I was walking past the park last week when I was invited down to Elim Pentecostal Church for a healing service in the evening. This caught my attention because this city is split between Catholic and Protestant areas and its unusual to see young men like this coming into a Catholic area in this fashion. In any event its all linked to events in Florida mentioned in Spirit Daily today: http://www.theledger.com/article/200806 ... al_Leaders The minister in the Local Pentecostal Church visited Florida a few months back and now has suspended normal services for what he claims is an enormous outpouring of miraculous healing in his church. Not only this but one young man was said to have risen from the dead!! Now members of the Church are visiting the City Morgue here in little groups to pray over the dead to bring them back to life.Apparently the poor council workers are bemused and a little scared by these goings on. I am hoping to get down to a service during the week as I love seeing such goings on. I have a link to a radio programme to such a service, they are most certainly very lively, which I will post. I think them all gathered in a morgue would be a great scene in a Hollywood film: errie stuff:
A friend of mine was working with a protestant minister in Africa this last year. The villages were filled with the Holy Spirit and would pray for hours prior to the arrival of the minister and revival meeting. There too people were healed and some were raised from the dead. I shy aware from the noise of Pentecostal faith but they too are devout in their love for the Lord. Padraig, let us know what you find. Lee
They remind me of the Charismatics in our own Church , Lee. My own spirituality tends to silence and peace, empty churches and silence, but I can see were the fire of the Spirit is good. I am looking forward to seeing them. But I am a little doubtful about praying over dead bodies to no effect. The raising of the daed is very,very rare even amongst great saints, even in the Bible it is very uncommon.
Did you see this in Spirit Daily? I resurrected from death after four days in the morgue –Rev. Fr. Ikpoh • Saturday, Jun 28, 2008 The story of Rev. Father Cyprian Ikpoh can only be likened to that of the Biblical Lazarus who was restored back to life by Jesus Christ after days of romance with death. The newly ordained priest who graduated from the Ikot Ekpene Catholic Seminary after ten years of tedious academic and spiritual training, had his dreams of being in priesthood shattered by a ghastly motor accident. The accident which occurred on the 14th of August 2003 along Calabar – Itu highway, exactly one week after his ordination claimed his life alongside eighteen other passengers on their way from Calabar to Uyo. Narrating his ordeal from his hospital bed at Rehoboth Clinic, Port Harcourt, where is still receiving treatment, Rev. Father Ikpoh, said their Uyo-bound passenger bus was crushed by a Dangote trailer and everybody in the bus died instantly, and their corpses were deposited in a mortuary at Moore Street, Calabar. Among the 19 corpses deposited at the mortuary, Rev. Father Ikpoh came back to life four days after, as he was spotted by the mortuary attendants making the signs of the cross in the midst of other dead corpses in the morgue. Alerted by the incidence of his resurrection, he said, the attention of the Catholic Diocese of Calabar was drawn and immediately he was flown to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital were he was treated for brain injury he sustained. He disclosed that he was later taken back to the Teaching Hospital at Calabar for a post transplant on his badly damaged legs. “When I recovered, they discovered I had internal bleeding in the brain, and I was taken to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital again. I was later taken to the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital before I was brought to Port Harcourt on further recommendation. I am getting better now and I am grateful to the Catholic Bishop of Calabar, Bishop Joseph Edra Ukpo who took care of all my hospital bills” he narrated. The Catholic priest, who described the accident as a ploy by the devil to halt his priesthood through a tragic end, blamed the monumental human loss on the recklessness of their driver who ignored the pleas of the passengers to be cautious while driving. The Calabar-born priest, who confirmed that the 18 other passengers have since been buried, said he had to drop his private car that fateful Thursday morning and joined public transport because of his inability to drive long distance. Recounting his experience while in transition, the Rev father said; “when I died I saw myself in a very large and beautiful field, I was standing at the centre of the field when two angels in white cassock approached me and asked me; ‘youngman come we will show you the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world’. He said he was led by the two angles through a very far but straight road and when they got to the destination he saw a young white man who was sitting on a glistering throne. But he began to protest in his heart as he was not satisfied with the present of the young white man. “I thought that it was a small boy that these angelic forces asked me to come and see, or it is because he is a white man, if it was a Nigerian I will not mind.” At this point, he said, one of the angels told him not to allow the devil to put evil thoughts in his mind, after which the two angels bowed down and worshipped the lamb. The Calabar-born Catholic priest said his heavenly encounter got to a climax when he saw legion of angels crowding around the throne. “I myself felt down before the throne and started crying because I know I was not worthy to be there, all my sins started reflecting in my mind and I began to confess them. The lamb of God asked the angels why they brought me there, stating that I had lot of work to do for him having prepared me in the seminary for 10 years, the Lamb later asked the angles to lead me half way and show me how to go back, in my mind and I was not happy because I want to remain in that place forever and ever.” Asked how he felt after the encounter Rev. Ikpoh described himself as one of the luckiest persons alive, and stated that he had to live his entire life for the Lamb of God which his calling bears witness to and whom he had personally encountered. The priest, who is battling through an impaired speech after this mysterious encounter, also spoke about how he became a priest. He said he opted to be a priest by desire against the wish of his parents who objected to his choice of being a Reverened father. “I became a priest by choice, I desired to be a priest. Infact, my father and mother did not want me to be a priest, when I told them I wanted to go to the Seminary, they asked me whether I was aware that of every 100 persons that attended seminaries only 7 or 10 succeed as ordained priest”. However, he said, today his parents had given their full consent to his priesthood having seen the handwriting of God in his life.
I wonder, but, Lee if he was really dead in the first place? Also I wonder if a soul that sees Jesus in Glory in Heaven being worshipped by angels could be scandalised or annoyed that Jesus had a white skin??I mean wouldn't that be the very last thing on your mind, issues of race ,at such a moment?
It'd take more than raising just anybody from the dead to convince me that this was the work of God. Satan can mimic illness and make a person appear as dead. Then, he can appear to raise them up again. I'd have to look at the circumstances of the death, the character of the person raising another from the dead . . . and so forth, before I'd be convinced. Good thing I wasn't a Jew in Jesus' day, because I'd be one of those who thought Jesus and His gang were troublemakers. I'd think His Resurrection was a hoax. Luckily, I have the perspective of time to aid my belief. The benefit of seeing the beauty and truth of the Church across the ages is invaluable. I have seen the wisdom of Christianity proven again and again. Millions of great minds have paved the way ahead of me . . . if they can believe, then through the Grace of God, it's not a stretch for a lame-brain like me. God knew what AGE was the best time for me to be born in, so here I am. Hi!
Padraig, I thought that his reaction to the color of skin was odd as well, but maybe that is a huge focus for him and he can't get around it. Boy I would! Could be the work of the devil, I don't know. I used to work in the cemetery business and can just imagine the response of the mortuary workers! Pretty funny. Rain, I admire your faith, it's hard won. Lee
Faith is always a challenge. But , though maybe its a bad way to look at it, but they I view it is this; well if it was all a fairy tale it made me very, very happy when nothing else ever did. But I do believe. Though I don't claim any great virtue in this since I got a tap on the shoulder.
