May 4, 2025

Ed picks up a bin labelled “Oregon, 1970s”. “What’s in there?” I ask, hoping I won’t have to be the one to open it. Although I was happy to help organize ministry files at the Transform Our World headquarters, I can’t help but brace myself for a big, hairy spider to jump out every time we open another bin. Ed pries the lid off, and something flies out of the bin and lands at my feet! I shriek like my dog when someone has stepped on his tail and jump about three feet back. Ed looks down to see what scared me. He smiles and shows me what it is: a tiny, faded photo of Ed and Ruth sitting in a grassy field. “I remember when we took this!” he says. “It was right after Ruth and I moved from Argentina to the U.S. It makes me think of a story…”

“Ruth and I came to the US when many young people were joining the hippie movement. Many Christians were dismayed by the hippies’ drugs, murky spirituality, and sexual experimentation. ‘How could we possibly minister to these people? They’re just too far gone…’ was a common sentiment. When I heard people say that, I thought of 2 Peter 3:9, which says that God is “not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). ‘If God doesn’t want anyone to be lost, why can’t these people come to Christ too?’ I wondered. 

“One day, I saw a group of hippies singing as they harvested berries, which wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was that I knew the lyrics they were singing; they were from a Christian song! Curious, I struck up a conversation with one of them and told him I was a Pastor. “Hallelujah!” the man said. “You’re the answer to our prayers!” He explained that through supernatural circumstances, this group of hippies had encountered Jesus and chosen to follow Him. Since no traditional church wanted to embrace them, they’d prayed for a minister to come to them. Through this divine connection, Ruth and I were able to minister to these hippies every weekend, and we witnessed incredible work of the Holy Spirit!

“Later that summer, I got a call from a minister I was friends with. He was very kind, but extremely proper; I never saw him without his immaculate suit. His normally measured voice was breathless as he spoke to me over the phone: ‘Brother Ed,’ he said, ‘some hippies have taken over the community center and they’re conducting orgies and doing drugs! We need a miracle!’

“I raced to the community center, where I met with the pastor. We tried to go inside, but the demonic atmosphere was so strong that we were overwhelmed. ‘What should we do?’ my friend asked. For lack of a better answer, I replied: ‘Let’s pray!’ We prayed desperately, and as soon as we opened our eyes, we saw a caravan of trucks full of more hippies coming! ‘Oh no,’ I thought, ‘we prayed for help and it’s getting even worse!’ But as the caravan approached, I realized that they looked familiar. It was my friends, the hippies Ruth and I had ministered to! Their leader ran up and told me they’d been praying that night when God had told them I was in trouble and where they would find me. ‘Let’s go inside!’ the leader said. But then, he paused, looking at my Pastor friend, whose starched collar was buttoned all the way up and whose hair was gelled perfectly in place. Well-intentioned as he was, he fit in with this wild group as well as a housecat would in a jungle! Politely, the hippie said, ‘you may want to stay here; we know how to handle this.’

“The Pastor and I worked as prayer support while the Christian hippies infiltrated the community center. Two hours later, there was a pile of discarded drug paraphernalia on the floor and scores of hippies were on their knees, receiving Jesus, many with tears in their eyes!”

As I reflect on this testimony, I’m amazed at how much boldness it took to plunge right into such a dramatic atmosphere of spiritual darkness. How often are we tempted to do the opposite when we see darkness in the world? It’s so much easier to stay in our comfort zones and complain about the evil “out there” while doing nothing to change it. But even though our instinct may be to insulate ourselves from the darkness, we must remember that God’s light is more powerful than any evil: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:5) We can share God’s message and do His will boldly, because we know that “greater is He who is in [us] than he who is in the world”! (1 John 4:4) 

-Eutychus

(Excerpts of this post were adapted from Anointed for Romance by Ed Silvoso.)