My trip to the USA June ‘09 - by André Pelser

How does it feel to do almost 30 000 km in ten days including a seven hour time difference? Well, normally it would be just terrible, because you need a few days to recover from jet-lag going to the USA and a few days when you come home. But I had no jet-lag whatsoever! It is truly a gift I have been given. Perhaps God in His mercy has decided that I travel so much that I needed that gift. Those who were present when I arrived in Richmond and back home in Cape Town can testify that I simply carried on with the day like everybody else around me.

When I arrived at Washington DC after 18 hours of flying from Cape Town, to Johannesburg, to Dakar, to Washington, the custom clearance took so long that I eventually missed my flight to Richmond. The only other flight was four hours later and there was no guarantee that I would get on as a standby passenger. I had to preach in Richmond at Faith Life Tabernacle that night so I decided to rent a car. Someone else also had to get to Richmond by car so we shared the cost. It worked out to about $90 each.

In Richmond an African American picked me up at the airport and he and another guy transported me around for the weekend. They were both thugs that dealt in drugs before they were saved. I asked them about their previous lives that ended in prison for one of them.

‘There is very little value to life in the world of thugs. When you do a good deal they know you have money. They kill you for your money. So it is a matter of kill or be killed. You live in fear day and night. You live in fear that you will be sent to prison or be murdered.’

The one that ended up in prison heard Fred Price preach on TV that you can prosper by living according to God’s principles and by committing your life to Jesus Christ. This got his attention and he gave his life to Jesus. When he was released from prison he looked for a church that preached that kind of faith message and found Faith Life Tabernacle. There he had to unlearn the street language he spoke and had to be taught to speak proper English without cursing.

He has served God faithfully there ever since. He found his wife there and he is one of the ushers. He listens to worship music in the car and all we spoke about was the Lord and the church.

The other one told me many stories as well. He never let anyone know he was a drug pusher. But it was such an easy way of making money. Yet the fear of being caught finally got to him and he turned his life over to the Lord. Someone invited him to church and the message of the pastor got to him.

Pastor Barbara Reiss is the senior minister in Faith Life Tabernacle. She is Indian by descent and her husband passed away in 2001. She took over the reigns from him. She is a very well spoken, well organized woman and the church building and the visiting minister’s home in which I stayed is clean and neat. The protocol in the church among the people is orderly and everyone knows their place. The people are friendly and treat you respectfully. You are really made to feel special.

On the Friday night I ministered even though I was not feeling well. A man came afterwards and shook my hand.

'You preached just for me tonight,’ he said.

He was the husband of Dianne, the secretary of the church. He has not been to church for several years but was curious when he heard how I made them laugh the last time and how many miracles took place. He attended every service and on Sunday night he came forward and dedicated his life to the Lord to the joy of the church.

'We’ve not laughed so much in ten years!’ one of the people told me after the weekend.

They said they were refreshed and pastor Barbara took up a love offering for me. Nola’s worship CD sold well. I laid hands on the family that makes up the worship band. They are from Sri Lanka.

Pastor Barbara has a TV program both in India and in Guyana and goes to those places once a year. She invited me to go with her in the first week in August, God willing and if I can raise the funds to go. She also asked if Nola and our worship team could come and hold a weekend in the church.

From Richmond I flew to Atlanta, Georgia, specifically to see Anton and Esther de Gruchy who moved to America to work for the HQ of the IT company he was involved in here in Cape Town. They are doing well and they have found a church where they think they can fellowship.

The pastor comes from ORU (Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, Oklahoma) and when they told him about me he said, ‘oh, the Miracle Man?’ They were surprised to find out that he had seen the video of Miracle Man in which I performed the one man drama about the life of Dr. John G. Lake who came as an apostle to South Africa. My video as well as my book, God’s Genius are in the library of ORU. I performed the one man drama on stage at ORU in 1982 in front of 700 students and also had the privilege to personally meet Oral Roberts and his wife Evelyn as well as his son, Richard Roberts and to attend the recording of their TV program.

From Atlanta I went to Boston, Massachussetts, where the first Pilgrims landed and where they had the great Boston Tea Party when all the tea was dumped into the ocean. It is an absolutely exquisitely beautiful and clean city. I walked around a lot and got to know the city quite well.

From there I took a train down the filmesque coastline of East England through Connecticut to New York where I had to take the E tube train uptown to get to Queens where Apostle Lionel Etwaru picked me up in his wife’s red sports Mercedes. They had fled from the dictatorship in Guyana to settle in America. We spent some time together and he told me many stories about his young life in Guyana as a ten year old boy working the rice fields for his uncle and receiving a dollar a day!

He also told me about the pioneers of the Pentecostal move in Guyana, Philip Mohabir, and gave me a book about the five fold ministry written by him, The Hands of Jesus. I read the whole book that night. He also told me about James Cooper who felt impressed of the Lord to reach the lost tribes in the jungles of Suriname. Suriname is next to Guyana at the top of South America if you look on the world map.

The chief of one of the tribes had a prophetic vision about a white man that would come and speak words of life that would save the tribe and they would know that it is him when he says these words: ‘This must be God!’ After the chief died his son took over the leadership of the tribe. One day a white man appeared and the warriors tried to kill him. He ran away. When the son heard about it he ordered the warriors to capture the white man and bring him back to their village. James Cooper thought they were going to kill him this time. When the son asked him what he was doing there he said he brought good news that could save the souls of the tribe. The son ordered food for him and offered him the hospitality of the village. Then Cooper uttered the famous words, ‘this must be God!’ Then the son remembered his father’s prophetic vision. They helped Cooper to reach the other tribes in the jungle as well.

James Cooper is still alive. I asked Apostle Etwaru if he could arrange for me to make a documentary about this man who risked his life for the Gospel’s sake. He said Cooper is still alive and that he would also arrange meetings for me both in Guyana and Suriname. Apostle Jones whom I met in Nigeria this year also comes from Guyana and offered to arrange meetings for me in Guyana as well.

So it seems, everywhere I go the sign posts say, Guyana! I am prepared to go but I would like to take a camera man with me this time. Perhaps you can pray about helping me with the costs of the trip and the production of the documentary that would capture one of the hero’s of faith’s personal testimony to preserve it for posterity as a witness of what God can do when someone is willing to sacrifice their life for the Gospel’s sake.

Apostle Etwaru just bought a beautiful old church building and they are trusting God to pay it off as soon as possible. After I ministered they asked me to bring our entire worship team and to hold a worship seminar, concert and help them launch a worship school in Queens.

They said my ministry refreshed them and made things simple and practical. The worship leader said, ‘you don’t play and sing like a white man. You must have some black blood in you somewhere!’ I told her that our Garden Boy first showed me how to play piano.

The trains go overhead above the main road just like we see it in the movies in Queens. I stayed in a suburb called Jamaica.

The lady who cleaned my room in the little hotel was also from Guyana! Can you believe it! She goes to the church David Wilkerson founded in Times Square. On Sunday night I had a free evening so I took the E train down town to find that church and attended a meeting. They have three meetings per Sunday. It is a beautiful old theatre Off Broadway that Wilkerson bought for $12 million and when he wrote to all the people around the world that he knew he raised the cash within 2 weeks to pay for it.

I was thinking about our building project. I wonder if I write to all the people where I have ministered over the years what the response would be. Our church ground is paid for – now we have to build. If the Lord moves upon your heart to help us build the church then contact me through the website.

I flew back from John F. Kennedy airport in New York to Johannesburg and straight from there to Cape Town to be with Nola and Hilton. I had no jet-lag once again and we could go and watch Hilton play in the regional hockey trials that same afternoon. They played through a heavy storm for about 3 hours. It was freezing cold as well. My body adapts so well from summer in the USA to winter in Cape Town and I know it is the Lord that has given me this divine ability to adapt to every place I go to for the sake of Christ and the Gospel.

I thank God for my family and Harvester church who sent me and prayed and even fasted for me as I went for without their support I would not be able to go everywhere the Lord sends me.

It was good to be back home.

Elda and Jako Filjon from Houston, Texas phoned and said, ‘We got our green cards!’ They had been waiting for several years and Elda told Jako, ‘you’ll see if Andre comes into America the apostolic grace will release our green cards!’ It happened according to Elda’s faith!

Now I am looking forward to the men’s camp in Hermanus and also for the editing of the music video of War Time Story that we shot before I left. I trust God to help us with all the costs of the production. We believe this music video can be sent to TV stations around the world to convey the message. It is on my Preacher Man Blues CD which can be ordered from www.pelsermedia.com