23/ Fiji revisited - 1997
Quite by chance my daughter and I stumbled onto a Fijian church, not far from where we lived. It was here that I met Melanie. One night while in the 3rd row from the front I saw 4 women rolling around on the floor. They had come out for prayer. In my spirit I felt that there was something drastically wrong with these women. They had come out for prayer week after week, but there had been no change in their condition. Although the church claimed to be a Holy Spirit filled church (Assembly of God) the leaders weren't operating in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Concerned about the welfare of the women I asked God for a Word of Knowledge.
For the woman I now know as Melanie the answer immediately came by the word, death. Shocked I asked again in case I hadn't heard right, but the same answer came, death. After the service I told her that she had death over her life because of her hatred, anger and violence. She admitted that what I had said was the truth.
1John 3:14 ... Whoever does not love is still under the power of death.
I approached one of the church leaders and offered to pray for Melanie. He was happy to back me up. The change was immediate and not only was there a physical change, in that she looked happier and brighter, but the hatred for her husband disappeared. In the following weeks their marriage for the first time in a long time was happy.
Over the months we became good friends and I ended up joining her in her Fijian village when she went there for a month. All of her family received me warmly, and went out of their way to be kind to me.
On the morning of the 3rd day I couldn't help but say to her, in front of her father and a relative, that her behaviour towards me and others of her family had been very rude. Apparently in Fiji Melanie behaved differently than she did in Australia. Here she could boss her relatives around, because they were dependent on her secondhand clothes and money.
My few words were responded to with such foul abuse that I hadn't heard in a long time. When I ignored her she became violent. The Word of God says that:
43/ When an evil spirit goes out of a person, it travels over dry country looking for a place to rest. If it can't find one, 44/ it says to itself, 'I will go back to my house'. So it goes back and finds the house empty, clean, and all tidied up. 45/ Then it goes out and brings along seven other spirits even worse than itself, and they come and live there. So when it is all over, that person is in worse shape than he was at the beginning. Matthew 12:43-45
Sadly, Melanie had a choice whether to give in to pride, anger, violence and all the other things that had been cast out of her life, or to let them back in. She let them back in. We do have a free will.
Besides the foul language I was told to get out immediately. Considering I was in a strange country, where not everybody speaks English and living on a limited budget, put a damper on my holiday. It didn't take me long to work out that the Devil didn't want me in the village, considering the amount of miracles God had performed. A lot of people had been healed and others had received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.
At first Melanie's brother and wife had offered to take me in, but he buckled under his sister's pressure to get rid of me. Arrangements were then made to dump me across the river. On the morning of the 4th day I found myself in a boat heading away from the village.
Incredibly 2 days before another brother and his wife had taken me sightseeing up and around the river. In one of the villages I had met a wonderful couple Bai and Rena. They invited me to come back again. God put it on my heart to say goodbye to the people. As it turned out when I shared my predicament with them they agreed to let me stay. God works in strange ways!
Those who had brought me in the boat were not happy that I was going to stay in Rewa village, they were frightened at what Melanie might say. How weak people are!
At one stage as we were sitting in the kitchen, a traditional bure, the Holy Spirit told me that Esther, one of the relatives from Melanie's family was trying to poison Rena and her sister-in-law Mereoni against me. I looked Esther straight in the face and said to her, "In P.N.G when a man spoke against me in Pidgin, God by his Holy Spirit told me what he had said. Now God told me what you said to these two women." She immediately became embarrassed. Rena later told me that Esther had been talking badly about me, but had changed the subject the minute I had pulled her up. God is good!
While in Rewa village God did a mighty work. I prayed for a child with conjunctivitis. The pus disappeared from her eyes the very next day. Also her skin showed a vast improvement. I prayed for a 11 year old girl who had suffered badly from a terrible skin disease for 9 years. God healed her miraculously and within 4 days the perfect new skin came through.
During bible study a woman complained about a very sore shoulder. I prayed for her and within a few minutes the pain was completely gone. On the second day, while I was teaching, the women I noticed a little girl whose ear was completely filled with green pus. She also had a very high temperature. I stopped teaching and prayed for the child. An hour later when we had a break I suggested to the mother that she might like to clean out the child's ear. Not only I, but all the other women were totally amazed to see that the canal was now completely clean and you could look right into the ear. Also the temperature had disappeared. Praise God!
Upon leaving Fiji I had the opportunity to witness to a Hindu taxi and
a Hindu travel agent. All in all God kept me very busy in my ten days in
that country and I thank the Lord Jesus Christ for the many miracles that
were performed. I also thank God for touching the hearts of the many 'Christians'
I was able to challenge, for in truth these people were only religious
and there was no fruit in their life.
1/ Fiji
2/ Egypt
3/ Israel
4/ Papua New Guinea
5/ Forgive or I cannot forgive you
6/ Jesus still heals today
7/ Suicide
8/ Long Bay Gaol
9/ Attempted murder
10/ Bathurst Gaol
11/ Angels
12/ How to pray
13/ Cords
14/ Counting the cost
15/ The heart condition
16/ Lorraine
17/ Dracula - fact or fiction
18/ If you love me
19/ Being gay
20/ Faith
21/ Roots
22/ Malaysia
23/ Fiji revisited - 1997
24/ What Jesus means to me
25/ My diary entries
26/ Conclusion