My Journey Into Healing Ministry (part 2)
To South Sudan
After Randy Clark prayed for me at Voice of the Apostles in 2012, and the conference ended, I went and saw my family for a few days, before getting on a plane to fly to South Sudan.
This trip was the most extreme and difficult mission I had ever taken part in up to that point. Our host told us that our precious time in Uganda would look like life in America compared to what we would face in the remote, tribal area we were working in.
To get there we flew from the U.S. to Nairobi, Kenya, then took a very small plane to Lokichoggio, Kenya. (Each person was only allowed 15 pounds of luggage!) Arriving at that small airport, we were told it should take an hour to reach the border, and less than 1.5 hours, total, to get to Narus, our final destination. As we waited for a few hours for our drivers to arrive, we quickly figured out that something was wrong.
We soon learned that it had poured rain all night, causing the vehicles to be delayed getting us. Then for the next 6, mud-soaked hours, we crawled to the border in our little hatchbacks. Arriving there, we were forced to leave the cars and wade across the flooding riverbed that marks the Kenya-South Sudan border, then deal with an immigration officer who was angry about having to work so late in the day waiting for our team. This was just the start of a rough trip.
From there, the next couple of days were marked by team members freaking out over a lack of plumbing, bats circling overhead in the rooms, and rats coming out of mattresses while some of our ladies slept. Finally, after resolving that we are not going home because God had called us there, our team organized ourselves for a morning of prayer and worship. From that moment on, everything changed.
Healing Breakthrough
After praying for the sick regularly for over a year, it was on our third day in South Sudan where my healing breakthrough finally came. As our team ventured out to the mango tree where our host church gathered, most of the team members were talking to some Taposa women who had come around to see the whites.
My attention, on the other hand, was drawn to the old man, sitting alone, at the base of the giant mango tree. When I got close to him, I could see that all the color in his eyes had gone, and that he was completely blind. (I would find out from his family on my return trip the following year that he went blind from alcohol poisoning, after a lifetime of drinking almost a gallon of the local brew each day.)
Suddenly I was overcome by a love for this man (compare to Jesus’ being “moved with compassion in Matthew 14:14). I collapsed in the dirt beside him and laid hands on him and began to pray.
I have no idea exactly what I was saying in this prayer. For the first time, I was being led in healing prayer by the Spirit alone, and prayed in faith, absolutely believing something was going to happen. After a few minutes, one of our Ugandan pastors came and began praying with me. Slowly, over the next 20 minutes or so, we began to watch the color come back to his eyes. As the team gathered around to see what was happening, it was obvious that his sight was getting better.
When we first began to pray, all he could see was the difference between light and dark – the same way we can see light and dark if we close our eyes. As we prayed, he began to say things like, “I can see the green on the trees.” “I can see the brown from the dirt.” We kept praying. He began to say, “That one is a black man. This one is a white woman.” It was obvious to all that God was working a miracle.
We couldn’t remain there all day. Arrangements had been made for us to make our way to visit a hospital or prison or something. The trip kind of blurs in my mind now. As we left him, however, I knew the man was going to be completely healed.
It didn’t take long to find out. At the end of the day, as our team met for supper back at our base camp, one of the local pastors we were working with came running into the dining room, very excited. “Pastor Scott, the blind man you prayed for is completely healed. He is walking around the village by himself with no one leading him! Everyone is talking about this miracle.”
We found out from there that each morning this man’s children would bring him to the “church” tree, and sit him in the shade with his jug. They would bring him lunch there at some point, then come back in the evening to collect him and take him home. When he was now walking around without being led, it was sure to capture people’s attention!
Healing Evangelism
This whole trip was loosely planned, because you never know how things will go in the bush of Africa. The next morning, very early on, we sent a local pastor to a village just over an hour away, where we were told the gospel had never been preached. We sent him to ask if we could bring our team and share with the people. The response of the village chief left us amazed at God’s goodness.
He told our pastor that he had been approached by many missionaries over the years, but had never allowed them to come to his village. He didn’t want their stories. However, he then said, “…but I heard about the blind man, and we want those people to come here.”
A couple hours later, we gathered our team into the cars and were on our way. We didn’t have a sound system or any cool media technology. It was just our small group of believers, off to see what God would do.
Once in this unreached village, I was given the privilege of sharing the Gospel with around 40 people who had gathered to hear what we had to say. My first question was, “how many of you are Christian?” All of them put their hand in the air. I was perplexed, but quickly realized my mistake. This was South Sudan. Politically, Northern Sudan was Muslim, but Southern was “Christian” in the Catholic-empire sense of the word.
My question that followed, then, was, “how many of you have ever heard of a man named Jesus.” This time, none of the locals raised their hand.
I began to share from the Bible on who Jesus was, why He came, and how each person can be saved. I told them of how Jesus had worked in his lifetime to get this message to the world, then continued through the early disciples, and now the church. When I gave the invitation, there was quite a bit of excitement as all 40 people raised their hands to get saved by Jesus!
Afterwards, I couldn’t help myself. I began sharing how we had been praying for people all over Narus, our village base of operations, for various issues from wanting to be pregnant, to finding work. Then I shared the story of the blind man, and told them, “we want to pray for you too.”
We decided it was wise to have men pray with men and women with women, due to some cultural sensitivities we had discovered the day before. As eager as the men were to be prayed for, none of them came to me at first. They were waiting in respect as one of the old village elders came to receive first.
This old man walked with the help of a stick, and was very slow. A 10 meter walk took 2-3 minutes for him, unassisted. I patiently waited, out of respect, for him to reach me. He told me how his knees had been very damaged in the fight for freedom and other tribal wars in the past, and asked me to pray.
At the time, I was praying with another gentleman – a very devout leader in his cessationist Baptist church. He was already skeptical of the blind man’s healing, wanting to know if we could verify he was actually blind before we met him; ignoring the fact that we personally watched the color return to his eyes.
I placed my hands on the old warrior’s right knee, while my doubting companion grabbed the left. I prayed. As soon as I finished, the old man tested out his legs, and… nothing.
There was no change to his condition, and he thought that I wasn’t understanding the problem correctly. I assured him I understood the need, and explained to him about the passage where even Jesus had to pray for someone twice (see Mark 8:25). I said, “let’s pray again.” (This received an awkward glance from my prayer partner, but he relented and grabbed the knee again.)
This time, as soon as we finished praying, I asked the man to test them out. He took one step, then took off running around the village center completely healed! I was so excited; I was shouting more than he was. My prayer partner, not so much.
More Healings
The next man to come forward was another warrior with the same issues, and the pattern followed the same. We prayed once, nothing happened. We prayed a second time, and he ran around completely healed.
The third man had major back pain and was unable to lift or work easily. After a couple of prayers the pain in his back completely left. At this point, so did my prayer partner. These healings were challenging his faith to the point that he went to pray with someone else.
The fourth man was different. He, too, was walking with a staff due to worn out knees. I prayed for him once, but by this point his faith was high after seeing all the other healings, that he didn’t check himself before taking off running. He wasn’t healed. He reached the edge of the village center and collapsed in more pain.
The thing you need to understand is that these are a warrior tribe. Every man carries an 8-foot spear and can be very aggressive. They also value their elders. Now we had broken one of them. As everyone’s attention turned to the elder who had collapsed, out of fear for what might happen next, I took off running to the man, praying “God, we broke him worse. They’re going to kill us. Please, You have to heal Him now!”
As I reached the man, I immediately began praying for him again. This time, he listened when I asked him to test it out first, and praise God, he was completely healed.
Church Planting Made Simple
About this time, the chief, who had missed our meeting due to other commitments returned and began asking his people what was going on. All of the testimonies of how God was moving in salvation and healing through many members of our team overwhelmed him. He immediately asked us to take up a permanent place in their village. They led us to the edge of town where they donated a large plot of land to build a church and anything else we wanted to do (hospital, orphanage, etc.).
They pleaded with us to stay, so much, that in their limited understanding of what had happened, they thought this power was coming from us, and not God’s Spirit in us. They went as far as to ask if we could leave some of our white women so that they could “mingle the blood” and receive this power. We explained to them that the power was not in us, but in Jesus through God’s Spirit, and that He would do these things through them if they learn to follow and obey him. We promised them that our local pastors would begin coming to work with them regularly in discipleship, then quickly left for the protection and comfort of some of our team.
I can happily report, however, that today, 8 years later, there is still a growing church in that village led by the pastors who took us there in the first place.
I can also happily say that the senior pastor who hosted us on that first trip, a Ugandan missionary to South Sudan, became a good friend of mine. In fact, he has since began transitioning out of South Sudan (leaving the ministry there in the hands of the other pastors on his team) and is now planting a church in Busia, Uganda, under the covering of Sozo Ministries, the ministry God led me to open in 2015.
Ministering Through Words of Knowledge
It is difficult for me to share how much the healing ministry has shaped my work for the Lord in the years since this first breakthrough.
Upon my return to Haiti, immediately following this trip to South Sudan, healing began happing every week in church services.
As I returned to the U.S. at the end of 2012, I saw that my opportunities to pray for people were becoming less and less. Deciding I needed to grow in my understanding of this gifting and have accountability to press in for more, I signed up for Randy Clark’s online healing school, which pushed me to continue praying for the sick and growing in the gift. (I am now a member of Global Awakening’s Association of Healing Ministers, and last year I was ordained by Global Awaking — Randy’s Ministry in the U.S.)
It was through Randy’s program that I learned how to receive Words of Knowledge for healing, which has become one of the primary ways I minister in healing (and more).
In 2013, I had returned to traveling around the world with Heart of God (HGIM); Haiti, Uganda, Kenya, South Sudan, India, Israel. Little by little the gift continued to grow.
On a 9-day trip to India in 2014, the pastors kept me on a crazy preaching schedule. We did 2 half-day pastor’s conferences, one night open air crusade, and preached in 17 churches around the countryside. Not having time to prepare for each meeting, I really began to depend on words of knowledge to be able to minister. I would spend time praying in the car, on our way to each church, asking God to show me what to speak and what He wanted me to do.
Inevitably He would speak to me about scriptures I was supposed to share and show me pictures in my mind of how He wanted me to pray and minister to people. Surprisingly, praying for the sick was becoming a large part of what He was showing me to do. In one church He told me beforehand that every person with back pain would be healed. (They were.)
On that one trip to India, I saw more healings in 9 days than I had seen combined since South Sudan two years prior. As is sadly, often the case, the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit brought in controversy among friends, and unfortunately, this large number of healings led to some challenges within the organization I was working for. As an interdenominational ministry, it was clear that not everyone in leadership believed the same about healing that I did. The Lord began to lead me to check my motives and make sure this calling was from God, and to see where He would take me next.
A New Ministry
The month before my trip to India, I had attended a gathering of the International Society of Deliverance Ministers, invited as a part of Randy’s healing program. There, I received two prophecies which would shape the current era of my life. One prophecy was a confirmation of my calling and concerned a shift in the ministry I was doing coming “very soon,” and the other was about God having “all the funding” ready for my “new ministry.”
At the time, I held those prophecies loosely, until the following March, when in a season of prayer and by mutual agreement with the leadership, I resigned from HGIM. To be clear, this was not a divisive and angry split. Both sides felt like it was God’s timing, and I remain friends with everyone in that organization!
Immediately I began work on registering Sozo Ministries, Inc. with the state of Texas and working on non-profit status. We took the name “Sozo” because it is the Greek word for “saved” or “salvation” in the New Testament. However, if you look it up in a concordance, it means complete salvation – body, soul, and spirit – meaning that in Christ’s atonement are the promises of salvation from sin, physical healing, and spiritual deliverance from the devil.
Since the foundation of Sozo Ministries in 2015, we have seen over 2000 people healed from various physical diseases.
My Healing Ministry Today
As I now live in Uganda with my family, and lead almost 40 churches registered under Sozo Ministries in Uganda and Kenya, it is amazing to look back and see this journey the Lord has brought me on.
Today, I spend my time not only preaching the gospel and praying for the sick, but training other pastors and believers to do the same. If you have time, you can watch some testimonies on our youtube channel:
Throughout the year I preach in churches around East Africa (and in other countries as God opens the doors), and see healing happen in every single service.
Sozo pastors plan gospel crusades throughout the year, and I have the privilege of preaching to the lost, and again, in every single meeting people are getting saved and healed.
The largest event I am a part of is the annual Global Outreach mission, in partnership with Living Water Ministries, Uganda. It is my privilege to help train the outreach team in healing ministry, then to lead the healing session at each mega crusade. Last year’s team saw over 600 healings during the three-week outreach. Less than 100 were through my prayers. It came through those who had been in the training and walked out equipped and filled with faith!
The Lord has connected me with other ministries operating in healing and equipping the church for the supernatural, which has allowed me to bring ministers like Kimberly Cleveland of EquipNations and Jim Wietner from the Global School of Supernatural Ministry to help take our work in Uganda and Kenya go higher.
All in all, I can say that being a part of what the Lord is doing in saving the lost and healing the sick around the world is one of the greatest privileges of my life. Looking back at the 16 year old me, I could never have imagined things going this direction, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything.
To be truthful, in many ways I feel like my journey into healing is still just beginning. The blind man’s healing was less than 7.5 years ago! I cannot wait to see what the next few decades hold.
It’s Your Turn
Hopefully sharing my journey into healing ministry has encouraged you in some way, to pursue God for more in your own life. The Bible encourages us to pursue spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 14:1) and seems to imply in many places that you will receive the gifts you ask for. So go after Him for more!
I would also ask you to pray for me. While I am confident that God heals, and see him do so often, I know there is more. I also know the challenges that come from, both, believers and nonbelievers concerning healing, and I need the boldness to remain faithful to God’s calling.
Finally, I will say that if your church or ministry is wanting to learn to operate in the healing gift, or wants to plan a gospel-healing outreach, it would be my pleasure to be invited to speak, or to offer guidance to your team in any way possible.
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© Anthony Scott Ingram 2020. All Rights Reserved.
Cover photo by Sozo Ministries, Inc.
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.”
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