Signs & Wonders Blog

God desires us to have a long life (Psalm 91:16). Unfortunately, we live in an imperfect world where some believers die prematurely. A woman I once dated for over a year passed away recently. In March 2008, my then-roommate Jim and I attended John Crowder meetings at Abundant Love Christian Fellowship, a house church in Washington, DC. During the second night, an Asian woman there caught my attention. I found her attractive but didn’t talk to her. I was more focused on filming the meetings using a camcorder Jim bought for me as a birthday present.  I saw this woman again the following month at a Mahesh Chavda meeting in Silver Spring, Maryland. This time, I approached her, and we chatted a little. Wendy was of Chinese descent, born in New York City to Taiwanese immigrants, but she eventually grew up in Maryland and earned a doctorate. She lived and worked in the nearby city of Rockville. During the next few weeks, I traveled to other cities. Meanwhile, Wendy and I exchanged em...

Social media is a powerful tool I use for ministry. It has also been a distraction. Many of us will admit to spending hours scrolling through our news feeds. I enjoy the occasional humor and cute pet photos. Still, a lot of frivolous things appear I don’t care to see and read. A few are insulting, such as saying I’m “old” if I recognize a particular item. I don’t mean to be critical of what people post on their social media pages. That’s their business. Fortunately, there’s a way to stay connected with select individuals without unfriending them and having their posts appear in my news feed. I’ve been unfollowing Facebook friends who repeatedly do the following: Make too many posts. I’ve seen as much as forty a day by some folks (rarely do I exceed two or three). I don’t need the same individuals overwhelming my news feed. There are other friends I want to hear from. Post chain letters , hoaxes, and memes that contain profanity . Make requests for money. Some ministers send me fr...

This Wednesday would have been my father’s 80th birthday (he passed away almost six years ago). However, another man who was born six days before my dad recently celebrated eight decades on earth. It’s someone who’s also been a blessing in my life. In July 2007, I took a bus from Fargo, North Dakota, to attend part of Calvary Campground ’s Summer Campmeeting in Ashland, Virginia. On the day I prepared to leave for Toronto, a man asked to join me for breakfast in the dining hall. When I discovered Jim was from Northern Virginia and would return home that night, I asked for a ride to Washington, DC, to reduce the bus fare. Jim later took me out for dinner and offered to let me stay at his house. At the time, I had all my belongings with me. It was nice to lighten my travel load by leaving some stuff with Jim. After spending almost a month north of the border, I took a bus back to DC. During the next few months, I resided at Jim’s house in Fairfax. His wife passed away a few months be...

An objection that often comes up when sharing the gospel is that there are many different religions. I respond by pointing out Christianity is not a religion but a relationship. Religion is man trying to appease God through good works. Christianity is God reaching out to man through His son Jesus Christ. Throughout the Bible, the Lord sought relationships with men. Even under the Old Covenant, Abraham was referred to as God’s friend… “Are You not our God, who drove out the inhabitants of this land before Your people Israel, and gave it to the descendants of Abraham Your friend forever?” - 2 Chronicles 20:7 “But you, Israel, are My servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the descendants of Abraham My friend.” - Isaiah 41:8 “And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ And he was called the friend of God.” - James 2:23 There’s a well-known praise song with the lyric, “I am a friend of God.” Anyone can be as close...

For about a month now, I’ve experienced an unexpected surge of friend requests on Facebook. Until recently I might get one or two per day. Now they’re pouring in at an unprecedented rate. One morning I woke up and had sixty new friend requests waiting for me!  A fellow evangelist I often work with has also seen this happen but only accepts friend requests from people he already knows. As for myself, I will accept most of them as long as my potential friend appears to be a committed Christian. They must also have a legitimate profile photo . At the time of this writing, I now have over 3,600 Facebook friends from different parts of the world. Most of whom I’ve never met personally. Yet many of them want to chat immediately after I accept their friend request. That prompted me to draft a letter that I now display on my Facebook page . This letter clearly outlines things I will and won’t do online. I’ve had to email this letter to new friends who apparently didn’t notice it...

Unable to fall asleep last Tuesday night, I stayed up until 4 a.m. doing various things on the Internet.   One of them was searching for a man who was my best friend in high school.   David Rask and I first met during an eighth grade art class at Central Junior High School in Moorhead, Minnesota.   One of our assignments was to sketch a portrait of another classmate.   David and I chose to draw each other.   Although I wasn’t fond of how I looked, David got an “A” for his drawing of me.   Eventually, we started hanging out together. In the winter of 1980, David invited me to a Bible camp we went to along with other people from the Baptist church he attended.   At one of the services during this weekend outing, a three-piece Christian band told a powerful story in between songs.   It was about a bridge that spanned across a large river.   Most of the time the bridge was in an “up” position allowing ships to pass through.  ...