things going on here and we are not interested being involved in anything unless it has to do with our local church”. I was taken back…literally speechless for a few moments. I guess in my heart I knew that there were people that didn’t care about the lost and about missions but I had never heard someone just come out and say it. I said, “Okay…well, thank you for your time.” And I hung up the phone and began to wonder to myself how someone who is in love with Jesus can have no burden for souls.

In Gen 30:1 it says that, “…When Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children, or else I die.” I know that today there are many women who experience emotional pain and even depression because they are unable to have children. God created women with an innate desire to bear children…it is part of their makeup. This is why little girls play with toy dolls and pretend to be mommies. They are programmed this way.

However, I think that from a western frame of reference it is almost impossible for us to grasp the implications of bareness in Eastern culture in Old Testament times. In those days it was common for men to have several wives (not to mention concubines and servants) so there would have naturally been a certain amount of competition for the husbands affection. Also, sometimes the men were married for reasons other than love or desire (such as when Jacob ended up married to Leah instead of Rachel who he loved). If one of the women in the household had no children while everyone else around her was fruitful, it would have clearly shown that she either had a physical problem or was not intimate with her husband and this was very embarrassing…even shameful. That is why to Rachel, her bareness was no side issue…it was a life or death cry for help: “Give me children, or else I die.". For Rachel, it wasn't enough to be a bride...she wanted to be a mother.

John Knox, who led the reformation in Scotland, felt this same burden for spiritual children when he prayed, “Lord, give me Scotland, lest I die.” This intensity of desire might seem like an aberration of the norm, but I think it should be natural for the church to desire to see souls saved more than life itself. It is an inexplicable emotion. The world, and those who do not know Christ simply cannot understand it, but the burning heart of the bride has an untamable desire for intimacy with the groom, which will inevitably result in spiritual fruitfulness. The true bride will want to bear children. If the desire for souls is missing from a church or a believer, it is an indication of a problem and spiritual bareness is a symptom of a lack of intimacy with God. I feel like I can confidently say that if you have no burden for souls, you need to take a serious look at your own relationship with God.

If you were to lay your head on Gods chest right now and listen to His heartbeat, you would hear this; “Sal-va-tion, Sal-va-tion, Sal-va-tion”. If you truly love someone you become interested in their interests and their desires are important to you. Henry Martyn once said, “The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become.” I believe that there are only two kinds of people in the world; those who are winning the lost, and those who are lost themselves…which one are you?

If your Gospel isn't touching others, it hasn't touched you!
--Curry R. Blake

The Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose. – C.S. Lewis

In the vast plain to the north I have sometimes seen, in the morning sun, the smoke of a thousand villages where no missionary has ever been -- Robert Moffat

Rebekah Ministers at Covenant Community Fellowship


I enjoyed Rebekah's sermon yesterday so much that i asked her to preach again for me this morning at CCF in Tampa. Again she did a wonderful job and everyone was blessed.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Rebekah Ministers at Transforming Life

Tonight, Rebekah ministered to the women at Transforming Life Ministries in Plant City where she was invited to speak at their Mothers Day banquet. It was a wonderful message about trusting the Lord our provider...Jehovah Jireh. She spoke about Job trusting the Lord, even in sickness and loss. She spoke about Ruth trusting the Lord and remaining faithful to Naomi and about how the Lord provided for the city of Samaria when they were besieged by the Syrians in II Kings 6. Often, when people hear about the Lord being our provider, their mind immediately goes to finaces, but she talked about how the Lord provides for us in many ways; financially, emotionally, in health and comfort, etc. She talked about the loneliness that she sometimes experiances when I travel a lot but even in that loneliness Jehovah Jireh provides comfort and friendship for her. I am so thankful to have such a godly and wise woman by my side.

Sunday, May 6, 2007

West Virginia - New Life Worship Center

I had a wonderful time this weekend in Weirton, WV at New Life Worship Center. The church is an amazing testimony of God's restorative power. Three and a half years ago Pastor Bob Mazeroski and his wife Tracy became the senior pastors of the church with only six members. Today the church is thriving and they have even planted another church in the Pittsburgh area that is also growing very quickly.

I had the opportunity to minister in both churches this morning; one after the other and there was a powerful presence of the Lord there. Pastor John Miller led a wonderfully anointed worship service that took me back to my Brownsville days...so refreshing. In both services there was a good number of people that recieved a call into the ministry and several salvations as well. I thank the Lord for strong, spirit-filled churches that have a heart for missions and evangelism both at home and abroad.

Friday, May 4, 2007

Update on Kamonki, Pakistan

As many of you know, we have just returned from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan where our latest Gospel Crusade was held in the city of Kamonki. The meetings were a tremendous success and we are still basking in the afterglow of all that God has done.


We held four evening meetings and two morning pastors training conferences. A total of more than 38,000 people attended the evening meetings and upwards of 11,000 of them received Christ for the first time. This is a city where an estimated 99+ percent of the people are Muslim or Hindu and the largest of the cities three churches is only about 70 members strong. The attendance at the crusade was so overwhelming that the pastors were caught off guard. We told them what to expect but still they didn’t believe it because they had never seen anything like it before. As a result, at the first evening service, where over 3,000 people prayed to receive Christ, they had only prepared 10 alter workers (they were asked to have several hundred ready). By the second evening they had received a complete paradigm shift…going from defensive maintainers to aggressive harvesters in a matter of moments.

Many people received healings and deliverances…we even heard a testimony of a man who had received prayer in proxy for his bedridden mother at home. By the time he got there, the Lord had gloriously healed her. Broken arms, blind eyes and tumorous growths were touched by the Lord as well as many other ailments each night.

The pastors and local churches were greatly encouraged. One pastor told my interpreter that he came to the conference with the intention of leaving ministry. He said that he was discouraged and disheartened and felt the lowest he had felt in his life. After that first morning session, he had received a new passion for life and ministry and was ready to advance the Kingdom of God once again.

Preparations for our next crusade in Madarai, India, are now in full swing. We are urgently in need of an additional $15,000.00. We have already invested a lot into this crusade, the venue has been rented and advertising is fully underway. Please pray about how the Lord might lead you to help us in this time to reach thousands of Hindus with the precious Gospel of Jesus Christ for the first time.

To hear more details of the Kamonki, Pakistan crusade please read the full crusade report in our upcoming summer issue of REACH Magazine. If you do not currently receive REACH Magazine, please visit our website to receive your FREE subscription.

Many thanks to all of you that have donated so generously towards this latest crusade in Kamonki, Pakistan. I believe that we will be amazed in heaven as we see the eternal fruit that has been brought about as a result of a few dollars invested in souls. Thank you from the bottom of my heart on behalf of all those that now know the saving, healing and delivering power of the Gospel.

Getting Started

Hello everyone...I have created this blog as a way of keeping all of the friends and partners of CTE up to date on the many exciting things that are taking place every day in this ministry. I hope that you will all continue to remember us in your prayers and continue to help us "Cover the Earth" with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.