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 Head Hunters Meet The Soul Hunter. Mon Town. North East India
2003-04-21
A Ministry Report by
Len Lindstrom.
Following the outstanding Resurrection Morning service and after the explosion of miracles that swept through the large crowd, we took a quick break for lunch and then hustled back to the military police helicopter landing pad turned crusade grounds. Regardless of which direction you looked you could see steady streams of people, trekking up and down the winding trails carved into these steep Naga hills as thousands converged on the grounds. It seemed that almost instantly a sea of people crammed this hill top plateau. The local crusade organizers were amazed. They had never seen this many people in one location before and they estimated that by the time the service started there were approximately 50,000 wonderful Indo-Chinese souls covering every square inch of the heli-pad and the surrounding area.
Now Mon Town is certainly off the beaten path. It is very remote and in years past a large number of the people in the town and surrounding villages had been headhunters. Thankfully this era came to a close almost forty years ago, but many of them still have the regalia and dress of that bygone time. As well, in the last few years the Christian influence has encouraged the majority of them to take down and bury the many skulls and shrunken heads that used to hang outside their huts. During our time here, and especially after our visit to nearby Chui Village, God laid on my heart to honor these former headhunters and to thank God for delivering them from this barbaric practice.
When the Reverend Tenwang, pastor of the local Baptist church, heard of our plans for this kind of service he asked some of his people if they could go out and find a ‘special’ headhunter’s necklace. Now although these neck laces are very rare these days Reverend Tenwang was able to find one that had four brass skulls on it and presented it to me just as the service began. Traditionally, these ‘special’ necklaces can be worn only by those who have taken numbers of heads of the enemy, but today was an exception and they made me an honorary headhunter!
During the morning service, I had encouraged the crowd to invite any old headhunters to dress up in their traditional native costume and bring them to the service. I was amazed as Ron Mullins and other team members lined these gentlemen up in seats of honor, on the ground, in front of the platform. There must have fifty or more of them, faces tattooed, wild costumes and hats, brass head hunter necklaces, bones and horns through their ear lobes, one even had two spent twelve gauge shotgun shells in his ears. Others carried their traditional spears and machetes and some wore ivory elephant tusk arm bands. It was quite a scene.
As I got up to preach, I invited two of these old boys, in full regalia, to join me on the platform where I queried them about their past headhunting days. It was quite a site as I got them explain and then demonstrate (not literally) to the crowd how they would have killed an opponent, cut off his head and then stuck it on the end of the spear. I even joined in with them as they chanted their victory chant and danced their victory dance. Now that I had my ‘official’ headhunter necklace, I felt honored to be able to join in with them. But all fun aside, it must have been pretty frightening to run into a bunch of these boys out in the jungle with machetes in one hand and a spears with their former enemy’s heads on them in the other! The crowd roared and laughed as we talked, chanted and danced and as I explained to them that I too was a headhunter and had traveled the world hunting the devil’s head. But more importantly I had come to hunt their souls for Jesus!
Just as these dear old gentlemen were leaving the platform the weather changed dramatically! In a matter of moments, lightening flashed all around, thunder rolled, the wind began to blow, rain and hail poured down and an unbelievable grey/black mist rolled in turning the 3:00 o’clock afternoon sky almost as dark as night. I couldn’t help but think that it must have been something like what the bible describes when Jesus died at three in the afternoon almost two thousand years ago. Thousands of people in the crowd ran for shelter, but tens of thousands stayed, standing out in the storm and the rain, under a sea of instantly appearing umbrellas, (these people were prepared). They were hungry for what God had for them!
Ron and Tony Leblanc covered up the cameras, as best they could, with plastic garbage bags and kept on vidoetaping and I kept on preaching about a head hunter in the Bible. That was of course was little David, the giant killer, who took the head off the giant with the name of the Lord and five smooth stones – J.E.S.U.S.! I went on to tell them that Jesus had cut the head off of sin, sickness and disease on the cross. Then as I waved my very special headhunter necklace I proclaimed and that He had sent ‘headhunter Len’ to bring the message of His love and power that would cut the head off of the devil’s lies in Mon Town and set the captives free.
It was amazing, the devil may have tried to mess up this final service with a horrific rainstorm, but it was not to be. As Dilip Singh (my interpreter) and I stood there on the platform, our cloths soaked and rain running down our faces, praying for these wonderful people, the whole crowd responded and tens of thousands called on the Lord for salvation. Everyone willingly surrendering their heads to the Great Loving Headhunter, Jesus! The rain didn’t let up for a second, and as we prayed for the healing of the sick the Power of the Lord came down!
As I encouraged those that had been touched by the Healer’s hand to come forward and testify, none of us knew what to expect in such inclement weather conditions. Would the crowd just leave and go home to dry off or would they come forward. Once again the team and I were amazed. Instantly the testimony line grew and snaked its way through the crowd. For over an hour and a half we stood in the rain and listened to the wonderful testimonies of people whose deaf ears that had popped open, lame limbs had been made whole and lumps, bumps and tumors that had instantly disappeared.
But the most predominant miracle testimony of all was from the totally blind who could now see. One after another they came, little children, young boys and girls, mothers and fathers, grandmas and grandpas, all who had been totally blind in one or both eyes and who could now see. The adults were touching noses and chasing fingers and the little children were reaching out to take candy that was being offered to them, all anxious to demonstrate the miracle that they had just received from the healing hand of Jesus. Praise God! It was truly amazing and I am sure that there is not a single person in Mon Town and the surrounding area that has any doubt that Christ is truly alive and that He, the great headhunter, had cut the head off of sickness, disease and sin!
Later that evening four young men made the long trek up from the town to the tourist lodge where we were staying. All of them where hooked on drugs of heroin, something else they called ‘brown sugar’ and opium. (Yes friends, the drug industry has permeated even these remote regions.) All four of them had been at the crusade that afternoon; saw what God had done for their friends and neighbors and now they wanted God to set them free! They had all been through drug rehabilitation programs and dry out centers, in fact one of them had been through eighteen ‘programs’ over his last 15 years of heroin addiction, all to no avail. Ron and I talked to them about Jesus, led them to the Lord and prayed that they follow through and serve the Lord.
The next morning, as we were preparing to leave and begin the long arduous journey back to Canada, the towns people kept coming up to the tourist lodge with reports that the entire town was buzzing about what the Lord had done in Mon Town. The local organizing committee was absolutely thrilled and everyone was begging, “Please come back! This is the first time any foreigner has ever come here to preach and the first time we have ever seen miracles like this!’
Then just as we were about to climb into our four wheel drive Tata, a group of local pastors came by to declare ‘Brother Len, you are officially a head hunter now! Wherever you go to hunt for souls, may God give you, your family and your team great success and please come back and bless us again. We need you to come often!’ I took the time to pray with and for them and promised that some day when we were holding a campaign in the North East we would return for a few more days in the local football stadium - in the dry season before the monsoons!
  
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