5 (of the many many) MIRACLES - OF THIS BIBLE CLASS

Left to Right - Victoria - Beate - Linda - at a church meeting - 1987

I told you that every time I run this class I see miracles; Here’s just 5 of them:

Miracle #1 - 1978 → DELIVERANCE FROM DEMONS -

I first took the Bible class at age 21. From age 5, I’d been tormented by many demons: (You cannot imagine how horrible it was - though it became a lifelong lesson in demonology.) Seems I also had a ‘spirit of slumber’. Class would no sooner start then I’d fall fast asleep at the table. The wonderful couple running my first class, Tim & Elizabeth Collins, put people behind me to keep me awake!

I met JESUS on the pages of the Book, the man who had first spoken to me when I was FIVE - to where, by the last session, I had heard enough ‘Word’ to be born again, baptized in the holy spirit, and speaking in tongues.

Though speaking in tongues was only the ‘beginning of miracles’. From that day forward, I began to hear the Lord speak to me regularly. (post for another time).

After graduation (August 4th, 1978) I returned home and Jesus met me in my kitchen! I’d ALREADY been delivered of all the demons with the baptism in the holy spirit, but I didn’t KNOW IT! I didn’t grasp the fullness of what had taken place till we both spoke.

The conversation went like this..

• Jesus said ‘It’s GONE’. Giving me instantly to understand that 15 hellish years of demonic possession were over.

• I said ‘What if it comes back’?

• He said ‘It will never come back’. (It never has).

• I was freaked out; and pleaded with him - ‘But what am I to do? I’ve been sick my whole life! I don’t know how to be normal!”

• The Lord replied: “Join the Army”. !Haha!

I saw a recruiter the very next day, and the rest is history. Everything I needed in life, physical fitness, discipline training, specialty training, and a prism with which to interpret the world geopolitically and spiritually, came through the particular military training that Jesus himself chose for me. My life has never been the same¹.

Miracle #2 - 1982 → THE TAXI AT 3RD AVENUE AND 50TH STREET:

In early April of 82’ I had been kicked out of that ministry, but I continued to witness to people I met, and steer them to the Bible class. (After all, it was the CLASS that got me healed, baptized in the holy spirit and walking in power. People fail us, but the Lord never does - as he showed me when he commissioned me in his army, in 1978, using Jeremiah 1:8! ² → You may have read my post about how Jesus made a blizzard in April to prove that to me.)

In those days I was driving a ‘black taxi’ #177 ‘XYZ cab company’ on the streets of NYC. My fares came from radio calls.

With 8 million people in Manhattan, you never saw the same ‘fare’ twice. But in a 2 week period, I was sent by my dispatcher to pick up a ‘Linda Holmes, at 800 2nd Avenue, FOUR TIMES. That was already a miracle..

Needless to say, I witnessed to Linda and told her about the Bible class.

At that very time some believers on the upper east side were getting ready to start a class; So I’d pick Linda up in my cab (meter off), and take her over to that Bible fellowship, though, I had to leave her at the door. I wasn’t allowed in..

(You should know that God continually rewarded me- which no doubt some of these miracles were rewards, as His way of blessing me for faithfulness in the face of persecution by my peers. The thing to remember is DONT WORRY about PEOPLE, they may turn on your or turn their backs on you, but HE NEVER WILL! And the GREATER the persecution, the GREATER the marvels and victories.)

The day of the first session, I was supposed to pick Linda up and take her to the class. BUT that afternoon, shortly before 4pm, I was on 3rd Avenue driving my cab, and decided to stop in a store. My mistake. When I came back outside, my cab had been towed! The parking spot had become ‘illegal’ after 4pm.

Here I was supposed to pick her up within an hour, and I had no car!

I knew that vehicles in Mahattan are brought downtown to the far west side, and it would cost $150 to get my cab out of hock,.. money I did not have on me.

In a panic, I ran across the street to a payphone (remember them?) to call my dispatcher. I was looking for them to locate Javad Ebrahimi, another driver in the radio group who was a good friend. I knew Javad would take me to get my car, and front me the cash. But, at that moment, my fellow cabbie could have been ANYWHERE.. even hours away. Our cab group often got calls that took us to Redhook NY, or way out in Jersey.. It wasn’t looking good for me to pick up Linda..

The dispatcher answered the phone and just as I was in the process of explaining my dilemma to ask him to radio for Javad.. the traffic light at 50th Street eastbound turned red, and cars began to line up in front of the light….

A Black taxi that was in the lineup at the light stopped directly in front of me! It was car # 76 - Javad’s car!

I threw down the phone receiver and raced over to his driver window.. “JAVAD JAVAD!!”

Javad drove me over to the pier, we got my car out of hock, and Linda got to class on time. To this day, I don’t know if she had any idea what it took to get here there! (That’s Linda in the photo above on the right)

Miracle #3 - GOD MADE IT STOP RAINING 3 TIMES

In 1985 I was preparing to run the Bible Class in my uptown apartment. The class was typically shown on a TV using VHS tapes in a tape player. Since I don’t own a TV, I had to borrow the equipment each time.

Steven Budlong, my new local leader, was going to lend me the equipment. (I was back in the ministry.!. Island Weiss, my earlier ‘leader’ that had kicked me out of that church, had moved on, quitting ministry altogether, and opened an art gallery on East 69th street). So, Sean, a good friend who had a car, picked me up at my West 110 Street building, and we drove downtown to Steve’s apartment. Look at how God honored this class by protecting the equipment and tapes:

• The whole drive south on Broadway, it was pouring cats and dogs.

• We got to 22nd Street, to the front of Steve’s building, and before we stepped out of the car, →the rain stopped.

• Once we were inside the building, →it began again to pour.

• In Steve’s apartment, we got the large television, and VHS player, and all the class tapes onto a rolling cart, took it down the elevator, and to the building’s front door. As we approached the door —>the rain stopped.

• We loaded everything into the trunk of Sean’s car, and got in. We no sooner closed the car doors than → the rain came again like a monsoon.

• The windshield wipers were flapping up a storm the whole way uptown. We got to the front of my building at 354 West 110th Street, and pulled to the curb - and → the rain stopped. Like someone closed a faucet. Not a drop fell on us, or on the equipment as we brought it into the lobby.

I ran the class for 12 students. I still have the plaque they gave me!

MIRACLE #4 & 5 - BEATE - (2 MIRACLES IN EUROPE)

From 1984 to 1989 I worked as a captain in a 3 Star Manhattan restaurant. (The Sign of the Dove at east 65th Street.. maybe someday I’ll tell you about the time that my friend Sean, brought 10 of his business partners into the restaurant, and at the end of the meal - in a place that forbid cigars - he broke open a box of cigars and they were all smoking them! Sean was, and still is, a guy with a love in his heart for GOD and His people, and a sense of humor!)

It was a union job and we were making $$ hand over fist, So I would take our yearly one month vacation and go to Europe.

In 1985 I went to Madrid, Spain, to learn Spanish.

In my beginner class there were dozens of Europeans, of which 4 of us became close friends. Michela and Alessia, sisters from Italy (who already spoke 5 languages),

my pencil drawing of Michaela from 1987

and Beate from Germany.

Beate and I wound up in the same residence so we got to know each other well. At that time her mother had cancer already for a few years. So, I prayed for Beate’s mother. One day, after returning from the local pay phone shoppe where she’d called home to Germany, Beate came to me crying. Her mom had been declared free of cancer! Beate became very interested in God from that point on. (miracle #1)

Fast forward a few months, in my 110th Street Manhattan apartment the phone rang at 5am. I picked it up groggily, and listened to a familiar voice speaking a peculiar language. Beate had gone home to Germany,and taken the Bible class in GERMANY - in GERMAN, and was on the phone SPEAKING IN TONGUES to me! (a miracle itself!)

In 1986, all 4 of us, Alessia, Michela, Beate and I, returned to Spain to the same school to repeat the pleasure of the year before.

This time, at the end of one month of Spanish class (taught by the inimitable Clemente Sanchez Pinuela), I was alone with Beate in our residence, as we were packing to go to go home. But I was sick. It seems I caught some kind of flu. I was under many blankets with PJs on, shivering. And we had to leave for the airport. I asked Beate (the new Bible class grad!) to pray for me. She prayed in German:

After I heard Beate say - “Im Namen Jesu Christi, Amen” my temperature returned! I was suddenly aware of so many blankets -thew them off, got dressed, and we got to the airport right on time. (miracle of healing)

This might actually be 3 miracles, because in addition to the 2 healings.. Beate got baptized in the holy spirit and began to speak in tongues - which is ALWAYS a miracle!

MORE MIRACLES..

Beate saw other miracles too. In 1987 she came to stay with me in my NYC apartment for one month, and got a job at the CAPTAIN’S TABLE - A swanky seafood restaurant RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET from where I worked! We could wave at each other across the avenue through the windows!

In 46 years of running this Bible class; I have watched hundreds of men and women graduate the class and go on to manifest power! EACH TIME it is a MIRACLE!

CHRIS CONSTANTOPOULOUS

In fact, the man who owned the first cab I ever drove, he had a fleet of “Minute Man’ taxi cabs, was Chris Constantopoulous, a Greek entrepreneur. In the early 80’s Chris ALSO took Bible class! (I WITNESSED TO EVERYONE I KNEW IN THOSE DAYS) Chris was a ‘Jehovah’s Witness’. They don’t believe in ‘Speaking in Tongues’. Yet, just like everyone else Chris graduated the class baptized in the holy spirit - speaking in tongues!

MICHAEL CACOURIS

In the late 80’s I sat through the Bible class again, with a friend. Michael Cacouris. It was not uncommon to witness Christ to people, then join them when they took the Bible class. That’s how I have taken it 20 times at this point.

Michael Cacouris was the brother of one of my roommates at 354 West 110th Street.. Theodore Cacouris. (It was a 3 bedroom apartment. I was always rented large apartments so that I could split the cost with others!)

The Cacouris brothers were the son of the Greek Ambassador to the USA. They were born and raised in Greece, though they’d lived all over the world. Obviously they were fluent in Greek, their native tongue. There is a lot of GREEK referred to in the class, from the New Testatment translation called ‘The Stevens Text’ of 1550.

MANY TIMES in the course of listening to the teacher, I saw Micheal shake his head. I actually checked with him to see if he was disputing what the teacher was saying in his Greek usage. Michael told me ‘No! he wasn’t disputing it, rather.. he was AMAZED at the ACCURACY OF THE GREEK TRANSLATIONS taught!

So that was the 1970s and 80s. In the 1990s I was active duty Army and I didn't run the class quite as much, though I started running it again in the last few years. You may have read the testimony's of Stephen and Anthony on this blog.

Steven took the class in 2021 and set himself free from 15 years of the Lyme disease demons. His wife, Gina’s, tremendous testimony of his deliverance is HERE.

Anthony took the class in 2023 and left here delivered of ulcerative colitis.

Friends, I haven’t told you the HALF of what I’ve seen; and these are only testimonies from the classes that I have participated in! This class has been run an untold number of times in the last 50 years. There's no telling all the people that have seen miracles, gotten deliverances and learned how to walk in power. I do know a contingent of tremendous believers in India that started with this class and are walking in miracles to this day.

So, thank you for reading this far.

This has been a testimony to the wonder of this 1968 Bible Class, the obvious favor that Heaven shows to the class, and to those of us who run it → for the blessing, edification and training - and walk of power - of men and women of God all over the world.

1. I would no longer recommend a young person to join the US military. It is not the same by far, as it was 50 years ago.

2. ‘BE NOT AFRAID of their faces, for I am WITH THEE to deliver thee’.