CAVANNA

It was a great pleasure to welcome my friend and mentor John Mellor back to Cambridge to minister at our healing conference. The dates of this special weekend, 1st and 2nd September, were chosen deliberately to coincide with the one hundredth anniversary of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the British Isles, in 1907. If we were going to celebrate a century of Pentecost and fire, a weekend of signs and wonders seemed a fitting tribute!

We picked up John and his son Jonny from Heathrow Airport. John hadn’t changed at all. Although an Australian, John was fresh from a trip around the United States, and full of stories about the blind seeing, the deaf hearing and the lame walking. The miracles began almost straight away as my wife Jane and I took John and his son out Ten-Pin Bowling in the evening. During the game, John noticed that Jane was struggling with her neck and shoulders. He laid hands upon her and she was instantly cured of the problem. Not only that, she went on to get the highest score of the evening!

Attendance at the Saturday day conference was excellent, with folks having travelled from all over the UK and beyond. John spoke about the methods that Jesus used to heal and encouraged the group that God wants to use every believer in the healing ministry. “Faith is a decision to believe God’s Word”, he said. In the afternoon, I taught on the principles of healing that we can learn from the first healing miracle (Genesis 20). As ever, signs and wonders accompanied the word of God. A precious man from Gibraltar fell under the power of the Spirit and arose free of pain. His wife was later healed of tennis elbow, and a more senior lady began running after me around the room, rejoicing that she had fresh mobility in her legs!

The most unusual miracle of the day occurred a number of miles away from the venue. One of our church members, Walter Salvia, had been taken into hospital with severe abdominal pains, which had ruined his family’s plans to fly home to the Philippines that weekend. A word of knowledge was given at the conference concerning stomach pains, which was sent by text message to Walter at the hospital. One of the church leaders was with him and they decided to stand upon that word. As they believed God and worshipped the Lord in the hospital ward, Walter began to recover. The scan showed nothing wrong with him and he began to move free of all the terrible pain. Rejoicing, Ray and Walter left the hospital and went home. He was healed!

John Mellor was also our guest speaker during the Sunday church services that followed. In the morning, he spoke on the healing of the emotions and then ministered to the physically sick in the evening. Miracles broke out, including the healing of two unsaved men who were stunned by God’s power to heal their feet. At one point, a number of us believed that we witnessed the visible shrinking of the man’s swollen foot, and he began to walk free of the pain. Not being a Christian, everything that the man believed about the world was challenged in that moment! Others were also touched, including a lady set free from neck pain, a man loosed from spinal problems, and another man who was healed of arthritis while he sat in his seat. At the close of the service, I prayed a blessing over the people and a young woman received God’s healing touch in her womb, while the Lord’s power left the room and touched her suffering grandmother too. It was so wonderful! Both days ended with a time of impartation for leaders and workers to move under a greater anointing of the Spirit.

It was great to spend lots of good time with John. Aware of my trip to South America coming up, I was able to chat this through with him and ask his advice, especially regarding the dynamics of handling the healing gift among a large crowd. We drove John to Heathrow late at night as he had meetings in Spain. Within a day, an excited email had arrived from him letting us know that two people had stood up out of wheelchairs in the first meeting in Spain. The adventure continues – praise God!

September 2007