DAWN Fridayfax 1996 #32

DAWN News from Ghana, USA, Fiji

Ghana: Jesus heals better and cheaper than the medicine man

Christina Ntore, a Christian from the African village of Wasa, was critically ill from gangrene. When pastor Nathaniel and missionary Greg Fisher of the Foursquare church arrived, her leg was "twice as large as normal, and her foot and toes were black. As we prayed for her, we had the impression that the illness came from a curse. As Christians, we have authority even over curses," says Fisher, "and following prayer in Jesus' name, we could feel that's something had been broken in the spiritual realm. Inside a week, the woman was completely healed, and had no scars. She can now walk normally and is again working as a hairdresser," as Fisher reports. The local Fetish priests didn't have a chance. When she became ill, her family called a powerful medicine man in order to break the curse. However, before he arrived the Christians had already prayed for her. The Medicine man was very angry about that, and demanded a large amount of money from the family. He told them when he would come to collect it, but never came. According to Fisher, the medicine man collapsed and died on the way. As a result, many people in the village have a new respect for God, and six people in Christina's family have become Christians.

Source: Greg Fisher, FMI, see below.

USA: "Hot Dog-evangelisation" in New York

"I asked for an idea for how to evangelise, and I think I received an answer," says Mark Bolo, member of the Foursquare Church in Utica, part of New York, to his pastor David Hendershot. "I'll open a mobile Hot Dog stand on a street, and give out Hot Dogs, drinks and tracts to passers-by." The pastor was initially skeptical, but when he heard that Bolo had already ordered a Hot Dog stand and that the cost and been met exactly by a special collection, he agreed. Bolo set the stand up on a church parking space on a busy street, and started giving away Hot Dogs with a Christian tract. He soon saw results. One man said that one day, he didn't know what he could give his two little daughters to eat, because he had no money. "I'm not a praying type," he said, "but as I sat in my car that evening, I quietly said 'God, what can I do?' At the next traffic light, a teenager said to me 'Hey, there are free Hot Dogs over there.' Of course, I went straight there, and could give my daughters something to eat that evening. You can't imagine what that evening meant to me."

The owner of a small bar also heard about what Bolo was doing, and asked him to set his stand up in front of his bar in a nearby part of town. He opened his games room and dance floor for Christian concerts and promised not to serve alcohol during this time. Laurie Hayford, a member of staff in the church's headquarters, reports that almost 40 people have shown interest in becoming Christians as a result. "Because someone actually showed interest in the area and gave the people something instead of taking, hearts were opened," says Hayford. Today, the "Heavenly Hot-Dog Cart" is very well known in New York's Mohawk Valley area.

The Foursquare Church, named after four of Jesus' basic characteristics, reports that in 1995, 374,134 people decided to become Christians as a result of the ministry of 19,060 local churches in 72 countries.

Source: Laurie Hayford, Foursquare World Advance, P. O. box 26902,1910 West Sunset Boulevard, Suite 2 hundred, Los Angeles, California 90026-0176 USA.

More than paper: Every Home Crusade helps plant churches

The international mission organisation "Every Home Crusade" of Colorado Springs, USA, reports that the personal and systematic distribution of Christian tracts to every house has given rise to a church-planting movement. "The aim of the movement is not to plant EHC churches, but to help existing churches and denominations in their own evangelism." says Wes Wilson, the organization's vice president. "Even though the EHC's evangelistic work has led to the creation of an own denomination in many countries, such as the Christian Mission Fellowships in Fiji, we do not really plant churches but Christ Groups, embryo churches, which are then generally given over to the care of other churches. In Indonesia, hundreds of these groups could be transferred to the Baptists, Assemblies of God, or the Disciples of Christ. In India alone, more than 448 million tracts have been distributed and 16,893 Christ groups planted as a result of EHC's work since 1964. 13,972 of the Christ groups are still in existence today.

Source: Wes Wilson, Colorado Springs, U.S.A.

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