Reaching the Unreached

In 1958 Derek Prince had been sitting beside Lake Victoria in western Kenya. He says,

I opened my New Testament at random to Matthew 24:14:

This gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations and then the end will come.' It seemed the words were written across the sky. Then God spoke to me,' This is priority number one for My people at this time.

I responded, 'I am committed to the educational work I am now doing, but when I have finished 'ploughing this furrow,' will You please bring my life in line with Your priorities?'

Twenty years later, I saw how God had been moving to answer this prayer. In 1978, when I married Ruth, my ministry began to line up more fully with God's priorities. In February 1979, just four months after we were married, my daily radio broadcast 'Today With Derek Prince' went on the air on eight stations in the United States. The word God gave me was:

'Proclaim! Short, simple messages, easily understood, declaring basic scriptural truths.'

The radio broadcast expanded to reach most of the major metropolitan areas in the United States, as well as many smaller cities. However, the most dramatic growth occurred outside the United States. In 1982, as God provided financial support for the program through listeners and friends of the ministry, Derek and Ruth responded to the next challenge: to reach those who have no other way to hear God's Word. They began broadcasting in English to the islands of the Caribbean, India, Central and South America.

Later in 1982 another Englishman had a word from the Lord. Ross Paterson, also a Cambridge graduate, and former missionary in Taiwan, heard God say, 'Take Derek Prince to China.' Although Ross had never met him, he contacted Derek and Ruth and told them of his vision to approach Far Eastern Broadcasting Company about translating and broadcasting the program in Mandarin.

In April 1984 this broadcast, entitled 'Living Sacrifice,' began beaming right across communist China. Derek Prince had been given a Chinese name: Ye Guang-Ming, which means 'clear light.'

Later the program was translated into Cantonese, Amoy, Shanghaiese and Swatow. Meanwhile, a second program, 'The Workman God Approves,' containing the material from all of Derek's books and cassettes, and designed especially to train leaders in China, went on the air in December 1986. These messages now reach all of China, plus Hong Kong and most of Southeast Asia.

In 1983 the ministry was in financial difficulty. Sales of books and tapes in the U.S.A. had decreased, and there was a shortfall of about twenty thousand dollars per month for the radio broadcast. As they waited on the Lord, Derek says,

God spoke clearly to Ruth and me to stop worrying about selling my materials and to give them away freely to nationals and missionaries in the Third World and behind the Iron Curtain, who had no means of paying for them. We began in 1984 by contacting twenty-three leaders in eight nations who were known to me, and offering my books and cassettes to them free of charge. We also asked them to submit names of other leaders who could benefit from such material.

Since that small beginning, hundreds of thousands of books and audio and video cassettes have been given freely to thousands of leaders in 120 nations.

The Global Outreach (GO) program opened doors of every kind. As national leaders read the books and taught their contents, they asked to have them translated into their own languages for their own people. This was the beginning of the translation facet of the ministry, which now makes these books available in almost fifty languages.

As Derek Prince Ministries (DPM) began to expand through radio, books and cassettes, Derek and Ruth were traveling extensively in the United States, Europe and southern Africa in personal ministry. Then doors began to open in less privileged nations. In April 1984 they flew in a small plane from Lusaka, Zambia, across hundreds of miles of bush to the Northwest Province. Nearly seven thousand people had gathered in that remote area (close to the borders of Angola and Zaire), to hear God's Word.

There, under the tall trees, in the hillside amphitheatre prepared just for this occasion, Derek was able to take time for thorough teaching of the basics. He says, 'I started with the cross: Jesus took all the bad that was due to us that we might receive all the good that was due to Him as the sinless Son of God.' On the following days he dealt with release from curses, deliverance from demons, the baptism in the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Derek says, 'Africans are so hungry for teaching. They will sit and take notes as long as you will preach. If you finish in two hours, they say, 'Why are you stopping so soon?'

Africans live with the satanic supernatural, and they were excited and delighted to know the reality of God's supernatural power. Thousands were saved, healed, delivered, baptised in water and in the Holy Spirit and moved on into spiritual gifts.

A year later, Derek brought the same type of messages, mainly to Muslims, in a city in northern Pakistan, where many people had never before seen a Westerner. There also, familiarity with the satanic supernatural prepared the local people for salvation, healing and deliverance.

Since Derek and Ruth lived in Jerusalem, and their international office remained in the United States, it was natural and economical for them to travel around the world in ministry from one base to another. The first such trip, begun at the end of 1984, took three months. During the second trip, in 1987, they took five months, ministering for the first time in Indonesia and Malaysia.

One highlight of that journey was Papua New Guinea. Derek discovered that Wycliffe translators and Youth With A Mission leaders had used his Foundation Series to teach the thousands of nationals who had responded to the gospel the first time they heard it.The local people looked upon Derek as a 'father,' and the visit was sponsored jointly by the Ministers' Fraternal Organisation, the city of Port Moresby and Papua New Guinea Airlines. The national radio station made its equipment available for outdoor meetings, simultaneously broadcasting live. Derek said, 'I saw fruit from my ministry in a country I had never dreamed I would visit. The young local leaders were a credit to the missionaries and to the Lord Jesus.'

To honour him on his seventieth birthday, friends from five continents sent contributions to fulfil Derek's expressed desire: to translate and broadcast the radio program in Spanish and Russian. The Spanish program now reaches into part of South America and also Spain. The Russian version began to penetrate the Iron Curtain five days each week in 1986.

God moved in another dramatic way in 1987. A German missionary who was teaching English at a university in Inner Mongolia heard 'Today With Derek Prince,' in English, broadcast from the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean, six thousand miles away. He approached Derek Prince Ministries to ask if he could get the program translated into Mongolian. This required another leap of faith, but the program went on the air at almost exactly the same time as the first Mongolian New Testament in modern script was published.

The radio ministry continues to grow, and current projects include Indonesian and the languages of the South Pacific islands and Eastern Europe. Cassettes of the English, Chinese, Russian and Spanish broadcasts are also distributed worldwide through the Global Outreach Leaders Program. Today well over half of the world's population has access to Derek's Bible teaching in a language they understand.

Testimonies from many nations attest that this teaching equips leaders and laymen alike to fulfill their destinies in the kingdom of God. For example:

A logical and philosophically trained mind given over to God's service is one of the most convincing and profound tools there is for His Word. - J.E.C.

I credit much of my progress in the Christian walk to the anointed, uncompromising teaching I have received through your ministry. There are many, many Christians seeking the blunt reality of discipline, honesty, commitment and dying daily, and your messages have aided in not only challenging us, but also pointing out a very clear path to follow. - S.C.S.

He has made you a man of plain speech. We are really putting forth an effort to refrain from saying, 'Derek Prince says . . .' We know it was God who said it, but you have made us understand a lot we didn't know God had said before. - P.A.

During the eighties the Princes moved into a new dimension in their healing ministry. About 1970 Derek had received a somewhat unusual spiritual gift, which is especially effective for people with back problems. He would kneel before the seated person and hold their feet in his hands. Usually one leg would be longer than the other, and the short leg would grow out as he held them. At that point God's healing power would touch the person. Thousands have testified to receiving miraculous healings of almost every major disease and infirmity. Derek has imparted this gift to many young men who have been associated with him through the years.

Now, as Ruth joined Derek in the healing ministry, the anointing increased and they were able to pray for many more people by the laying on of hands. It was not unusual for them to pray for people until after midnight (after Derek had preached for an hour or more). Their record was in Rotterdam, Holland, in 1984. Their deliverance service in the morning lasted five hours, and the healing service in the evening six hours, for a total of eleven hours of intense ministry.

In a meeting in Pretoria, South Africa, a theology professor interviewed people as they came down from the platform, taking names, addresses and details. In following them up for six months, he found that about eventy-five percent retained their healing. Almost everyone had a test of faith after about six weeks, and it was at that point that some lost their healing. Subsequently he presented his report as a theological paper at the university.

In the late eighties Derek and Ruth began to pray for other couples in ministry, teaching them to agree together in prayer according to Matthew 18:19 and imparting their gifts to them. This multiplied their effectiveness, making it possible for many more people to receive God's healing touch.

In the 1990s Derek has adjusted his emphasis. He says,

I thank God for every miracle of healing and deliverance I have witnessed, but I feel the most urgent need of the church today is holiness. Nothing is more precious to me than to see the Holy Spirit convict of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.

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