Over 20,760 decisions for Christ made in three weeks!

Thank you for storming heaven for souls through your prayers!

We're back from another amazing trip to India. The Oasis team led four 5-day Gospel & Healing Festivals, three Ignite the Fire Seminars, and dedicated eleven wells and seven churches. In all, over 20,760 people made decisions to follow Jesus as their Lord and Savior as a result of this three week trip! Our soul count is now 629,321 on our way to reach 1,000,000 decisions by the end of 2010.

The Pastor's Seminars were well attended. The Oasis team handed out Bible commentaries to pastors in their native tongue of Telugu. Among the grateful recipients is Pastor Ramish Babu who said, "I have waited a whole year for this New Testament commentary. Thank you very much!"

One of the churches was built in the village of Sevamandir, population of 5,000, and it is the first Christian worship center ever built.

Nine years ago, God called the pastor to Sevamandir and now leads a church of 40 believers. About 100 people attended the church dedication. The pastor said that he began praying for a church building about a year ago. They had been meeting in a shed or at nearby homes. In January, they heard about Oasis World Ministries and applied for a church building. They are thrilled with the church!

I spent the last couple days of this trip with the Oasis National Evangelists. It was a great time of encouragement and equipping. We've added several new faces to the team for a total of 19. As part of their training, I taught them the "One-Minute Witness" tool. Then each evangelist left the building to share their one-minute story.

Exuberent, all of the evangelists returned with great joy, including K. Elisha who realized, "To think I've wasted all these years not sharing my faith." Now he's set on reaching 5,000 decisions for Christ over the next year.

Each National Evangelist will hold three-day mini-festivals in remote villages of India. Regional pastors will follow up with those who have made decisions to follow Christ and mentor them in the faith. More photos and stories...

Intentional for souls,

Tom Elie

Evangelist/President

Oasis World Ministries

P.S. If your church is interested in learning more about a fun and easy way to share your faith story in 60-seconds, click Gas Buy-Down.

Oasis Prayer and Praise Update

We just finished a glorious week of meetings in Suryapet, Andhra Pradesh, India.

The festival grounds were packed with thousands of people from rural unreached villages. The people traveled in by dozens of tractor trailers. By God's grace, we will have seen around 9,600 people come to Christ through our ministry efforts in the last two weeks.

Perhaps the most touching testimony was that of an 11-year-old girl who came to our stage with her grandmother. She had been completely deaf for four years, but now her ears have been opened by Jesus!

Also while in Hyderabad, we ministered at a church where 300 people were expected, but 1,100 people showed up! It was like walking into the fruits of our faith as we entered the church. The atmosphere was electric with worship and expectancy.

Among the healings was that of a blind woman. She had been hit in the eye with a stick when she was a child and was blind ever since. While attending the festival, God healed her eye, and she can see! God has been so very good to us.

We are now beginning our final week of festival meetings. I will be leading a festival in Shathinager and my friend, Pastor George Bunnell, from Maple Grove, Minnesota will be leading a festival in Pamulapadu.

Thank you for your prayers! They have made a huge difference... please keep storming heaven for souls!

Intentional for souls,

Tom Elie
Evangelist/President
Oasis World Ministries

Never tire of seeing miracles

Bucchi Reddy Palem, Andhra Pradesh was the location of our first week in India. We held a five-day gospel & healing festival and a three-day pastor's school.

At the festival, we experienced several miracles. During one of the sermons, I talked about the father's son who was continually thrown into the fire by a demon (Mark 9). At that moment, a demon-possessed lady, who was sitting in the crowd, interrupted the story. Then God took over and showed me what to do!

I said, "Demon, be quiet in Jesus' name." Then I invited the woman forward to the altar so that we could pray for her. Before I finished the sermon, she calmly walked back to her seat, completely set free!

Another miracle was that of a paralyzed 15-year-old girl who lifted her arm over her head for the very first time in her life! And another miracle was that of 12-year-old girl who had been born deaf. Her father wept when God restored her hearing! By God's grace, around 3,600 people will have come to know Jesus Christ during this first week!

God is giving us great favor. During the pastor's school the regional pastors were so grateful for the teaching and encouragement. While we were there, the Oasis team did village evangelism. We were told by the local people that we were the first white people to have ever presented the Gospel of Jesus Christ at their village.

Tomorrow we leave for our next festival and pastor's school. Please continue to stand in prayer; it means so much to India!

Intentional for souls,

Tom Elie
Evangelist/President
Oasis World Ministries
oasisworldministries.org

The Tyranny of the Urgent

"And the crowd sought Him and came to Him, and tried to keep Him from leaving them; but He said to them, 'I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also because for this purpose I have been sent'" (Luke 4:42-43).

Ministers know what I mean when I say, 'we know pressure'.

Pressure to please people. Pressure to have the church service shorter, and longer, and sing this music and teach that topic. Pressure to be funny, to be serious, to be 'deep' (whatever that is) and to be relevant. Pressure to reach the neighborhood, yet maintain everyone's needs within. Pressure to pay off the building and simultaneously add an addition. Pressure to live within budgets and do more with less. The list goes on and on. If we're not careful, we'll try to make everyone happy instead of simply hearing from God.

Jesus was pressured too.

The crowds were growing, people were getting healed, and His fame was spreading. Who wouldn't want His problem? The people pressured Jesus to stay with them for extended meetings. But Jesus was adamant. His success was not measured in numbers or dollars or healings. His success simply came from 'OBEYING GOD'. This was the yardstick by which He measured everything.

Jesus was not distracted from His purpose... "to seek and save the lost". So He moved on to other towns where they had not heard of His salvation. He left the "reached" to find the "unreached".

What's pressuring you? What's keeping you from being His ambassador to the lost? Our supreme task is to reach the unreached. Our life's purpose is only complete when we obey God.

The crowd will keep us busy inside the church until we retire, and we'll still be frazzled and unfulfilled. But when we obey God and take His love 'outside' the church, our fire will burn brighter, the sky will be bluer, and the grass will be greener.

'Obeying God' is the best 'pressure-relief' valve ever!

Intentional for souls,
Tom Elie
Evangelist/President
www.oasisworldministries.org

P.S. The Oasis Team will be in India February 11-March 1. Please keep us in your prayers. We will conduct four "Gospel & Healing" Festivals, three "Ignite the Fire" Training Seminars; dedicate seven churches and 17 fresh-water wells that were recently completed. During the final few days, I will be meeting with our National Evangelists for training and encouragement.

Upwards of 10,000 receive Christ's forgiveness!

"Declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among all peoples" (I Chronicles 16:24).

By God's grace, I have just returned from our inaugural trip to Liberia, Africa.

I wish you could experience the energy and passion these dear people of Liberia have for Christ! They have suffered 14 years of pure terror during their civil war. There is no electricity in the entire country except what is generator-driven. The burnt-down and shot-up buildings are everywhere. Yet these resilient people are hungry for God to heal their wounds so they can rebuild their lives.

"THANK YOU" for your prayers and support. There was much spiritual battle being waged, but there was great victory as a result. We saw God do many incredible works during our two weeks of ministry:

• Four fresh-water wells drilled and dedicated in areas that have no clean water
  Over 600 pastors of all denominations attended our two pastor's schools
• Two 5-day open-air crusades in rural and under-reached areas of Tubmanberg and Kakata
• Over 100 physical healings recorded by our Oasis team
• And we believe over ten thousand people will have received forgiveness from Christ as a result of this trip! photos...

The actual number is difficult to pinpoint because God gave great favor for me to preach the message of "repentance and reconciliation" on a "live" secular radio station, FM Truth, that covers the whole nation of Liberia and parts of three surrounding nations. This message of repentance and reconciliation was heard by as many as 200,000 people! I am sure thousands more prayed for salvation over the radio.

I also met a man with an amazing story of transformation like that of Saul of Tarsus. This man was 'bred' to be the high priest of his tribe. Liberia and the surrounding countries knew him as a killing machine because he was the most fierce terrorist known to Liberia. They named him 'General Butt Naked'. When he was under a demonic spell he fought the opposing armies with a machette and without a stitch of clothing. Demonic forces protected him from the bullets of opposing terror groups and armies.

Yet one day God appeared to him in a vision and said, "Why are you a slave?" He realized that his demonic powers were no match to that of Jesus and received Christ as his Lord and Savior. He spent a period of time being discipled in the Christian faith. Today, General Butt Naked has been renamed 'Joshua'. He shared parts of his incredible testimony with us during five of our ten crusade nights. For more about the redemption of General Butt Naked, click to his story...

Please be in continued prayer as we get ready to return to India in February.

To God be ALL the glory!

Tom Elie
Evangelist/President
Oasis World Ministries
http://www.oasisworldministries.org/

Remarkable Report of Repentance

"Oh Lord, we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws....O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act! For Your sake, O my God, do not delay, because Your city and Your people bear Your name" (Daniel 9:5, 19).

Happy new year from Liberia, Africa!

I couldn't wait to share this incredible report with you! But first I want to thank all of you who have been praying for us. I am feeling well and adapting to this new and faith-filled culture. The civil war has taken its toll on this country, but the war has drawn the people closer to the Lord. While poverty abounds, people are resilient and cautiously looking forward to 2009.

When God led me to go to Liberia, I felt He put a message of 'repentance and reconciliation' on my heart. While here, we have joined with the pastors and people to repent of sins not only in our lives but, as Daniel did, we have been repenting for the sins of the nation (Daniel 9).

The ONLY hope of unity in a country is for people to be able to forgive from the heart, and move on for the future. The ONLY way we can completely forgive others is through the love of Jesus Christ.

Here is an incredible testimony. On Sunday morning, January 4, I arrived at our host church to preach 'repentance and reconciliation' to about 150 Liberians. Three weeks earlier, one of the largest secular stations, FM Truth, was scheduled to be at this church and was forced to cancel due to equipment failure. Little did I know that this radio station rescheduled for this morning. I addressed upwards of 100,000 people over the radio-LIVE-reaching all of Liberia, parts of Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, and Guinea! God had appointed a time for His message of 'repentance and reconciliation' to be heard all across the country! God's favor came as I preached about the forgiveness that is only found in Christ. I told people to pull over their cars and join us in prayer as we cried out to God to forgive the heinous Liberian sins of plundering, rape and murder. This was a marvelous window that God ordained, because He so dearly loves Liberians!

I have much more to tell, but please be praying for us as we now move our crusade and pastor's school to Kakata, Liberia, where our team is working hard to get ready for a great move of God. It is my privilege to humbly represent you as we love this war-torn nation with Christ's love.

I wish you a happy new year in Christ!

Intentional for souls,
Tom Elie
Evangelist/President
Oasis World Ministries
www.oasisworldministries.org

God's Miraculous Healings in Liberia

"...they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well" (Mark 16:18b).

The Oasis team is doing well and the Liberian people are very friendly and open to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Hot and humid describes the climate here, and we are melting like popsicles. The Liberian people are true survivors and very adaptable. Everything is run by generators, so there are few places to escape the heat and humidity.

We just completed the first of two three-day pastor's schools. Over 400 pastors attended and were encouraged, equipped and empowered by the Holy Spirit. The teaching included hands-on application of Mark 16:18 where disciples of Jesus are instructed to lay hands on the sick. As a result God healed 18 people who struggled with chronic body pain!

Currently, we are in the midst of our first five-day crusade in Tagmaberg, Bomi County. In the first two nights, 950 people made decisions to follow Jesus! Over 2,500 people have attended with the largest crowds to come.

The native pastors have marveled at the size of the crowds and have exclaimed, "We have never seen this many healings!"

Tonight at the crusade,a former rebel soldier will share his story about how Jesus has turned his life around. During the civil war, the people knew him as a ruthless killer. His remarkable transformation after receiving Jesus Christ reminds me of Saul's story before he became Paul.

In addition, four fresh-water wells are being drilled at remote villages that currently do not have running water. The goal is to have them completed before we return home for dedication ceremonies. Just ahead the Oasis team will travel to Bummi Hills for the second pastor's school and crusade.

Please continue to pray that a spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation will help heal this war-torn country, and that those who are thirsting for "Living Water" will accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

Thank you for holding us up in prayer.

Intentional for souls,
Tom Elie
Evangelist/President
Oasis World Ministries
www.oasisworldministries.org