Revival Salem
I was honored to be asked to join Pastors Lew and Lorri Wootan, pastors of The River Salem, for their spring camp meeting. We did meetings Wednesday through Friday, two services a day. From the first moment, we found a spiritually hungry group of people in love with Jesus Christ, who know how to draw on the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
These meetings resembled the glorious meetings of the 90’s. We had joy unspeakable and full of glory, tears and confessions of repentance, re-dedications, salvations, people baptized in the Holy Spirit and inner and outer healings. Our own twelve year old great granddaughter, Grace Pinto was baptized in the Holy Spirit on Friday night.
People had incredible breakthroughs and testified of it. Some who thought they were all right spiritually, began to cry out in the middle of my preaching. One man said that his heart was about to come out of his chest. He knew that he was in a backslidden condition, bound in so many areas and needed to be free right then. Many others followed suit and I had to quit preaching so that desperate people could get right with God, on the spot. It made me think of Charles Finney’s meetings when people began to cry out in the middle of the service. I was overcome with emotion of gratitude to be used by God in such a way.
The meetings were diverse. The Holy Spirit loves to surprise us and move the way that He wants to, not the way we want. I came in for each meeting, waiting to see what He would do next. We were never disappointed. One of the things I love about Pastor Lew’s church is the honesty before God and man. They have no shame. They just want God and don’t care what anyone thinks about it. Even at the altar call, they faced the people openly.
On Friday morning, one of their ladies could not be in the service. She is a truck driver. She watched the service on-line and was convicted. She rushed to the service and later testified that she was going faster than she should have been. She was praying that she would get there in time for the altar call and came running in with tears streaming down her face. She repented to God, the pastor, and others in the congregation. She spoke of how bound she has been. She testified on Friday evening that she had been closed off for so long because she was afraid of being hurt. Finally she let God do spiritual surgery and go where no psychiatrist and no surgeon’s knife can go. Her face was shining and she was unrecognizable from the way she looked in previous meetings. Praise God! I love what I do and am so thankful for the call of God on our lives.
One of my spiritual assignments was to break the spirit of poverty over the area, the church, and the mind-sets of the people. God gave me an anointing and a commission to do exactly that, twenty-six years ago in Anchorage, Alaska. I am still happy to be doing so. I believe this church will never be the same and able to accomplish all that God has called them to do. They are called to take the land.
I don’t believe that it is a coincidence that Pastor Lew is located in the capitol of Oregon and we are just outside of the capital in Washington State. We are to occupy until our Lord comes back and to take dominion, including taking the land for Jesus. The Northwest has been known as the extremely liberal area of the United States and so we are on assignment to see that change. I believe this week was an important part of that. We are seeing it change in Jesus’ name.
Another important part of this last week was the developing friendship between Pastors Lew & Lorri and my husband and I. The Wootans and I were touched and forever changed in the same meetings at the same time, in Anchorage, Alaska, in November of 1992, at Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne’s meetings. We met then, exchanged limited conversation, saw each other over the years in only a couple of places; Juneau, Alaska; Long Beach, Mississippi and then we were busy fulfilling our separate callings. God has brought us full-circle and we have entered a covenant to see revival spread all over the Northwest. We also agreed to be there for each other and to do whatever is in our power to help each other fulfill all that God has called us to do. We loved the fellowship with them. Pastors Lew and Lorri treated us royally and we were so blessed. Pastor Debbie of FaithLife NW, took a vacation and the evangelist Debbie was back. That is so much fun to still operate in that anointing. It was also fun for my church to witness that again. Several of our church came to the meetings. I have invited Pastors Lew and Lorri to be a part of our upcoming Northwest Ablaze meetings, June 24-July 1. You do not want to miss that event.
To all of our friends and partners who pray for us and support this ministry, thank you for helping to send us to Salem, Oregon. You are a part of the harvest. By the way, we have to get better at counting people who came in the harvest. I would think that it is safe to say that we had close to fifty come to Jesus in all the meetings. It will be laid to your account.
