The Story of How it All Began

by Joel Wells

As a young boy, I always had an interest in the power of God.

I used to read the biographies of great men and women of God whom the Lord has used in powerful ways to preach his gospel. I loved hearing about the miracle power of God to heal, deliver and provide. I dreamed of the Lord using me in the same way. I had a close relationship with the Lord as a child.

In my teenage years I began to cool in my passion for the Lord and became more interested in other things less spiritual. Being a preacher was the last thing I wanted to do. However one day when I was around 17 years of age, my father (who was a preacher) showed me a video of a man named Reinhard Bonnke. The video was documenting Bonnke's first crusade that had gone over 100,000 people in Malawi, Africa. The power of God was on full display as the Holy Spirit blew across the crowd and thousands of people were unable to stand as a result. The stage was stacked high with wheelchairs and crutches from all the miracles of healing. I was in awe. I had never seen anything like this. In that moment I said in my heart, "if I ever get serious about God, that is what I'm going to do." There was still a big "if" in my heart but a seed was planted that day.

Over the next couple of years I would catch myself daydreaming and dreaming at night about preaching the gospel in front of thousands of people. I would imagine miracles of healing happening as I prayed. I thought I just had a wild imagination and I would never tell anybody the thoughts I was having. I was still deciding if I was going to serve the Lord and if I even believed God was real. Why would I ever think I would preach to thousands?

A dramatic encounter with the Lord in my bedroom one night led to the surrender of my life to God. I was available if he wanted to use me. My father told me that he felt I had a "call" on my life but what did that mean? Fathers are supposed to say stuff like that to their kids but I needed to hear God speak to me if I was going to be convinced.

One night a lady was invited to speak in our church. Her name was Rachel Hickson. I had never heard of her and she didn't know I was the pastor's kid. She preached with such authority. She gave an altar call and hundreds responded. I was in my usual place hiding at the back of the crowd when suddenly I was tapped on the shoulder and a man pointed to the stage. Rachel was pointing at me and calling me forward. She began to prophesy to me in front of everybody me that God had called me to preach the gospel. The power of God went through me and I found myself laying on the floor of the stage vibrating under the power of God. Later she came back and knelt down beside me and began to whisper in my ears. "You have dreamed of hundreds and thousands and stadiums and one day God is going to give them to you!" I had heard the call and from that moment on I was filled with a passion to preach the gospel. Later that night I was blown away to discover that Rachel had worked for Reinhard Bonnke as a crusade director and had actually organized the Malawi crusade I had watched on video.

Over the next 18 years this dream would burn inside of me. There were definitely days when doubt was raging, however, God had given me favour and doors had opened to preach in churches and at conferences and I eventually became the lead pastor of Harvest City Church in Regina. I had a new call to pastor and a vision to lead a church into the purposes of God in our city and this dominated most of my thinking. I wondered if God really had called me to be an evangelist. I was almost 40 years old and no closer to seeing my dream fulfilled.. or so it seemed. 

One day I was praying in a prop room in our church. I was hiding and just needing a place to be alone with God when all of a sudden all the old dreams of crusade evangelism came flooding back into my soul. Faith arose again and I declared in that prop room that I still believed, and that God could make a way where there seemed to be no way. I had no idea how, but I believed He could do it.

A month later I was preaching in a pastor's conference in Uganda and the Lord anointed me with an authority I had never preached with before. Pastors were jumping to their feet as I preached, and many rushed forward when an invitation was given for prayer; but as awesome as that meeting was, it was a conversation I was about to have in the car on the ride home that would literally change my life.

As I sat in the front seat beside the pastor who had invited me to speak, he began to talk to me as he drove. He talked about how powerful the meeting was and how the Lord had really anointed me to preach, but then he asked me a question that got my full attention. "Would I consider returning to Uganda to preach the gospel on University campuses around the country?"

One year later I stood in the shadows at the back of a crowd of 2000 university students. Nobody could see me as I stood in the dark, but tears of joy were streaming down my cheeks. This crowd was waiting for the preacher and that preacher was me! God had made a way where there was no way. I preached that night with all the fire and passion I had, and watched with amazement as people streamed forward to receive Christ when the invitation was given. God dreams DO come true!

As awesome as that night was, it was not the fulfillment of a dream, it was simply the beginning. For the past 10 years we have returned to Uganda almost every year and even twice some years. We have held festivals on multiple University campuses and in cities across the country. The size of the crowds and the number of people finding Christ has grown significantly. The miracle power of God is flowing and there are amazing testimonies of people encountering the transforming love of God. God has added others to my team and an official ministry named LIFT was launched to raise support, administrate the festivals, and tell the stories of what God is doing. Pakistan is another nation that God has opened the door too recently and this year I preached at a festival in Canada, at Mosaic Stadium, in my own city – another dream fulfilled! Where are we going from here? Only God knows, but whenever he opens the door, we will preach the gospel with boldness knowing that God has called us and that Jesus is the one who saves!