“So I will deliver you from the hand of the wicked, And I will redeem you from the grasp of the violent.” Jeremiah 15:21 (NASB)


The team started waking up as I drove into El Paso. As usual, we had a van full of people who were full of faith and high expectations. It was December of 1975, and the Lord was leading us to a barrio close to the Mexican border. This was to be a two week outreach. As we surveyed our mission field we had no food, no money for gas, and no place to stay. We didn’t know anyone. To top it off we didn’t have a clue as to what we would do for two weeks. But when we committed ourselves to go, in spite of our fears, God provided all our needs and more. We were there to win souls for Jesus. He would show us what to do.

As God opened doors we were able to share with a gang of Hispanics in the park, minister door to door, and see a wonderful work accomplished at the high school. It was as if we were spectators, watching the Holy Sprit go before us. He was doing mighty works.

Late one night I was writing in our team diary. It had been a day when several people had come to the Lord. There was a lot to write about. I was nearly finished when I heard the Lord speak to my heart.

“Don’t finish your diary,” He whispered, “there is still a soul to be saved.”

Moments later several members of the team walked in. Someone was with them - demanding to see me. Sensing in my spirit that something was terribly wrong, I took the man outside. Out on the street we sat in the van and talked. A teenage boy, about 16 years old, was with him and came out to the van too.

The stranger went on and on about how he wanted to work with us, but there was something about him that didn’t feel right. I asked him about the boy and all of a sudden he went into a rage! At the same moment, the Lord gave me a word of knowledge. Suddenly I knew beyond any doubt that he was a homosexual, was demon possessed, and that he had picked this boy up from the streets.

“I’m going to kill you,” he shouted as he came up out of his seat and pinned me hard against the door. He was big and strong. He went crazy and screamed at me. He kept yelling, “I’m going to kill you, I’m going to kill you”.

For one moment I thought I was going to die. But in that moment of fear, there rose up in me a wonderful peace. I had the sweetest sense of God’s presence. It was so strong, that as he held me against the door, trapping me so that I could not move, I began to worship the Lord. I raised both my hands in worship and adoration. It was as sweet as if I had been alone somewhere, just Jesus and me enjoying and loving each other.

The man made a fist, pulled his arm way back and drove that fist toward my face. Suddenly it stopped. His fist hit “something” in the air in front of me and he couldn’t pull his hand back. He was getting angry, frustrated and confused. He didn’t know what was happening to him. Meanwhile I still had my hands raised, just worshipping the Lord.

Then I said to him, “In the name of Jesus, sit down”. He did.

I started the van and drove toward downtown El Paso. He had told me earlier that he was leaving town that night, so I drove him to the bus station. We pulled up and he got out. He tried to take the boy with him.

“If you go with him, he’ll kill you,” I told the boy.

“I don’t want to go with him”, the boy said.

So I stomped on the gas with two of the van’s doors wide open, leaving the man standing in the street. I drove for miles, finally stopping along the side of the road to share Jesus with the boy. He gave his heart to the Lord. He cried and cried. He told me he had been living on the streets for several years and didn’t have a home.

“God has a plan for you and will take care of you,” I told him. I knew it was true.

By now it was near midnight. I drove to the rescue mission, but they were full. Then to another. It was full too. Finally I drove to the police station.
“This boy needs help. He has no where to go,” I told the officer at the desk. “Do you know where I can take him?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “There’s a phone number here that somebody carved into the desk. I don’t know what it is, but you might try calling it.”
What a strange answer. I took down the number any way and called it. I woke up the man on the other end. Without even waiting to find out who he was I said, “I’m a Christian worker and I have a teenager who has just given his life to God and needs a place to stay. Can you help?”

“Come right over!” he said. “I think we might be able to help”.

The address, however, was out in the middle of nowhere and the road was so bad that I thought it would shake the front end off the van. I knew, though, that God would provide. He had told me of this soul before I even met him.

When we got to the house I shared a little more, still not knowing who this man was. I discovered that this was a house of prayer for a ministry called Victory Outreach. Later I learned that they knew of the Force and had just talked to Brother Dave Wilkerson that weekend! After the guys in the house had prayed they told us that the boy could stay with them. He would be fed, cared for, and taught God’s Word. It was just so amazing to me. That number on the police officers desk could have been anybody!

I climbed into my sleeping bag about 2:00 a.m. Just before I drifted off the Lord spoke to me again. “You can finish the diary now. That soul has been saved.” Yet there was more to come.

“In a school this size there have to be some Christians. Whoever you are, would you stand to your feet in front of your classmates? By standing you are saying ‘I am a Christian and I will take a stand for Jesus in my school from this day on.’”

Three. In the entire assembly of hundreds of kids only three stood up. Discouraged, I was almost certain the principal wouldn’t ask us back. We closed in prayer and the students emptied the bleachers and headed back to class. We prayed that God would move on that school. We prayed that He would change lives.

It was a miracle we were even there. The principal had allowed us to share Jesus at an assembly of the entire high school. A public school. And we did. No holds barred. Our message was simple. Jesus wanted to make Himself real to them. Only He could take away their hurt, their pain and make them new inside. He had even allowed us to pray. But now it was over. Had anything really been accomplished?

Two teachers made a stand along with those three students. They asked the principal, if the we could come to their classes and continue to share. Absolutely! One was a Psychology class and the other an Algebra class. We went, excited that our window of opportunity had not closed.
More classes opened up to us and we shared all day long about the love of God. Then the principal allowed us to have another meeting after school for all students who would be interested in hearing more. About 50 came. That’s when we told them what it really meant to serve Jesus. We gave an altar call, giving everyone there a chance to receive Christ. There were about thirty decisions for Christ in that room. Before the two week outreach in El Paso was over we saw sixty five people give their lives to Jesus. Of those, forty were high school students.

After our two weeks, we had another meeting with the converts from that first day in the school. Many shared what Jesus had been doing in their lives during that short time. It was moving. But there was one student at the meeting who had argued with us from the very first day. He was a rebel, an intellectual, and according to the principal, the biggest problem in the school. He followed us around and opposed every statement we made.

“I’m an atheist,” he said. He tried to prove that God doesn’t exist, even though he saw many students changed and taking stands for Jesus.
As we closed in prayer one of the team members went over to him, put his hand on him and prayed out loud for God to do a miracle in his heart. He began to cry uncontrollably. When he calmed down he said, “As soon as you put your hand on me I felt and saw a giant hand envelop me. At the same time I was flooded with a peace and love I have never known before.”

I was involved with the Agape Force for thirteen years, but looking back on all the places I worked around the country, these conversions were among the most exciting I had ever seen. Two years later the principal told me that these events had transformed the entire school. He also told me something he learned from a teacher there.

She told him that this school had been founded by a Christian woman almost a hundred years earlier. Though the school was, for the most part, a secular school, she had seen a vision that there would one day be a revival there. From that revival God would raise up missionaries to go out into the world and preach the gospel. After graduation, two of the students we had led to Christ went into missions. One of them was the former atheist. That teacher believed that God used us to fulfill a prophesy made a hundred years before!

Mike Laughlin