DAWN Fridayfax 1995 #46

News from Taiwan, USA, Colombia, Switzerland

Taiwan: 100-year-old baptised; persistent prayer pays off

According to the Ecumenical News International, a 100-year-old woman was baptised in a Presbyterian church in Taiwan. The pastor met "Sister Hong" while visiting one of her neighbours. Many of her family are Christians and had been praying for her for several years. Hong's comment: "If I can do that at 100, others can too!"

Source: ENI, via NIRR

USA: prayer and fasting in Los Angeles

Thousands of Christians from the USA and 90 other countries met in Los Angeles for 6 seminars from 13-19th November 1995. The seminars had a common topic: prayer. The "Fasting and Prayer" seminar (with Bill Bright) alone, held in the Los Angeles Convention Centre, was attended by 3,500 people. In addition to that, 1,500 people from 34 nations attended the "Prayer and World Cities" seminars held as part of the first "Global Conference on Prayer Evangelism" initiated by Edgardo Silvoso of the mission organisation "Harvest Evangelism" (San Jose, California).

8,000 women from 90 nations attended the international Aglow conference from 16-19th in nearby Long Beach. Mrs. Austin from Aglow, an international women's group, said "after reconciliation between man and God, we need reconciliation between men and women."

On 18th November, 9,000 men met in the Anaheim Convention Centre. Pastors from the Calvary Chapel movement had invited men to make more room for prayer in their lives. "Without prayer, many men are at the end of their own vision and strength," said pastor Carl Westerlund.

In Jack Hayford's "Church On The Way" in Van Nuys, 1,500 pastors from 35 denominations met from 13-16th November; prayer was also the subject of their conference, according to head pastor Scott Bauer. "It seems that the Holy Spirit wants to make clear how important prayer is for Los Angeles. Our city has been through several traumatic experiences in the last few years: earthquakes, catastrophic fires, floods and in particular the riots following the Rodney King verdict and the O.J. Simpson verdict. God now wants to do a work of grace."

Source: NIRR for 27 Nov 1995

Colombia: Christians pray at night in stadia

"God still has room to act in even the most impossible situations," says Julio Ruibal, one of Colombia's Christian leaders at a conference in Los Angeles. Ruibal remembers how the infamous Cali cocain cartel disintegrated following all-night prayer by 22,000 Christians in a stadium. "Although there are normally 150 drug-related deaths each weekend, the authorities reported that on the day the Christians prayed, not a single murder took place. Since then, every important member of the Cali cartel has been arrested and Cali's nightlife has completely changed. Throughout the country, believers meet for all-night prayer sessions in stadia. I'm standing here as a witness that nothing is impossible for God."

Source: NIRR

Switzerland: miracles in Berne

Daniel Rutschmann, initiator of a Christian fellowship for foreigners in Berne, reports of several miracles which they have experienced in the past months:

Healed of Asthma - pictures of Hindu gods fall off the walls
"I was recently reminded of a story in 1 Samuel chapter 5. The Philistines took the Ark of the Covenant and put it in their god's temple. The next morning, the statue was lying on its face in front of the Ark. They lifted it back in place, with the same result the following morning. A Tamil woman was brought to the service last year because she had bad asthma. She asked us to pray that she would be healed, and afterwards came regularly to the service and converted from Hinduism to Jesus. In her apartment, she had many pictures of Hindu gods; one day, they all fell to the ground. Her husband hung them back on the wall and fastened them with sticky tape. When the woman returned home after a service, they were all on the floor again, even though nobody had been at home. Her Hindu husband was naturally amazed, but at the request of his wife, they threw the pictures away."
Prayer helps an epileptic
"Ananth came into contact with the YMCA as a Hindu. He suffered from strong epilepsy. He received prayer and was healed, and has taken no medicine in the last two years. Because of this miracle, he converted from his bad lifestyle to Jesus and now regularly attends the services."
Healed of diabetes
"Fernando from India was rushed to hospital in 1994 suffering from acute diabetes. He believed that God would heal him, and prayed. Thanks to God, he is now healthy, needs no medicine and can eat everything again."

Source: Daniel Rutschmann, Tel.(+41) 031-381 4783, Fax +41 031-3822170

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