I traveled straight from the Pakistani Embassy at Östermalm Stockholm to the Central Station. My visa and the blessed stamp on it was still wet as I sat on the subway. I have never been more happy for a visa in my life. I took the Arlanda Express train with my special-issued visa and ran in, bags in hand, to buy a ticket from Turkish Airlines at the airport, less than an hour before departure...
I didn't make it to the Wednesday and Thursday night festival meetings, but get to preach this weekend at least - thank you Jesus! Peter, my dear Peter, is a hero and the rest of the SOS team have worked around the clock...
In the last minute God gave us contacts on the highest level and a wonderful Christian minister miraculously helped us! Nothing else would have worked right now due to recent events in Pakistan. The situation is very tense after the shooting of the terrorist leader Usama bin Laden... In other words; a "special permission or clearence" directly from heaven :)!
Turkish Airlines took me from Stockholm via Istanbul to Karachi, then I took the local domestic airline Air Blue to Lahore and topped it off with a three hour drive to Faisalabad... Traveled 22 hours nonstop :). Checked in at the hotel, took a shower, changed clothes and then directly to the festival ground... Rest and sleep didn't matter anymore, I had already passed those humps and entered into the "second breathing :)."
Threats from Muslim organizations and one of our loudspeakers crushed... Extremely hot (111 degrees F in the shade) and illness in the team. Might have had to start over a little tonight, but we did have 14,000 people there and about 8,000 prayed a salvation prayer! We handed out 6,000 of my little book Saved in the Last Days and decision cards were filled out! Many were healed - a mute boy started to speak, and that's only one of the many wonderful things that the Spirit of God did :). Jesus is lovely! Festival after all and breakthrough against all odds!
See you soon!
See you soon!
