On the highway.....to Heaven
In 1980, two French Gypsies came to England looking for someone they didn't know.
God had told them that He was going to use a man in this country to call travelling people to Himself. They came, and found a man named David Jones. They preached Jesus Christ to him, proclaiming God's way of salvation. He believed, repented of his sin, received God's forgiveness and was born again!
For some time the two Frenchmen visited David twice weekly from France, teaching him God's word (the Bible) until he was ready to be used by God.
David set out to proclaim the good news of salvation in Jesus that he had received, so that other travelling people might know the joy he now experienced himself.
Disappointment was the first companion he had on his travels as he was reviled and rejected by his own people. He was jeered at, spat upon, and even stoned by the people he wanted to share the message of life with.
Gradually, he was able to speak to people and soon he had led a handful of people to know Jesus as their Saviour. But that's how it stayed for some time. Six Christians
among the thousands of travellers in this country!
Prayer was the only way forward they prayed "Lord, double our number!" Faithful to those who seek Him, God did just that. Before long, they were twelve!
Thirty years prior to this, another travelling preacher known as 'Gypsy John Smith' had been asked why he didn't preach to his own people. His reply was that their time was not yet. The eighties would be their time!
The movement among the travelling people, started by David Jones, prophesied by John Smith, has now grown to about 7,000 amongst the current estimated population of 50,000 travellers.
There are now five large tents which are moved around the British Isles and set up for meetings to proclaim the way of salvation, the 'highway to Heaven' to Gypsy and travelling people. The number of people who receive God's salvation, healing and deliverence, is growing daily!
John 'the leg' as he was known, had one leg about an inch shorter than the other. At a meeting one night the preacher said that God was going to heal a man that had a problem with his leg. But John, left the meeting and went home.
Eliza was suicidal. She was totally depressed and taking a variety of pills, one of which was Valium. One night she persuaded her husband Joe, (who would rather have gone to the pub) to take her to a Christian meeting. When they arrived, Joe arranged to go to the pub, but he and his friend decided to stay for a bit of the meeting to see what happened. God, it seems, was preparing two more servants!
At the appeal from the front, Eliza committed her life to Christ.
He stayed to the end, when several of the men asked if Joe would like to receive Jesus as Saviour.
For three months after she was saved, Eliza still depended upon the Valium, but knew that this was not God's will for her. One night whilst praying with some Christian women, and whilst her head was bowed she prayed
Arrangements were made, as Joe and Eliza planned to go to France.
No matter what they did, no matter how they tried to get down to the south coast in order to cross to France, they found themselves getting further and further away!
A friend of Joe's told him one day
"Get your Bible, we're going to speak to your brother because I think he is ready to receive Jesus."
A few minutes later Joe's mother, in the same room, was on her knees, repenting of her sin and accepting Jesus as her Lord. God always has a purpose in what He does!
God has done some mighty healing miracles among travelling people.
Jesus told a parable.
Jesus is still extending that same invitation today! Gypsy people are receiving and accepting that invitation. Don't be like those who, in the parable that Jesus told, made feeble excuses for not accepting!
Jesus said "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." (John 14 v 2)
Some of the men went after him to ask why he left. When they found John they all prayed and it was right there that God healed him. He now walks without the limp he'd had for so many years!
Joe, by now, had become so engrossed in the meeting that he had told his friend that he would meet him later.
"It won't make any difference to me." he said, thinking nothing could ever change him, but prayed with them and was saved.
Jesus has made such a change in Joe's life that he and Eliza now spend much of their time helping wherever needed with the same tent crusades that were responsible for leading them both to the Lord!
"Lord, when I look up, I want to be different!"
When she looked up, she knew that God had freed her of the dependence upon the Valium and never took it again!
But God had a different plan in mind!
They ended up in Oxford and found a church in which to worship. As Joe and Eliza had only been Christians for four months they simply believed that everyone that went to church was a Christian!
They discovered that this is not always so. When asked by the minister if they were holiday makers passing through they told him
"No, we're Gypsy people passing through."
Uncertain about them and knowing that they were arranging to come back in the evening, the minister also did some 'arranging' and alerted the police.
That evening Joe had the opportunity to share the good news of salvation in Jesus with the policeman that arrived. He also then shared the same scripture John ch 3 v 3 with the Church.
"..Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."
The people of that church, including the minister had never seen the need to be born again!
God did a miraculous thing that night when that whole church full of people saw for the first time their need of salvation and gave their lives to Jesus. Now Joe and Eliza realised why God had sent them to that place!
When they were speaking to him, it seemed as though Joe's brother was not in the slightest bit interested in the things of God! Joe, by now was thinking
"Oh Lord, this seems a waste of time. Why did you send us here?"
Like the boy's hand badly burned when he picked up a hot brick from the ashes of a fire, completely healed!
Like the man with the lump the size of a pigeon's egg on his hand, received as a result of a kick from a horse nine years before. Three days after receiving in prayer, completely gone!
Like the lady with a cancerous growth on her face who found that it too, was completely gone after prayer.
But the greatest miracle of all has been the way God has saved so many of the travelling people.
When so many of the people invited by a man to a feast declined the invitation, the man said to his servant
".. go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled." (Luke 14 v 23)