When my own life began in the way I am talking about, I was driven to seek the power of God because of a profound sense of inadequacy. I was invited to do that which I was unqualified for, and nothing could qualify me. For six days I was preparing, and on the evening of the sixth day, the heavens were opened. I was alone, on my knees, and it was five in the evening. The power from above came upon me.
I want to forget the immediate signs. But the first thing that happened was an unusual power to win the lost. I preached the same message as I had preached before with very little results. But after the Holy Spirit had come upon me, the same message went out and produced unparalleled results.
As an active witness at the university, I used to see one student believe in two or three months. But that Saturday, the Holy Spirit came upon me, and in my normal evangelism the next week, four university students believed and I began to see university students believe in their numbers. Wherever I preached people believed.
I went to the same places where I used to preach, and where when I said, Stand up, people stayed in their seats. The coming Tuesday I went out, preached the same message, gave the same invitation, and sixty to seventy people stood up, all boys, and began to rush forward. I thought they were coming to beat me up. I said, Hold on! What’s the matter? They replied, But you have said those who want to receive Jesus should come forward. Then I knew something I did not even know had happened. I had preached just as I had preached before. I had not linked it to what had happened on Saturday. That is why I was that surprised.
Then I went to the streets of Kampala, three or four evenings, from seven to ten in the evening, and began to witness. In two years about five hundred people were led to the Lord, in the streets of Kampala.
I began to run after sinners. I remember one young man. I told him I wanted to talk to him about Jesus. He asked me, Are you saved? I said, Yes, I am very saved. He told me, I do not listen to saved people. I said, You will listen to this one. He began to run away, and I began to run after him. I was running after him. Then when he was tired, he began to walk and I began to preach. I preached and preached. I preached on the love of God, on the judgement of God, on sin—I preached and preached and preached.
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Then he stopped. He told me, Tell me more. I gave him a piece of paper. It had my name and room number, then I ran away, back to the university campus. The next day, he spent two hours to find my room and there in my room, I led him into the precious hands of the Master.
Later, I wrote my first tract. I wrote my first follow-up tract, and I began to go all over Uganda. I had become another man. I began to cast out demons. I went to Busoga College, Mwiri where I was the speaker at that weekend. When I went there, they said it was good I came. One of the believing students had gone on holiday. His father took him to a sorcerer and sacrificed a goat so that he would do well at school. Then a demon entered him. He came back to school and was behaving like a madman. When I got there, they had locked him in a room.
I got the boys to bring him to the teacher’s home where I was staying, and I wrestled for two hours. It was fierce conflict. After two hours, the spirit went out. He fell on one side, and I fell on the other side exhausted. That was it.
But all this is the outward story. The inward story was that when the Holy Spirit came to me that day, and I went to speak at the meeting (the meeting that had motivated my seeking God for six days with fasting), I returned at eleven in the night and, for the first time, I prayed until morning.
My whole being was hungry for God. I was melting for God. I wanted to be alone, so that I might be with Him. I prayed and prayed and prayed. Bishop John Sentamu, the Anglican Bishop in Britain was my friend then. One day I knelt down and was praying. He had the key to my room. He came in, and the next day he told me, I knelt down and prayed for three hours, but you were talking to God in a way that I did not understand. After three hours, I went away. I never knew that he came. I was caught up with God.
When I opened the Bible, truths began to pop out of its pages. Revelations came up. I became a Bible teacher overnight. Truths popped out of the Bible. I began to go far and wide. I wanted to pray. I remember the Saturday, it was as if, if I did not pray, I would break. But if I prayed in my room, I would burst out and disturb the students. So I went to a lecturer’s room. He had gone to Sheffield in Britain, and had left his keys with me.
I began to pray there at the top of my voice. A certain brother came, knocked at the door and said I was disturbing. I told him to disappear quickly, and I continued to pray. I was transported out of this world for six hours, and I learnt intercession at the feet of God, in heaven.
It was this longing, this longing for God, the burning of my heart for Him, the yearning for the fulfilment in Him that drove me. I had two suits. I dry-cleaned one, wrapped it up, and offered it to one student. I had become another man.
I wanted to be alone with God. And strangely, my results in the laboratory just changed. The things I had done for long without results now just began to yield results. If I forgot everything, the yearning of my heart for Jesus, the burning of my heart for Jesus began then. There have been times when the flame lessened, but it came back and broke forth in new measures. I can only say one thing, that the greatest of the desires of my heart, is that I be left alone with Jesus. The power of the Lord came upon me. Everything else is secondary. God took my heart and possessed it.
Until then, everybody loved me. After that, the campus was split into two. During the revival period, there was a split about Zach Fomum. Some hated me totally, others loved me totally. The power of Another had come upon me.
We are presently praying that the same power should come upon ten thousand believers in Yaounde, then the city will catch fire. Glory be to God.
