The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.
-Jesus of Nazareth
At the 21st Global Conference on Transformation, Chief Jay Swallow, the spiritual overseer for our Global Prayer Presbytery (the intercessory arm of our network), shared this amazing report of how a tipping point for transformation is approaching amongst the First Nations People of North America
Jay began to minister at the Blackfeet reservation in northern Montana way back in 1969. Over the years he has visited the reservation regularly. Eight years ago his work there intensified when his disciple, Roy Wolftail, returned home to the reservation to plant a church. Through prayer and spiritual warfare they laid a solid foundation for transformation, but while the church was strong and growing, the tribe had not really opened up until the tipping point came about 3 months ago.
Chief Jay Swallow
Mishayle is a young 10 year old girl whose family is part of a extremely traditional clan in the tribe. The patriarch of this clan was an old medicine man who was deeply involved in what we would term witchcraft, as was the entire clan. This had ostracized the clan from the rest of the tribe, particularly the Christians. They were so deeply into the traditional ways that Mishayle had no knowledge that a book like the bible even existed and had never even heard of the name Jesus.
Blackfeet Indian Reservation
Mishayle had leukemia which culminated when she died after 8 days in a coma. She recalls that while she was in the coma she heard the words "flat line" and then two angels came and escorted her to heaven. In heaven she met Jesus and many other people mentioned in the Bible, such as king David (who loved to dance). She even played with other children her age. She described it as the most wonderful place she had ever been. After a while Jesus asked her is she wanted to stay. She looked back and saw her mother weeping so she responded, "I want to stay but I think my mother needs me." Jesus told her that that was his plan and that he wanted her to be his messenger. He asked her to hold out her hands and when she did they began to burn like fire. He told her to lay her hands on people and pray for them so they could feel his presence and be healed. He then had her lay down on a beautiful fresh lawn. After awhile she noticed that something was obstructing her breathing so she pushed it away and sat up. She was already in the morgue, the thing obstructing her breathing was the sheet they had pulled over her head. She had been pronounced dead nearly an hour ago!
The doctors went into a panic and rushed her back into ICU thinking they had misdiagnosed her and she wasn't dead yet. A couple hours later, after they had run every test they could think of, two doctors walked out of the ICU with Mishayle between them and told her parents, "We have no explanation for this, but we can find nothing wrong with your daughter, take her home."
Mishayle
That was a Saturday, the next day Mishayle, her parents and 50 clan members including the medicine man patriarch, showed up at the church. Imagine the surprise of the Christians. The church had known of Mishayle's sickness and had been praying for her but there was nothing more than that. Mishayle walked right down the isle, her father explained what had happened to the pastor then Mishayle told him she had a message from Jesus.
After Pr. Wolftail gave her permission, this 10 year old girl who had never seen a Bible nor heard the name Jesus just 24 hours prior, began speaking about the glory of the Lord as if she was a educated woman of 30 who had grown up in the church. Her entire clan received the Lord and that began an incredible outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the reservation. They have had meetings nearly every night to an overflow crowd in the 350 seat church as people, primarily native people, have come from across America and Canada to hear about this incredible miracle.
Jay Swallow is currently wrapping up the production of a video documentary telling this story. Before doing this, in order to honor the proper protocol, he first asked permission from the head man of the tribe, Chief Earl Old Person. Not only did Chief Old Person bless this but he requested that a copy of the documentary be sent to every tribe in North America to show them that there is hope. We are working with Jay to help him do this.
WOW! When I heard this testimony, I was so inspired with hope and faith. God can do whatever He wants, that's why He's God! We need to pray believing and do our "due diligence" to align ourselves with Him then trust Him to do what only He can do. That is the essence of prayer evangelism and transformation! We have been working diligently to anchor the transformation movement and specifically the Canopy of Prayer and Adopt Your Street with the first nations people. This has by no means been easy, but now the tipping point is coming.
Just a few weeks ago Jay Swallow brought Mishayle (and her parents) to Oklahoma to share her story and minister at 3 services. In one of these services at Jay's church, they had over 1100 people in auditorium that seats 700. 75% of these were Native Americans. There were many miracles and healings and 350 people made a first time decision to become followers of Jesus!
This isn't just for the indigenous people, this is for our entire nation. All of a sudden the issues of systemic poverty and the inequitable distribution of wealth have been catapulted into the national spotlight while our nation teeters on the brink of all out class warfare. Have you noticed that no one has any answers? But we do have the answer. The answer is Jesus, and the solution is transformation! Connect the dots--the dead are raised and this is good news to the native Americans, the poorest, most abused, neglected and exploited ethnic group in our nation. We, the children of God, have the solution for our nation living inside of us, we just need to wake up, grow up, get over our issues and work together to pray and speak the peace of God over every one every where. That is what prayer evangelism and Adopt Your Street are all about. That may sound overly simplistic, but I tell you this stuff works!
