youth replied, “I saw the Lord. He made me reveal the djimat I had never given up. He told me he wanted me to serve him alone. And . . .” his voice trembled . . . “he told me I must have Pastor Daniel pray for me – or I will die. Would you get him, please?”
Pastor Daniel came swiftly at the desperate summons. After a prayer of confession, the fetish was burned. Then, reminiscent of the Apostle Paul when he was ministered to by the man of God, Leo’s sight was restored. And, like Paul, Leo became a persuasive evangelist, inspiring others to follow the Christian way.
It was the zeal of young leaders like Nahor Leo who formed wide-roving evangelistic teams that fanned the religious fire in Timor, Mr. Daniel told me, and continuing “signs and wonders” have fueled the flame. For in every case of a supernatural occurrence, there has followed a significant turning to the Christian faith.
On Sunday night, September 26, 1965, people heard the sound of a tornado wind and saw flames on the church building which prompted police to set off the fire alarm to summon the volunteer firefighters. Many people were converted that night, many filled with the Spirit including speaking in tongues, some in English who did not know English. By midnight teams of lay people had been organized to begin spreading the gospel the next day. Eventually, about 90 evangelistic teams were formed which functioned powerfully with spiritual gifts.
Nahor Leo, the young man who testified that night in the Reformed Church, chose 23 young people who formed an evangelistic group, Team 1. They gave themselves full time to visiting churches and villages and saw thousands converted with multitudes healed and delivered. In one town alone they saw 9,000 people converted in two weeks.
Another young man, Mel Tari witnessed this visitation of God and later became part of Team 42. He reported on this revival in two widely read books. Healings and evangelism increased dramatically. Specific directions from the Lord led the teams into powerful ministry with thousands becoming Christians. They saw many healings, miracles such as water being turned to wine for communion, some instantaneous healings, deliverance from witchcraft and demonic powers, and some people raised from death through prayer.
The teams were often guided supernaturally including provision of light at night on jungle trails, angelic guides and protection, meagre supplies of food multiplied in pastors’ homes when a team ate together there during famines, and witchdoctors being converted after they saw power encounters when the teams’ prayers banished demons rendering the witchdoctors powerless. Crawford, who gives the most cautions report, gives examples:
“I had already heard about some of the early Soé miracles from my missionary friend in Kupang, Marion Allen of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. In visits to Soé during dry seasons he was able to investigate the happenings there. He had told me that almost every type of New Testament miracle had been repeated in the Soé area. One evangelistic team, for example, had gotten to their destination by walking across a flooded mountain stream. At first they had dismissed the feeling that they should walk on the water even though it had come to the team leader after prayer about the problem. After three successive prayer sessions, with the same apparent answer, the leader took a tentative barefoot step into the water. When he did not sink, the others followed – to the amazement of stranded travelers who witnessed the strange event from both sides of the stream.
“Another team, desiring to celebrate the Lord’s Supper but having no wine, were in a similar fashion instructed to use water from a nearby spring. As at the wedding Christ attended in Cana, the water, when drunk for the communion celebration, had become wine. On a hike around the Soé area, Sardjito [the Bible School principal] showed me the spring from which the water-turned-to-wine had come.
“Mr. Allen had talked to both of the major participants in another drama. An elderly woman among the mourners at th