As soon as the team of Charis Bible College students returned from their trip to England, the testimonies started pouring in. The fruit from these missions trips never ceases to amaze, and this trip was no exception.
“The one thing that stood out to me the most,” recalls student Ben Kaewakami “was seeing the New Testament church in action. It’s an experience that will stick with me forever. It was an unstoppable force that commanded change wherever it went.”
The power of the Holy Spirit in action was made evident through the lives of the people who were touched—people like Arne Thomassem, a first-year student at Charis Dewsbury (Yorkshire) who was delivered from lifelong depression after receiving prayer from Charis Colorado student Amy Sky.
“This was a major stronghold, and its removal has had a deep impact on me,” says Arne. “The horizon suddenly became very bright. In the following days and weeks, I have become more aware of the change. It is permanent!”
As Eileen Quinn prepared to speak at a church in Shelfield, she had no idea that God was using her to prepare people’s hearts for miracles. “When I finished speaking,” remembers Eileen, “several of the students came forward and gave eyewitness testimonies of miraculous healings that took place in their lives. Hope was mounting in the people’s hearts.”
The room was charged with faith as the team gave an invitation for healing. As they laid their hands on the sick, words of knowledge began to flow out of them like streams of living water, reaching people right where they were.
As Eileen looked around the room, she noticed a woman in a purple sweater standing frozen in front of her seat. When Eileen asked if she wanted prayer, the woman whispered, “I’m a nurse, and I killed my mother two years ago when I had to take her trachea [tube] out. She died.”
“I felt an anger rise up on the inside of me,” recalls Eileen, “because I knew that that accusation against her was a lie. By His Spirit, I told her how God saw her situation and that she had to break agreement with the lie she had believed. She had done her best, nursing her mother, but her mother died in the process.”
As she spoke out loud, breaking the agreement, a loud cry came up from her, and she began to wail. Something she had been holding in for two years left her body, and she was free. Clinging onto Eileen, the woman started praising and thanking God. “She could finally mourn her mother’s death now that the lie of condemnation was gone. He heals the brokenhearted!”
“It continues to amaze me that every meeting we had was successful,” Ben adds, “to think that God could flow through us like that. Some of us have never prayed for anyone or spoken in front of an audience before. It truly is incredible what God can do with people who are willing and obedient.”
