Stories

by Mark

May 1996 – © Keep Believing Ministries
Dr Ray Pritchard

Last Tuesday night I sat on the platform at the UIC Pavilion for the Say Yes Chicago campaign with Luis Palau. During the evening Luis told the story of an evangelist named Mordecai Ham who came to Charlotte, North Carolina in 1934 for a citywide tent campaign. One night only six people came forward at the invitation and Mr. Ham went home thinking the service had been a failure. But one of those six was a young man named Billy Graham.

You never know what God is going to do. The next night I went again and during the invitation looked down on the Pavilion floor and thought I saw someone I knew. It turned out to be George Cominos. As I walked up to greet him, he introduced me to his friend who had come with him to the service. George couldn’t wait to tell me that his friend had come forward and given his heart to Jesus Christ. “I’ve prayed for him so long. I can’t believe it,” he said. Then with tears in his eyes he added, “This is what it’s all about.”

That was Wednesday. Yesterday I joined 4000 others who walked the shore of Lake Michigan in the annual Hike For Life, sponsored by the crisis pregnancy centers of Chicago. As I walked with many others to express my support for the unborn, it struck me that most of the eight million people in Chicago had no idea that such an event was taking place. To them, yesterday was simply one more beautiful Spring day. Little did they know that thousands of people were raising money to save lives.

God never despises small things. In fact, the most important things God is doing today are unseen, unknown and usually unappreciated! Genesis 18:1-15 is a case in point. If you read it carefully, you will discover that it describes a very homey scene. You might call it kitchen-sink religion. This is grace and groceries!

http://www.keepbelieving.com/blog/

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Asbury Revival

1970

The service, a routine meeting, was scheduled for 50 minutes. Instead, it lasted 185 hours non-stop, 24 hours a day. Intermittently, it continued for weeks. Ultimately, it spread across the United States and into foreign countries. Some say it is being felt even today.

News of the revival spread in newspapers and on television. Strangers flocked to Wilmore to worship with the students. Asbury officials dismissed classes. By Thursday, a revival had broken out at the seminary, across the street from the college.

In December 1990, 18,000 students from many different nations gathered at the University of Illinois for “Urbana 90” a triennial rally sponsored by InterVarsity Missions. McKenna thinks that the meeting might spark another Great Awakening, a multinational, multiethnic one. Some of its leaders might be the same people who were touched by the 1970 revival, who now are middle-aged and hold positions of church and college leadership.
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Friday, November 6, 2009

778 Decisions for Christ at Luis Palau Association ‘Next Generation Alliance’ Mission to Moldova

By Peter Wooding
Special to ASSIST News Service
MOLDOVA (ANS) — A total of 778 people committed their lives to Christ at the Luis Palau Association’s (LPA’s) recent ten day mission to Moldova and Transnistria, two Eastern European territories near the Black Sea.

The mission, which took place under the auspices of the LPA’s ‘Next Generation Alliance’ initiative, involved five evangelists working with churches in the Moldovan capital Chisinau and Balti, the second largest city, as well as elsewhere across this nation.

In Calarasi, the only church in the city took the outreach completely to its heart. Pastor Dorel Ieseanu said: “We have already heard that people who went to the mission, but who do not come to our church, are talking about the peace they received at the meetings. The mother of a young lady who comes to our youth group – and who was suspicious of our church – has changed her mind completely. She now tells her daughter that it’s better for her to go to our church rather than the Orthodox one”. All non-Orthodox churches are regarded as a sect in Moldova.

Fedula looking at response cards

The national co-ordinator of the mission, Rev Vitalie Fedula, said: “We praise God for the final result which saw so many coming to know Christ personally. The evangelists all did a great job! We thank God for the seed that was planted, pray that it will continue to be watered, and that God would make it grow”.

Nigel Gordon of the Luis Palau Association said: “It is quite clear that God had gone ahead of us and that our prayers have been answered in the most wonderful way over these ten days as these many hundreds of people now put their trust in Christ. We now look forward to our next major outreach, which will take place in Baia Mare, Romania this weekend.”

For more information on the Luis Palau Association and their evangelistic work in eastern Europe, see www.palau.org.