RBTC Grad Making a Lasting Impact on the Philippines
Half a Million Saved; Countless Miracles
In September of 1978, Mike Keyes gave his life to the Lord after reading the minibook The New Birth. By the following September, he was a student at RHEMA Bible Training Center. After graduation, he bought a one-way ticket to the Philippines and left with only $20 in his pocket, not even sure if the minister in the Philippines knew he was coming.
But after he landed on the island of Cebu, someone was there to pick him up. By the end of his first day in the Philippines, Mike was teaching in the minister’s Bible school, and by week’s end he was holding crusades and teaching in local churches. Many of the churches and crusades were in remote, mountainous areas where most people wouldn’t go.
“I want to find the places that have never been reached,” Mike says. To do that, he has crossed rivers and hiked steep mountains—many times in the pouring rain—searching for people who have never heard the Good News of Jesus.
Many of Mike’s crusades are held in out-of-the-way places, but a 42-year-old woman who had been blind from birth received her sight at a larger crusade in the city of Iligan. The woman heard about the crusade on the radio and asked several people where it was. And by herself, she made her way through the crowded city streets to hear an American preach the Gospel. At the end of his message, Mike told the crowd, “Bow your heads and close your eyes as I pray a prayer of healing.” As he prayed, the woman felt someone’s fingers on her eyes. When she opened her eyes, she could see!
When this woman came to the platform to testify, Mike asked the crowd if anyone around her had laid hands on her. The all said no. No one knew her.
“Who do you think touched you?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” the woman said. “All I know is that I was born blind. Somebody put their fingers on my eyes when you prayed. When they took their fingers away, I opened my eyes, and I could see!”
This is only one of many miracles that Mike has witnessed. Not only are people getting healed—they are giving their lives to the Lord. He estimates that over the past 30 years, half a million people have been won to the Lord through his ministry in that great island nation. And this is the fruit to date from only one RHEMA graduate!
“I’m eternally grateful to RHEMA Bible Training Center,” Mike says. “Without that foundation, I don’t believe I would ever have been in a position to see any of this happen. If I had not had such good teaching on faith, I would never have had the strength to leave the U.S. with a one-way plane ticket.”
When Mike’s son wanted to follow his father in the ministry, there was only one place his dad recommended for training—RHEMA Bible Training Center. On May 21, he and 422 other students will walk across the platform to receive their batons of revival after completing their training at RBTC. They will venture out to all parts of the world to share the light of the Gospel with the lost. And in four months, the seats they left vacant at RBTC will be filled by a new crop of students beginning their training.
On Sunday, May 2, we celebrated International RHEMA Day, during which an international family of believers banded together in a special show of support for RHEMA Bible Training Center USA. It’s not too late to participate. Your gift of support, along with other special offerings we received for International RHEMA Day, will help us train more laborers to be sent into fields that are ready to harvest. To give, visit www.rhema.org/ird.
