Evangelist Tuparnak Berthelsen lives in Denmark but was born in Greenland. In June 2019 she was send out as a missionary to her own people. During her visit this summer she also found time to meet with her uncle and other friends and family members …
Tuparnak Berthelsen is the name of the woman standing to the right. She is a very unique Inuit woman with an extraordinary mission. First time we met her was in Denmark. She was a student at our Powerschool, and this year she also attended our Powerschool in Orlando Florida.
Tuparnak has lived in Denmark for many years, but after she got saved and healed in 2001, God has called this woman as a missionary to Greenland. She has such a heart for her people, and she is willing to travel to the most remote places, even by helicopter and boat to bring the good news of the gospel, that God so loved the world that send Jesus to save, heal and deliver us from sin, sickness and the spirit of darkness.
During our last meetings in Denmark in June 2019 a group of people committed to support Tuparnak so that she can bring the gospel to the Inuit people. She was send out, and this summer she is traveling to Sisimiut, Kullorsuaq, Quaanaaq and other places.
20 days in Kullorsuaq
Tuparnak attended a conference in Sisimiut and spend 20 days in Kullorsuaq in North West Greenland. This was the place where great revival broke out in 2003, followed by strong persecution. The Christians in the village are still standing strong, and recently she has send us this report from her visit.
“I was received very well and they would serve me “matek” which is a traditional Inuit whale dish. I had to meetings in the village and two meetings in the church. Only 12 people came because of persecution. In one of the meetings God showed me, that somebody was suffering from a stroke. I started praying and found out that one of the leaders had a severe head ache and felt paralyzed in one side of his body. I commanded the sickness to leave in Jesus name. He has been seeing the nurse, but the man is completely healed”, she says.
After the visit in Kullorsuaq, Tuparnak is traveling 19 days to Quaanaaq which is the worlds northern most civilian settlement.
Qaanaaq in North West Greenland is the worlds most northern civilian settlement.
This Christmas it has been seven years since we first came to America and started feeding the homeless people on Orange Blossom Trail in Orlando, Florida. Every Wednesday and Sunday after church, but also a lot in between. Even before the church was established, our family has served tens of thousands of people, and if somebody asks me if it has been worth it, I will always say “yes”.
Honestly, I don’t think about it, I just do it. If I start to think too deeply about what we are doing I might start to lose courage. Orange Blossom Trail needs a lot of change, and we all know that it’s not the food, that will change the community. It is Jesus Christ. My focus is so strong on Jesus Christ and the vision that I refuse to look back and faith in him keeps me alive and strong in all the daily problems.
I have many pastor friends now in America and sometimes I have to pinch myself in the arm when I hear about their problems, how I wish I sometimes could swab problems with them. Just last week alone, two of the people that come to our church regularly have died out in the street, but still, I am convinced that I am graced to do this job.
There is a Reason, Pastor!
Let me give you three fresh testimonies that kept me going this past week:
In our church we have this homeless man that I have fed for seven years, he always sticks to himself, he has a long beard and white wild hair, and not so long ago he told me why. “There is a reason, pastor. I want people to think that I am crazy so that they will stay away from me”, he explained. “I am not crazy, but I am so hurt by people, I just want to sit on an island alone and die”, he said. This man has been expelled many times because he has been drunk and aggressive, but last year he detoxed himself off one bottle of vodka a day and has been sober for a long time. Now he has decided to follow Jesus, and Sunday he was in our service for the first time ever and got baptized in front of everybody. Even I was astonished to see him take that turn. For many years it seemed like nothing was happening but now, all of a sudden, he is changing big time.
My Other Sheep
One of my other “sheep” have been coming to our Community Cafe for a long time. They are always around, and they are always high and drunk. They live in a different world of substance abuse and we have had many problems with one of them in particular. No matter what I say, they will never listen, so I must admit that I kind of wrote them off, still knowing that “nothing is impossible with God”.
This week I saw the impossible. I was outside the Community Cafe talking to one of the guys, and when I came into the building everybody was real quiet. I had to look twice when I saw my “case impossible” speak in front of everybody. “So many people have died out here, but this church has saved my life”, he said. “This is our street, and we must stand together to change our community. We can do it. If they could change me, you can change as well. But it takes faith in God and faith in the church”, he said.
I was stunned. This man has threatened me and my family and my volunteers over and over again. Recently we gave him the “last chance”, he has been asked to leave the facility several times, but now I am happy that we had faith, patience, and longsuffering enough to love him through. Now he is pulling people into the church.
We Saved his Life …
My last “case impossible” is a young man that I don’t remember “not high”. A few months ago he told me that he was starting in school, A young man that I do not remember “not high” on drugs told me a few months ago that he was starting to go to school. I took the time to talk to him but it looked like the word was just going in through one ear and out of the other. I also prayed with him, and next time I saw him around he was sitting down, talking to another young drug addict about Jesus Christ. “You know me from the streets”, he said, “but I have changed, ever since pastor prayed for me and I started listening to him, my life has changed. I am going back to school. This pastor saved my life!” he said.
I almost fell off my chair, I had not seen that one coming and I realized right there that our word is like a living seed. We must preach whether people like it or not. We must not stop speaking about Jesus Christ. The word is alive and has mighty power to save.
When I came home Friday I was still in awe. Two of the most impossible cases were testifying in front of other people that I had saved their lives and I did not even know it. The third “impossible” guy was baptized on his first Sunday in church. Wauv, I never get tired of serving Jesus Christ.
Happy New Years from all of us here in Orlando. We walk by faith, not by sight. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Don’t ever give up hope!
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!
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.
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.
Today when I came to our church in downtown Orlando there was a woman outside the door. The woman was so skinny that you could see the bones in her face and she looked and smelled like a living dead. I would think that she had not showered for weeks. I can take a lot, but this was bad. “Go away, go away”, she shouted. Honestly speaking, I got a little agitated over her behavior, but then I recognized her voice.
I called out her name and gave her a hug. “Is that really you?” I said, asking her where she had been for so long. “Crack,” she said. She did not have to explain herself more, I already knew that crack had a lot of power over her and that she never got real free. It was obvious that she did not have a lot of time left to live on this earth.
This woman was one of the first people we met at our public feedings here in the USA She was a prostitute many years on OBT and one of the first ones from the street that we baptized on the beach. In the beginning, she came with us to church, but she always did it her way. She did not want to let go of her rebellion. Nobody could tell her anything, she knew the Bible, the law, the everything better than anybody else. It was hard to see when she floated back into her old lifestyle, and from that point, we would rarely see her.
I tried to reach out to her but she was partly there and partly not there. Most of the time she was talking to her self or sleeping on the bench. As I drove back home I sat with tears in my eyes begging God to intervene like I have done it hundreds of times. I have seen so many people die since I came to Orlando to start the church on the trail. Like life has no value. The people we work with here seem to have a death wish over their lives.
Let me give you an example. A few days ago a man came running, swearing and cursing. He was not drunk or high just so filled with rage and anger, he banged his fists into the wall and turned around looking at me with fiery eyes, screaming “Today I am going to kill somebody, I wanna leave this world and die, I swear today somebody is going to die”. I was sitting outside but right there I saw Satan in his eyes, no doubt that it was a demon that was working hard to finish his life and the life of others as well.
Later on, I had another conversation with a man I have not met before. He was a widower and he told me that God had killed his wife with cancer. He was very bitter, and he believed that God would kill him as well. I was really surprised by his beliefs and asked him where the devil was in his worldview. If God was to be blamed, at least the devil should have some as well, I suggested. Then I asked him if he had ever done anything wrong if he had no faults in the failures of his life, and slowly but surely the truth started shining and I was able to pray with him.
None of us can blame anybody for the outcome of our lives. You can’t live your whole life without God and then suddenly blame him for what you should have done a long time ago. We all have to live with the consequences of the choices we make. We are the ones who make decisions, and we all harvest what we sow. The wages of sin is death, but Jesus paid the price for us so that we have the option to live in freedom from sin, surrendering our lives to Him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Rom 3:23 For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God;
Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Joh 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me”.
Today as we start our roadtrip to visit the Rose bud Sioux Indian nation in South Dakota I want to share with you an experience from last year so that you can understand how God is opening doors and directing our steps supernaturally.
On our roadtrip last year God put in our hearts to pray for revival among the native Americans. We had no clue how to reach them but we asked God to use us and made ourselves available.
God did not only open our hearts, he opened our eyes .Suddenly we saw them everywhere: At the roadside, gas stations, the laundromats, the casinos .. At one point we picked up a Navajo woman in the middle of nowhere. She had left her drunk husband in the village because she did not want to live with him anymore. She wanted to go back to town and get her own apartment with water and electricity so that she wouldn’t have to cook food on the fireplace no more!
One night in New Mexico we stop by a casino. As we went in to find something to eat we realized that the Indian people not only worked here. Many of them lived here. They sat at the slot machines drinking and smoking waiting for luck to come. There was absolutely no luck. Only emptiness and misery to be found.
We tried to reach out but nobody wanted to talk. We asked God to lead us to somebody, believing for one that God had prepared for us to meet!
On our way back we checked into our hotel .My husband took the luggage and meet the bellboy. This young man was half Arapaho and half Cheyenne. My husband started talking about the Holy Spirit and when I finally got to our hotel room on the 7th floor the bellboy was standing outside the door, hanging over the cart, speaking in tongues so loud that people stopped and watched in the hallway.
After 20 minutes the bellboy went back to work and we could finally go to bed. Just before midnight my husband received a text message. It was the bellboy asking if he could play golf with us tomorrow! What the heck …???
We realized this was not about golf, but rather an attempt to meet again. The bellboy wanted to introduce us to his bellboy friend so we could pray for him. The story was like this. When our bellboy came down from the 7th floor his friend could see the change in his face and now his friend wanted the same thing!
This was the moment we had been praying for. We got back in our clothes and invited them to our room. Next thing we had two bellboys kneeling at the bedside praying to receive the Holy Spirit. What a sight. My husband had to take a picture, if not, nobody would have believed it.
That night we were able to sow a seed into the revival amongst the native Americans. It started with our prayers and before we knew of it, we were having a prayer meeting with two bellboys in our hotel room. This was how it began, and here is how it continues this year as we are on the road again to preach the gospel in the Indian reservation.
Pray for us as we go, that God will have his way and people will receive salvation, healing and deliverance. We are driving for the next three weeks, so follow the blog and stay tuned!
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.
Last week I was preaching in Lima, Peru, which was a very unique experience for me, not because of the traveling and the preaching, but merely because of the timing. I have traveled to more than 60 nations preaching the gospel, but for me going to Peru this time was a vision coming through.
Let me give you some background. In 1988 Karen and I went on our one year honeymoon around the world, hitchhiking with a guitar and a fishing pole on top of our backpacks. At that time we fell in love with Peru. It was the country of all countries, full of ancient Inca history and adventures. We stayed in Lima for two months playing the guitar every night in the downtown area in order to pay for our hotel and there we met all the weird and dangerous people that only show up when other people go to bed. I played music with the Indians that taught me how to make artisan work, and for the next 10 years, Karen and I were convinced that we were called as missionaries to Peru.
I started to study Spanish in Copenhagen but, as the years went by, the calling got a little “rusty”. I would go back once a year to find artisan products to sell in Denmark and my little import business was growing. I kept talking about moving to Peru but eventually, Karen asked me not to mention it anymore. With a 3-year-old handicapped daughter in a wheelchair being a missionary in Peru seemed as impossible as going to the moon.
In 1992 I went on an expedition in the Amazon Jungle, fought my way down the Amazon River from Venezuela to Peru with a friend of mine. It was the wildest adventure. We traveled in a bongo (a boat made out of a carved tree) for five weeks until we finally made it to Iquitos which is the jungle capital of Peru.
At this time Peru was dominated by the terror movement called the Shining Path. People were being killed on the main roads so there was no way we could go from Iquitos over the Andes which is the biggest chain of mountains in South America. We had to go by plane so we bribed a military pilot to board his big military cargo jet. It was not a comfortable flight on top of canons and munitions. I was a young Danish man who had barely seen a weapon before so I was absolutely shocked when we landed at a military airport on high alert and ready for immediate action.
As we arrived Lima was in a standdown with the terrorists celebrating their 10th anniversary blowing up big car bombs and random killings. Everybody was tense and scared and at night tanks were driving around with heavily armed and masked soldiers on top scouting the rooftops for potential attackers. As we came around the corner of the main street in the center of Lima, a crowd came running towards us screaming “coche bomba.” I had no idea what that meant but seeing the fear in their eyes made me turn around and soon I found myself running for my life in front of the whole crowd as a car bomb went off in the middle of the day. I remember walking down the street and shots going off over our heads and us seeking cover on the ground. All in all, it was some very frightening experiences and I made a promise that I would never go back before it would be in the service of Jesus Christ.
In September 2017, 25 years later, I found myself in the same streets but where I used to run for my life, I was now preaching the gospel. Everything had changed, Lima is now double the size with 12 million citizens, and I was going to areas and cities that did not exist in 1992. I met with my old friend Carlos who used to change money for me in the street. Today he owns three money changing bureaus. He took me around on the back of his motorcycle and I took him to church.
I have had several opportunities to go to Peru but I wanted to wait for God to open the doors. This time I knew the Holy Spirit told me to go, together with my pastor friend from Clermont who has been talking to me about his constant trips to Peru over the years. Traveling with him, I met many pastors from different churches and many wonderful Christians. I preached and worshipped in Spanish, still asking God “what do you want me to do for such a time as this?”
I believe in pre-destined lifestyle and for the past 20 years of full-time ministry, I have had incredible encounters with God and with people. This time was no exception. Before my last meeting in Lima, I found what I was looking for. I was preaching in a meeting and the Holy Spirit fell on the congregation. When we started worshipping, we couldn’t stop. The worship band consisted of four professional musicians, they were all brothers, very gifted and at the same time very anointed. The worship went on and on in waves till after midnight. It was such a unique experience.
Before I left Lima I met with the four brothers whom God had connected me to in such a special way. We talked about what happened that night and they said they had never experienced the presence of God this way before. I knew it was about destiny and so did they. This was no coincidence. God is looking throughout the earth to support those whose hearts are fully committed to him (2 Chronicles 16.9), so this is what I will be looking for as well. These young men had such hearts and, as we had ministered together in the meeting, we knew that we are going to minister together in the future. God will show us how and when but this is about destiny: The calling for Peru has been revived.
EVANGELIST MINISTRIES INTERNATIONAL 