Dear Friends and Partners,
We have finally made it to the city of Kumasi in the nation of Ghana for our final gospel crusade of 2022. Have a look at the video of our arrival yesterday: https://youtu.be/yD-tcwtiVhU
The road to get here has been fraught with many dangers, toils, and snares. Actually, it is miraculous that we have made it this far. One of the biggest challenges we had was with the crusade field. There was simply no place in Kumasi large enough to hold the massive crowd that we are expecting to gather—except for one. It’s a 29-acre field (equivalent of 22 American football fields) in the center of Kumasi, but it has been a “sacred” ground and has been off-limits.
If you read the report that went out a few days ago, I explained:
The major reason for the opposition is – that this field has never been leveled or prepared for a mass gathering (even though it’s in the center of the city), and there’s an eleventh-hour reluctance to allow it. Furthermore, it is the center of the Ashanti kingdom. (One the largest kingdoms in Africa, reaching far beyond Ghana.) For centuries, this has been the traditional venue for spiritism and animistic witchcraft practices . . . BUT {thank the Lord} the current king, and many others, DID want it to be used for other purposes (like our Crusade). And after extensive deliberations and negotiations, we prevailed.
Our crusade director said:
“When the bulldozers arrived to prepare the field, the caretaker, a practicing witchdoctor, called the police, and a long standoff took place. After further negotiations, they (finally) agreed for the work to proceed . . . as long as we erected four pedestrian bridges across their ‘holy stream.”
Another problem that we faced was getting our eight trucks filled with crusade equipment (speakers, sound equipment, lights, platform, etc.) across three international borders. At one of the borders, our team was stranded for nearly 10 days. This means that they only arrived on Monday of this week, forcing them to compress five days’ worth of setup into two! The team looked exhausted tonight, but they have pulled off the Herculean feat. This is why they are the best on the planet. Where others would give up and go home, they rise to the challenge and do the impossible.
We also have more than 120 BootCamp students that have been here for nearly three weeks completing their training (what is called their “Initiation”). In less than three weeks, they have conducted 1,801 outreaches and seen 340,174 documented decisions for Christ! And that is before the crusade even started!
Now, the first night of our gospel Crusade has just come to a close. More than 100,000 people attended this opening service.
The atmosphere was electric. The faith and expectation of the people was palpable. As I preached, the response to the gospel was overwhelming, and many tens of thousands surrendered their lives to Jesus tonight.
Right before it was time to pray for the sick, lightning began flashing in the distance, and rain began to pour on the field. The vast majority of the people never moved. I prayed for the sick and took testimonies in the pouring rain.
Here are a few of the wonderful miracles that happened tonight:
A man who had been on crutches for the last eight years as the result of a semi-truck accident was healed tonight and walked without his crutches!
A man with terrible, debilitating chest pain was healed during the prayer!
A little girl who suffered with epilepsy and had not been able to speak was healed!
A man with severely limited mobility due to a back injury was able to move freely tonight, bend down and touch toes and move with perfect freedom!
This is only the first night of our crusade here, and I’m sure that over the next three nights, we will experience a mighty move of God. Please continue to pray for us and for our entire team on the ground.
