Old Friends are Still Involved

In 1983 I was sent by the Presbyterian Renewal Board to Kenya Africa to represent us at a big meeting of Renewal Leaders from around Africa, Asia and Europe. It was given quite an exalted title of Leaders of Leaders and I was pretty proud to be invited.

That pride soon turned into humility after I heard the testimonies of the African leaders. These men and women had suffered from persecution, terror, hunger and poverty and still were filled with joy. I felt like a lion in a den of Daniels.

One of the best things to have come from that trip was meeting Jens-Petter Jorgensen, founder of the OASIS Movement for Spiritual Renewal in Norway. We immediately came to like and respect each other. Some of it was the result of mutual embarrassment at our lack of spiritual maturity when compared with the African leaders.

But the meeting with Jens-Petter was certainly Providential. After some time of sharing he said, "You are God's man for Norway." I was stunned and scared. Here I was in Africa, supposedly representing American spiritual leadership and I felt like a complete dud. How could I possibly be "God's man in Norway" or anywhere else for that matter? I was a spiritual midget.

What drew Jens-Petter to say such an audacious thing was the result of learning that I was a strong Evangelical that put a lot of emphasis on God's Word. Then he found that I was also a person who had experienced God's grace through the Holy Spirit and believed in praying for miracles. That was not all though for he also heard that I was a Clinical Counselor and headed a Christian Center for Healing and Growth called, The Teleios Center.

Jens-Petter said, "In Norway we have people in all three of those camps but hardly anyone in all three at the same time. You must come and teach us." After he and his new wife Astrid came to visit us in Cincinnati we agreed to teach at the annual Pastors' Conference. Larry and Ellen Chrouch, Steve Griebling, Hal Schell and I all went to Oslo in January of 1986. The leader of the meeting, Kjell-Petter Dahl, spontaneously asked us to pray for people and God's Spirit showed up in an incredible way. Pastors were healed, blessed, delivered and set free on the very first night. God is good.

This photo is of Jens-Petter and Steve Griebling at the Board Dinner on New Year's Day, 21 years after our first visit to Norway. We are still very good friends and Jens-Petter is on the Life Way Ministries Board. God is good.