GETTING TO KNOW YOUR MINISTRY TEAM IS VERY IMPORTANT
War Story No. 29
As the leader of a Full Gospel Airlift Team, I didn’t always know the in–depth background of all the individuals who had signed up to travel and minister with us on the Airlift Teams. On one occasion about two weeks before our mission team was to leave for Japan, I received an email from Noel Morris a New Zealand Missionary stationed in Japan. Noel had Volunteered to help us schedule the men on our Airlift Teams to speak in various meetings in Japan. Many of those meetings were in Christian Churches. On this occasion Noel’s email informed me that he had received a complaint from the pastor of a church in which one of our men (I will call him John, not his real name) had given his testimony on our last Airlift to Japan. It seems that John had be-friended a twenty three year old Japanese girl by the name of Ricco, who attended this Pastor’s Osaka Church. John had met Ricco on a previous Airlift, some three months earlier, and John and Ricco had been corresponding with each other. The girl had told others in the church that she was going to marry John, and the pastor was concerned for the girl. Apparently, John and the girl were talking about marriage in their correspondence. The Pastor of the girl’s church was concerned for the girl and had contacted Noel about the situation.
John had signed up for our next airlift, which was scheduled to leave for Japan in the next several weeks. I informed John of the Japanese Pastors concerns, and had a long talk with him concerning the problem. He admitted that he and Ricco had been corresponding, and that he and the girl had spoken of marriage, but he said they were just talking; they were not that serious about marriage. The problem was that the girl was apparently very serious about marriage.
The morning after we arrived in Osaka, Noel met with the Airlift team and briefed the group on the speaking engagements which he had arranged. Afterwards, Noel and I met privately with John concerning the problems that had developed as a result of his corresponding with Ricco. Noel explained to John that Japanese girls were quite immature and innocent in their relationships with men. They were perhaps seven or eight years behind American women in such relationships. John told us that he understood the situation, and promised to be more careful in his relationships with the Japanese women in the future. Never the less, I kept John with me as much as possible to make sure that no similar incidents occurred on this trip.
During my previous visits to Japan I had developed a very good relationship with a Roman Catholic Priest, Fr. Jean Pencrech who was the Pastor of a fairly large Parish near Kobe. I had met Fr. Pencrech in one of our first Fellowship meetings in the Casa Blanca Night Club in Kobe. He would invite me to teach in his Kobe Church each time I came to Japan. I still correspond with Fr. Pencrech at Christmas time, some twenty eight years later.
On this particular trip Fr. Pencrech had scheduled our team to minister in a women’s meeting in the main Catholic Cathedral in Kobe. Tom Slinker (a graduate of Rhema Bible College) and I taught the women in that meeting on the importance of keeping our hearts free of un-forgiveness if we want God to heal us and answer our prayers. We used the Lord’s Prayer, (a prayer that the Catholic women would be very familiar with) as our text.
The meeting was fairly large for a Japanese church. At the conclusion of the meeting we asked the women who had not yet done so, to join with us in asking Jesus to become their Lord and Savior. As we prayed many of the women were weeping. Maybe ten or fifteen women said that they had asked Jesus to come into their hearts and become their Lord and Savior. Then we read Matthew 6:15 “But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses” and asked the women to search their hearts to determine if they held un-forgiveness or bitterness toward anyone. Next, we had them ask God to forgive them for holding bitterness and resentment in their heart toward those individuals. Now that the bitterness and resentment was forgiven we asked the women who had pain or sickness to come forward for healing prayer. Many of the women were weeping as they came forward for healing, and many were healed.
But my attention was on a young lady in her mid to late twenty’s that John was praying for. The girl was weeping and John had his arms around her holding her, comforting her and holding her close to his chest. I went over to John, tapped him on the shoulder and told him very sternly “let go of her!” He said, “I can’t”. I told him again very firmly, “set her down in that chair”. John set the young lady down and went off very angry.
I watched the girl for a while and then went over and laid my hands on the girl’s head and commanded the spirit to come out of her. Immediately a spirit manifested and the girl began to thrash around and slide to the floor. I located a Japanese lady from the church who could speak English to interpret for me. No one seemed to know much about the girl, but one of the women said that whenever the Priest laid his hand on her head during communion, she would go limp and fall to the floor. I gathered a group of spirit filled women from the church around the girl and asked them to pray in the Spirit.
I proceeded to cast the devilish spirit out of the girl. After about 15 to 20 minutes the girl began to choke and cough. Then she went limp as the demon left her, and she began to thank me, and thank me, and thank me. When she had recovered somewhat, I took one of the women who was interpreting for the meeting and the girl who had just been delivered, off to the side for privacy and began to question the girl. I wanted to find out what the girl had been involved in that allowed the demon to enter her.
If you would like to know more about how the demon spirit entered the girl finish the story here.
In Jesus’ Name:
Robert W. Bignold
National President,
Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship in America