VILLAGE LIFE

One place we went was to this village where we prayed for a woman partially paralyzed by a stroke. We traveled an hour and a half each way to get to this Muslim stronghold. After we prayed for her and had polite conversation, the women began to talk, and we men went outside to look around. An old toothless man came hurrying along and stopped with a big smile to greet me. I asked him what he had in the bucket on his shoulder and he lowered it and showed me the clothes inside. He was on his way to wash clothes. We followed him across the rice paddies to the pool created by a nearby spring where he went down and joined a woman who was already washing her clothes. Village life is very simple, and this is but one example of how. It was very poetic and beautiful, but I thought I would not trade my washing machine for a half kilometer trek across the rice paddies to wash clothes in a pool! I supposed it isn’t always sunny and nice.

I

I noticed some school girls gathered down the gravel main street of this village, and went to investigate. Turns out they were fifth graders on recess from the nearby school. The younger kids all ran away but one brave girl spoke out in English "What is your name." This was an opening for me to get them to practice their English, and I got all their names and ages. Just when they were about to sing for me, they were called back to school. Three girls, not in uniform stayed. I asked why they were not in school, and they replied they were sixth graders, already out of school. I sat and talked with them for some time. One wants to be a doctor, one a teacher (sixth grade) and one wants to be used by her nation. I thought this latter was an unusual but very noble and high desire. They sang several songs for me, including one which names all the Asian countries.

It was a very precious visit for me, from the humble dirt floor home we visited to the visits with the children and the old man, giving me a peek into the very simple and very hard life of village farmers in Indonesia.

--HWK--

SHEPHERDS AND SHEEP - NORTH CEMETERY

North Cemetery is a vast city in itself. Many of the tombs are bigger and better ‘homes’ than any of the thousands (millions?) of poor in Manila. And many of these poor take up residency in the tombs. Owners pay up to $6 a month for a family to take up residency. This provides a roof and area to sleep in exchange for making sure no objects (iron fences, photos, etc) are destroyed or stolen. Some of the owners also provide a drinking water supply for their ‘tenants.’

It is in this place that we had our second annual healing crusade. It is reported to me that our particular area is for sale, the bones have been removed and take to Europe somewhere. There are three crypts, two adult and one child, but a fairly spacious floor area some 6-8 square meters under the roof, which is crumbling cement. Our hosts have the key to the iron fence gate.

Most of our group is very young children and their mothers, with a contingent of teenagers hanging around outside, sometimes moving in and out. We have several lively songs, and I preach a message about Christ, his love, his healing power. A woman experiences relief from the usual back pain and fatigue, and with this, others come forward. One woman is quite fearful, for breast cancer has caused pus to be flowing from her breast. I didn’t get details, I have difficulty enough getting the basic information with the language! After prayer, she said all pain had disappeared. I had her go into the back with one of the ladies on our team to check it out. They came back and reported that the pus flow had nearly stopped. We prayed again, they checked again and reported just a pinpoint of pus remained. Relief and joy flooded her face!

Then some of the teens started coming in. I am not sure of the stories, but the change in faces, and the fact that others came in for prayer told me that something was taking place when I prayed for them.

One of the interesting facets of North Cemetery is the ‘Condominiums.’ I noticed some last year, now there are many more. These are high rise 2x2x6' square tubes piled upon one another, crypts awaiting sale and occupancy of dead bodies. In the meantime, many become places of refuge for the squatter community.

Surely our small gathering is not even a sampling of the lives in this strange community in the middle of one of the largest cities in the world!
--HK--

SHEPHERDS AND SHEEP - A Testimony

Erike and Wirahade
"Mie Gili" Restaurant Owner

Just before leaving Surabaya, I ministered in a church in a suburb, Sidoaradjo. I ministered there just a year ago, when I prayed for the pastor and his wife to have a child - they were many years (I think 6) childless. Now they have a three month old child. You can do the math.

After church, I was taken to a restaurant to eat, where the owners told me the following story, which I requested my interpreter to put into English and forward to me by email. This is their story. -HK-

In the early 2006 I and my husband got a prophecy from rev. Hugh Kaiser (USA), He spoke that God will give to my husband a job that is even greater than what he has before and still open our restaurant in the city of Sidoarjo . Yet our restaurant selling at that time was decreasing, plus it was near to the end of contract (rent) period in early 2007.

Still in that kind of situation I kept the word of God (prophecy) in the deepest of my heart. In June 2006 the city government set up a median on the road in front of our restaurant caused our restaurant even difficult to be accessed. It cost even more lost and the selling drop to 60% and it wasn’t stop at that point, the property owner asked for 90% raise for the renting price. We try to negotiate but the owner will not move.

During the months of Oct-Nov 2006 we experienced a heavy distress. Every day we circled the city of \Sidoarjo in order to find a new location for our restaurant that fit our financial budget/capability. It seems impossible!!! To find a strategic location always means high cost renting price. Finally, we decide to stop/closed down our restaurant business and planed to go abroad for a job.

At that time I talked to a friend of mine (the person that I was talked to when I got the prophecy), she immediately warned and remind me to the prophecy, I was like waking up from a sleep and back to the track believing if God wants He will arrange everything and open the way. Suddenly I feel peace and surrender everything to Jesus. Not to long from that time we got a new location for our restaurant in the city center as we dream for a long time. Something that we amazed about The Lord Jesus, we got it a lot cheaper compare to the old location. God provide us with the financial. When we talked with the property owner at the time of signing contract, he said that actually many other person have been interested to this location and they are agree to pay even higher. More over, the property owner gave us permission to uninstall the fence in front of that property (that will hinder the face of our restaurant), no one has ever been permitted to.PRAISE THE LORD JESUS, He never late to help us, he makes everything beautiful in His time. He open the way that make us amazed and wonder to His Power, the timing is precisely (Just a month away from the last renting period). No use if we hope to a man help, Jesus is awesome!!!!!!!

Thank You for the chance you have given to us to witness. Hope this testimony can help others more depending to Jesus…….Amen

God Bless You,
Erike and Wirahade

For Lovers Only TESTIMONIES

These are translations from testimonies voiced during our meeting in Jakarta Thursday, March 22.

Ria : After the retreat – family restored, blessings flowed beyond their imagination. She realized that they should invest the blessing they received and not keep it for themselves. She also realized that they should serve God better than before.

Tri : He wanted to run away the first day of the retreat, a mixed feeling of inferiority, incapability, and other negative feelings gripped him. But as time progressed he felt changes took place in him, a newness and freshness of mind and heart. He has a cell group at his house and asked for our prayers that God will enable him and guide him to minister to his cell group members who are all having marital problems.

Kim : Her dreams come true, for a long long time she wanted to have a spiritual father for both of them especially for her husband Tri. God answered her prayer in sending HK. Through the teaching that she got at the retreat i.e. to show respect to your husband, made her aware of her shortcoming in this area. She did some soul searching and apply self correction. Before the retreat their relationship was stiff/rigid but now a change takes place. They can express their love more freely. Their marital relationship has been restored.

John : This meeting is very important! His wife has cancelled a meeting in order to come to this meeting. Result of retreat: husband & wife relationship has been restored. Now he only sees his wife’s goodness while before that he only sees her shortcomings/weaknesses. Before he cannot take a correction, but now he realized that as a pastor and a husband he has to live a righteous life. Now he didn’t want to minister to the Word of God unless with a clean heart. How can he stand before the congregation if there is no unity in his family.

SHEPHERDS AND SHEEP - SPIRITUAL WARFARE

In my teaching, I say that the Holy Spirit provides us power to overcome the enemy, both within us (our human nature, for one) and the enemy without (demons, or spirits for one). The following stories are personal experiences which I present because both Shepherds and Sheep should not be ignorant of the enemy’s methods.

WITCH DOCTORS and ILLNESS

We were conducting a healing service in a remote town in the Philippines in late 1980's. The local people who had completed our seminar on healing prayer formed the teams that prayed for the sick of the town who had come at our invitation.

One team came to me for help. It seems that a young man had come to them for healing a stomach pain which he had had for several months. The pain had gone away, and he had sat down in his seat, where the pain came back. This was repeated three times. The fourth time the man came back to their group for prayer, they came to me.

I suspected demonic activity. In my experience, pain that inexplicably comes and goes, or that moves about in the body, is often caused by spirits. Spirits are either invited by our activities, or sent to attack us. Invitation usually is some occult practice, even such a simple thing as reading horoscopes (the Bible admonishes us not to participate). In questioning the young man, he revealed that he had been to a faith healer, or witch doctor. At first I thought I had the source, but he had gone to be healed of this ailment, so it could not be the cause.

I asked him what the faith healer had said. He told us the faith healer had said that a curse had been placed upon him, but the faith healer could not help because the spirit causing the problem was stronger than the spirit the faith healer used for healing. Knowing that the Spirit given to us by our Father was stronger than any spirit, we bound that spirit and cast it out. The pain was gone and never returned.

SOURCE OF POWER?

Another time, our team was walking for three days from village to village, praying for people and preaching the gospel. A man began following us the second day. My host said that he asked if we were forming a new group. He was head of a group PBMA - Philippine Benevelent and Mission Association - they also went about healing people. He wanted to join our group, because he saw that the power we had was greater than his power.

A few days later, I was teaching in a seminar and he came in and sat at the back. I had been teaching on the Holy Spirit and hearing God. I had an illustration on the blackboard showing three sources: God, Satan, and our own creative minds. During the break he came and talked with me. He also had seen miracle healings. I asked him which source of power he used, and he pointed at ‘satan’ on the board and said "that power." I asked him why, since by his own observation over the past few days, God’s power was demonstrably more powerful.

He replied that the demons would get angry and hurt him if he used God’s power. He said that it was convenient for a time to use the power of the dark side, but later he would follow God. And he only used it for ‘good.’ Many are enticed or coerced by this same lie and succumb to the convenience of compromise for comfort sake, or unwittingly submit to the evil powers ‘to do good.’