Four years ago we introduced Powerschool in Orlando Florida, where people could come to our church in Orlando and learn about Christian lifestyle.
We started out small, with the members from our church, but over the years we have had an increasing number of international students. They come from Africa, Europe and South America, from different states and even from different tribes. We have prayed God to give us the nations, and our prayers have been heard!
What is Powerschool
The purpose of Powerschool is to empower people to live victorious in every area of life. In Powerschool you will meet teachers who has been through “stuff”, and they will talk to you about the process, how they overcome obstacles in life. They will share their lives, not only the success stories, but also their mistakes and misery, the problems and the pain. But they will not leave you there. They will show you a way out and share, how they were able to pick up faith and to move on in life.
I will talk about how we gave up our 60 acres farm in Denmark to come and feed the homeless people in Orlando. My wife will share how she overcame cancer, having a handicapped child, and how it was when my teenage boys were on drugs. Our pastor from Rwanda will teach you about prayer, telling powerful testimonies of healing the sick and raising the dead, and the other leaders will give you their version of how to build a church from scratch, faithfully serving the poor and believing in the vision when nobody else was there.
Worship and workshops
In Powerschool we start the day with coffee and fellowship, followed by prayer, worship and teaching. We also have workshops with evangelism, prayer and community service, giving out dinner and brunch to the poor people in the community.
In my last blog “Living With Christ is a Blast” I wrote about the adventures in the Amazon Jungle in Ecuador, how we flew into the tribes in small planes and how we drove over the Andes Mountains on motorcycles, swimming in waterfalls, white river rafting etc.
This time I want to share with you the biggest adventure of them all and the reason why we went there in the first place. I did not come for the jungle experience, I came for the “Jesus Experience”, to see Jesus touch peoples lives in the Puyo region.
First time I came to Puyo was in June 2018, and after two days of crusade, I felt there was more for me to do. That’s why I talked to the pastor in the region, and that is why we set up another crusade with four revival meetings at the beginning of December 2018.
The first night we preached in the host church in Puyo, the jungle capital of Ecuador. The pastors are Carlos and Alicia Marchan, they are wonderful people and very respected for their work in the region. When they came there was nothing. Today they have started many churches and led many people to Christ, and it is amazing to see how the church has developed and grown with the city.
It was a really good start, many people were baptized with the Holy Spirit, so we were all fired up and ready for the big meetings the following days in the downtown sports center. The next day it was raining all day which I had not expected. Only a few people were there at the beginning of the meeting, but after an hour they were there by the hundreds, including my tour guide and several of his friends, and when I called for salvation many people gave their lives to Christ.
Instant Miracles of Healing
My preaching did not take a long time at all, so we started ministering to the sick and oppressed. I will try to give you some of the highlights:
A teacher and her teenage daughter, she was completely blind on one eye and had severe pain in one side of her face. The daughter started crying when she realized that her mother’s eye had been restored and to my surprise, she started reading out loud the banner behind me on the stage, even the sentence in small print that I could not even see myself.
A woman with a severe infection in her stomach, it was so bad that she could not even urinate and had a lot of pain. We prayed for her and I told her to go the restroom and pee and when she came back her face was all lit up and she whispered in my ear that as she went to the restroom all the puss and infection had come right out of her and she was healed.
It just kept going and going on for so long. So many testimonies. Now I knew that the second crusade night in Puyo would be great. Again it was raining cats and dogs all day, even worse than the first day, we could not even go out of the hotel. The rain was so heavy that I thought people would not be able to come. But people kept coming. They said there were over 500 the second night, which was a personal miracle to me with all that rain.
After the sermon, I asked people with tumors to come to the front for prayers and one by one they testified how God healed them there on the spot from tumors and growths. When people saw and heard this, their faith exploded and soon many people poured out from the isles to give their lives to Christ and to receive healing and deliverance.
The Power of God Hit the Place
A woman with throat cancer came forth. I had talked to her before the meeting and she said she had no faith. I told her that I did not agree since she had already demonstrated her faith by coming to the meeting. And when she finally came for prayer I told her how she had now demonstrated her faith in Jesus twice in a day. First by coming to the meeting and second by coming for prayer. I asked her friend to lay her hands on her and immediately she started to swallow, which she could not do. She asked for water and after drinking a whole bottle she asked for food and then another bottle of water, she could eat and swallow without any problems. A miracle happened right there before our eyes.
I remember another lady with a huge tumor under her breast, it was as big as a cup. As we prayed for her to be healed the thing disappeared right before our very eyes. We all started crying, everybody on the team experienced the power of Jesus Christ that night. It was like an explosion. This evening many more got saved. It was so powerful. I could not sleep when I came back to the hotel.
Sunday morning I preached again in the church and again we saw several people getting baptized, healed and set free from demons of witchcraft. This was my last meeting, supposedly the end of the trip, but I have the feeling that I am not finished. It seems like we are just getting started on a whole new chapter, an outpour of the Holy Spirit in Ecuador spreading to other countries in South America as well.
In this blog post, I want to share a video about Powerhouse Church and our vision for our OBT community in Orlando. In the video, I will explain to you how it all began, how we as a family started to feed the poor and needy, and how people came to support the vision. You will see our street, our building and you will meet some of the amazing people in our community.
Click on the link and enjoy.
I hope this will inspire you to do something in your community as well!
Yesterday I went to the hospital to visit one of my “sheep”. I don’t know what other pastors do when they go here, but my errand was a little unusual. I had heard from a neighbor that this man was in the hospital – and the neighbor also told me, that the house where he used to live now was a crime scene, his roommate had been stabbed in the house by his girlfriend and the police were investigating, so honestly, I did not know exactly what to expect!
As I came into the room, the man was sitting on the hospital bed waiting for the nurse to dress his wounds. First I thought it was from the stabbing incident, but then I realized it was something else. I found out he had been in the hospital for 12 days, even before the incident, and his wounds were not there because of a weapon.
“I dropped the pot of boiling soup on my feet”, he explained. “We were cooking on the fire outside, and I wanted to bring soup inside to cool off. I dropped the pot and I burned my feet, he explained. I looked at his wound. It was not on his foot but on his thigh, since the burn was so bad, that they had to make a skin transplant in order to fix it. I found out that this guy had been walking around trying to self-medicate the burn with hydroperoxide for several days, which only made it worse. Eventually, he had passed out, most likely from drugs, and this was how he came to the hospital
I love this guy so much. He lives in a small house in a side street to OBT, very close to the church. He shows up when we have our community days and our community dinners, and I go there to visit when I can. A few months ago I had him ready and packed to go into a rehab, but on the day we were supposed to leave, he had barricaded himself drunk inside his little house and he refused to leave. I called the rehab center and canceled, and a couple of days later somebody more desperate than him had taken his place.
In the hospital, I called the rehab and explained the situation. They know it is a matter of life or death, so they do what they can. “There is another opening in December”, they said. “Somebody is checking out just before Christmas, so we will reserve the place”. My friend who runs the center was on speaker phone and I made sure that my guy in the hospital bed got the message as well.
I leaned over to his face. “Please don’t die on me. I have come all the way from Denmark just for you, brother so don’t you die on me”, I said repeatedly, as I laid my arm around his shoulders, heartbroken with tears in my eyes.
He looked at me with his big wild and half-crazed eyes. “I am not going to die, pastor, not this time”, he ensured me, but I was not that sure unless he will be able to go directly from the hospital to the rehab. My biggest concern is, that he will go back to his house. So before I left, I took his hand and prayed together with him, speaking life, that this man shall live and not die and see the goodness of the Lord.
When Jesus calls you, it is always now. Don’t wait for later. Don’t wait for tomorrow. People die like flies around here. When my wife did a women’s meeting a few weeks ago the police had sealed off the street corner across from our church. Somebody in a body bag was laying there on the ground, and the detectives were investigating for more evidence. Same night one of our local drug dealers lost his friend to a runaway driver on that same corner. He came to church the next morning, freaking out and begging me to contact the police to make sure they would find the runaway driver. I asked him, “Why can’t you talk to them yourself” and he said that nobody would listen to a drunk drug dealer which is true!
One day I had to throw another young man out of the church because he was so rude. He was shouting and cursing on his way out, and I found out that he had already been trespassed by one of our pastors. He said we were not a real church, he was even quoting scriptures trying to teach me how to be a pastor, but one month later a humble young man came to give his testimony. “I was off track for a while, but God has got me now real good”, he said. I did not recognize him, but it was the same man. Since I saw him last time, he had been robbed and shot three times.
These are my sheep on OBT and most of them are black in the sense, that they are lost, not knowing how to find their way and how to behave. Night and day they are putting themselves in danger, breaking through the fence, running around wild, doing drugs, dealing drugs and dying. But Jesus is still the good shepherd leaving the 99 in order to find the one. He does not want anyone to perish, and neither do we.
In 2003 I was invited to preach the gospel in Northern Greenland. A school teacher in a place called Kullorsuaq (meaning “The Devils Thumb”) had read my book “Conquering Demons” online, and I had received an email from him, asking for help. The school teacher had translated my book into Inuit language so that his wife could read it, and he also made extra copies for friends and families. He had found faith through my book, and now he wanted me to come and preach the gospel for the rest of the village.
I traveled several days by plane and helicopter to get there, and when I finally arrived, revival broke out, together with heavy persecution. People were getting saved, healed and delivered, some of them decided to get baptized which is not in line with the traditional beliefs, and the opposition arose to a point, where they were making plans to assassinate me for introducing a “new religion” different to the Lutheran belief that is dominant in Greenland.
When I left Kullorsuaq I was banned for entering into North West Greenland. I don’t think you can do that legally, but I was told never to return. Over the years I kept contact with the new converts up there, I was happy to hear how they survived the heavy persecution, planted a church and traveled up and down the coast to spread the gospel into the villages on their hunting trips.
Today I received pictures and greetings through Facebook from that same village, where people had been persecuted because of their faith. It was very touching to see how one of our former Powerschool students, Tuparnak Berthelsen, is having a revival in Kullorsuaq. This lady is a walking, talking miracle. She has a wild testimony. At one point she was beaten to death by a drunk guy and was revived by the ambulance crew. After having been dead for several minutes, she woke up with a severe brain damage and was left handicapped for life, until one day in 2001 where she was healed in a meeting with an African evangelist.
I have seen how this lady, over the last couple of years, at her own expense has traveled to remote parts of Greenland and preached the gospel with money she has saved up herself. This summer she went to preach the gospel in Alluitsup Paa which is a remote village in Southern Greenland, and after this, she visited Quarqatoq where she was invited to speak in the local church during a conference. As she shared her testimony and prayed for the sick, many people got saved and healed.
It is such a testimony when I see how God uses this woman in a place where I cannot go anymore. She has supported our ministry for many years every month, and I have seen the fruits of her ministry in Greenland this summer. Not many people can go to the most remote parts of the world, with helicopter and boat, preaching the gospel to tribes of hunters, sleeping in private homes. God has anointed her to do this. She loves it, and she is respected by the Inuit where ever she goes.
God has told me to support Tuparnaq Berthelsen in her traveling ministry in Greenland and also help her to reach out to the Inuit people in Denmark. Greenland is a beautiful nation and the Inuit people there have suffered a lot as they were colonized by Denmark for centuries. Pray for grace and pray for change, that many people will be saved.
Last week I went to London to celebrate my Bishops 20th anniversary in London. Imagine I was there at the very first meeting 20 years ago when they started the ministry in England. This was how it all began. My Bishop showed me how to heal the sick and I caught faith! It was in those meetings Gods power came over me and I came back a transformed man. In less than two months I had a revival going on in a Catholic Church in Denmark and became known in the whole country as an evangelist. It was wild!
For two days I attended the meetings with Bishop Teresia Wairimu and her FEM (Faith Evangelistic Ministries) staff in the meeting hall in Westminster. People came from Europe and Africa, including the youth dance team from Nairobi, Kenya. However, one of the biggest experiences took place outside the conference and in the middle of the night. We left the meetings at Westminster very late and did not arrive at our hotel before after midnight. We were hungry and the only place to eat was in the lounge. My friends were waiting for me in the lounge. We sat down, and the woman in the reception came running straight to me, not to pick up my order, but to talk.
“I am not stalking you”, she said, “but you are you not a pastor?”. I looked at her. I could tell she was desperate. She was so sweet. My friends next to me wanted to order their food, they did not realize what was about to happen. This was more important than food. “I know you are with the people from the conference”, she continued, “I checked you on the Internet,. I am not stalking you, but I desperately need God in my life”.
She told me that she had been to church this morning for the first time and was touched by the message. She also told me that life was a mess, so she was desperate for change. When my friends from the conference came to see me and ask her to call my room, she got my name and found out who I was.
Again she told me that she needed a miracle in her life. I realized this was real. She was asking for help to receive Jesus, so I asked her to tell her story one time more and listened really carefully. Sure enough, she had prayed that day for the first time for God to meet her, she wanted transformation now!
I looked at her hand. She had a splined wrist all bandaged up. I asked her what had happened and she explained how she had fallen and how she could hardly use her hand. Now I asked if she believed that Jesus Christ could do that for. She looked at me. “Absolutely, beyond a doubt, He can heal me right now”. I said a short prayer. I realized this woman had faith, so I prayed and told her to take the bandage off. She moved her hand back and forth and was completely healed!
The receptionist was chocked in a positive way. She had never experienced a miracle but was ready for the next. I asked again, “Are you ready to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour” “Absolutely” she answered, and right there in front of everybody she prayed Jesus Christ to come into her life and save her.
It was a very late but beautiful experience and when I left I was wondering what and how that just happened. When I passed by the reception later that night she was still “high” on Jesus Christ at the reception desk. I was so amazed to see what had just happened so I asked if I could shoot a video with her so that you (and my wife!) could see how Jesus Christ had called this woman into his Kingdom. Look what the Lord has done, you can check the video here was she a stalker?
Act 8:39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord took Philip away. The official did not see him again but continued on his way, full of joy.
For the past three months, I have been planning to go to London for a conference with my bishop and spiritual Mum, Evangelist Teresia Wairimu. For the past 20 years, she has been my spiritual authority and I love her very dearly. What she has taught me during the years has been gold. I am so thankful that God gave me a mum in a time where there were no spiritual Fathers around.
The Bible talks about submitting to spiritual authority and I have been submitted to her since the first time I met my mum in Rev. Reinhard Bonnkes office in a Fire Conference in Stuttgart, Germany. Back then I traveled all the way from Denmark to Germany to have her lay hands on me, and when I finally came for the prayer, I heard myself ask her 3 questions. Number one, if she could come to Denmark. Number two, if I could be a part of her team. And number three, the hands … The answer was “yes”, and as she laid her hands on me, I went straight to the floor. I don’t remember nothing. But when I woke up an hour later my voice was gone because I had cried so much, and all the small blood vessels around my eyes were broken. My wife said I looked like somebody who had been given birth – and she was right! This experience led to the birth of our ministry, and since then, we have been a part of her ministry which is Faith Evangelistic Ministries (F.E.M.) in Nairobi, Kenya.
This morning when I packed my suitcase I was sad to leave my family. I have spent so many months traveling over the years, and in this season I like to stay home with my wife and my boys to build the church. My wife reminded me why I am going. That I am called to preach the gospel and that I should know it is a privilege to be a part of what God is doing in the nations. Because of Him, I will go to the end of the world!
I am leaving tonight, and my first stop will be in Copenhagen, Denmark, where our daughter is waiting. She is staying at our friend’s house overnight and will join me as I am driving to my see my parents in my hometown Vejle three hours west of Copenhagen. I love my parents. I owe them everything, they showed me the way, the truth and the life that I am living today. They are old now and I will go and sit with them and honor them and tell them how much I love them. And we will pray together and tell Jesus how much we love Him and thank him because He has been so good to us.
I will stay for two days with my parents in Denmark and then I will fly to England to see my Mum Teresia Wairimu for another two days before I return to Orlando. It is a lot of traveling but I believe it is worth it. I love my family and I treasure spiritual leadership. I recognize the people that God has put on my path and I will not take any of them for granted. What God honors, I will honor. That is how I live and that is how I stay alive!
Hebrews 13.17. Obey your spiritual leaders, and do what they say. Their work is to watch over your souls, and they are accountable to God. Give them reason to do this with joy and not with sorrow. That would certainly not be for your benefit.
Exodus 20.12. “Honor your father and mother. Then you will live a long, full life in the land the LORD your God is giving you.
I have found it hard to describe details from the latest mission trip to Ecuador. So many wonderful things happened but this video from the adventures in the jungle and the miracle crusade in Puyo says it all. You can sense the anointing in the songs, the hunger, the expectation, the miracles. And you can hear the testimony of the blind girl that got healed in the first night of the miracle crusade in Puyo, Ecuador.
On my recent mission trip to Ecuador my son, Hector preached for the first time in a church in Puya. At the meeting was a lady who travels among the tribal people and she liked his message so much that she invited him to come and preach for one of the Huaorani communities in the jungle. He was the only white man, 23 years old, and she wanted him to share his testimony with the young people in the tribe. He had to be there at sunset which meant that she would come and pick him up from our hotel at 3 am in the morning!
Going to bed after the meeting he was so tired that he wished she would not be there, but he was still excited to go when she came and knocked on the door. They went an hour by car until they came to a small village. People in the community were sitting around the fire waiting for him, and he was received as a king. First, they painted his face and gave him a crown on his head. Then they gave him a necklace and an armband and a drum around his neck. Together with the other guests this morning, he started strumming the drum and walking around the fire. He had no clue what was going on since he did not speak their language, everything he said was translated, first from English to Spanish and then to their tribal language. At one point they wiped his arms with a plant to welcome him. Later he had an allergic reaction on his skin and found it that it was a poisonous plant! As the ceremony went on, he got served chicha, a fermented drink made of spit and yucca. He was served by each family and like this, he officially became a part of the Huaorani family.
As they were sitting around the fire, they all had their bible study with prayer and worship. For breakfast, they were served fish and banana wrapped in banana leaves. After breakfast, they took him to the river. They use bongos as transportation which are boats carved out of wooden trunks. Quite impressing how these bongos are able to float and transport people through the enormous Amazon delta!
Visiting the Huaorani people was a “one in a lifetime” experience. Hector was the only gringo invited to take part in this adventure, the rest of the team had to stay behind. When he came back before noon and I saw the painting on his face, the pictures of the tribal people, and the videos, we had a good laugh together, this was so unexpected, one of those things that God puts together for his people to enjoy.
When we came to the crusade in the evening, God and the Huaorani people had another surprise for us. Now it was my turn to receive the honour, and for this, I still give God the glory. My son and I received a crown and a necklace as a sign of respect, one more time, and now I rightly can call myself Warrior of the Huaorani …
If you click on this link you can see how Hector and I were crowned by our hosts at the last night of the crusade!
Yesterday we celebrated the birthday of the Christian church, the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit entered into this world with the sound of a mighty wind and tongues of fire transforming ordinary believers, empowering them to become witnesses for Jesus Christ to the ends of the world.
(Acts 2:1-4) ”When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”
When the Holy Spirit came, it turned the life of the church upside down. At this time, there were gentiles and Jews from all over the world gathered in Jerusalem, and they were all wondering when they heard how the disciples began to speak to them about God’s great deeds in their own language.
It was so wild that the critics blamed the disciples of being drunk in wine, even though it was early morning 9 am. They did not know about the new wine that the Holy Spirit was serving, and it seems like the same critics are around today!
Speaking in tongues has become a rare phenomenon, even in the Pentecostal church. Here we can find so-called believers who believe that the gift of tongues is not for everybody to receive, together with people who no longer speak in tongues in the congregation because they have become so seeker friendly that they don’t read their Bibles. Check it out. It says that speaking in tongues is a sign, not for the believer, but for the unbeliever. 1 Cor 14.22.
Let me give you an example. On my first crusade in the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic, I stood on the platform in the biggest sports arena, not knowing what I was going to preach. As I looked through a few different preachings, I suddenly realized that it was the actual day of Pentecost, so what would be more natural than preaching about the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
I preached with boldness and spoke the Word, and after that, I invited people to come for prayer. The first 5 came to the altar, then 10, then 20, then 30, then 40 and so on. Finally, there were about 100 people, who wanted to be filled with Holy Spirit and power.
Everybody stood, staring at me, expecting that I was going to fill their mouth with unintelligible sounds, and again I had to stress the importance to them, that it wasn’t me, but God who gives. Instead of praying for people individually, I released the power of God in the hall.
“Be filled,” I shouted, but at first there was no reaction. People just stood with their mouth open like young birds waiting for God to fill them and heaven to open up.
When I looked out to the people, my eyes caught a young guy, who had received the language of the Spirit the night before. The Holy Spirit showed me that I should ask him to come up on the stage. And when I put the microphone in front of him, he immediately started speaking in tongues.
This young man’s family was known by everybody in there so it became a mighty sign for the people gathered. Immediately when he started speaking in tongues, it spread to the first row. More and more people began speaking in tongues, and soon the stage and the floor was full of young, elderly, and old people, praising God in new tongues. After the meeting, a parent went on stage to take his daughter home. She was among those slain in the Spirit. When I left the arena, he came walking all by himself. I rolled down the window in the car and asked about his daughter. The man told me that he had to leave her on the platform because she was too drunk to walk on her own!
Pentecost is wild. It might not look presentable when the Holy Spirit falls on people but it is definitely needed for revival to break out. It is not our plausible words of wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that does the difference. We need the supernatural. More miracles and less apologetics, so that our faith should not rest in the wisdom of men but in the Power of God (1 Cor 2.4-5).
If you want to learn more about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, you can read more in Christian Hedegaard’s new book, “Holy Spirit Wildfire”, who is available on Amazon. Holy Spirit Wildfire
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