They had a big conference out there, and there were about 40,000 people came to the conference, just amazing the work City Harvest is doing - touching all of Asia really, people from about 30 different nations I think were there. They've recently been able to work with a group of businessmen from the church, to purchase what will be called a landmark building in Singapore. It's an amazing building, a group of four buildings, called Suntec City. It's got a magnificent fountain of life. It's just like a landmark in the city centre, but the moment it was announced they bought it, there have been difficulties ever since; and so there's been tremendous upheaval in the city and the nation, tremendous upheaval in the newspapers, criticism, judgements from left, right and centre all over the place. So they felt in light of the criticism, they would go to the registrar of charities and say: well look, we just want you to understand we're open and accountable about everything we do. They laid out all their books for him to go through. He said: no, it's alright, we're okay with it all.
Then just immediately after the Asia conference, Pastor Kong was sitting with Yonggi Cho [Pastor of very large Korean church], and the authorities came in and detained him, and a whole group of his key leaders and Board members all at the same time - took them away individually, no phone, no lawyer, no contact, and then a constant barrage of accusations, for eight to 14 hours. It's been relentless. It did not stop. Of course the media had a frenzy, and Pastor Kong's had to lie low for the last three weeks or so, out of sight because of the frenzy that's created in the media. Even his associate pastor, the photographers have been coming and getting photos of their kids, anything they can get, to get a photo. So the stress and potential difficulties are immense, so they did ask that we pray for them. I've never seen Pastor Kong under such pressure in my life. I know what he's like, and I know right now he is struggling to believe, in the midst of everything that's risen against him, false accusations, judgements, the scorn of a nation against him, to hold onto God in the middle of it, that God would be the vindicator and deliverer.
So I encourage you just to think of him and pray for him. We've connected with him over many years, from when they were a church of 300. When I went in there, they used to have the security service in the meetings every Sunday. He'd have to give his newsletter every Sunday, and then he would be called in without a moments warning to answer questions about why he's got so many young people in his church, what's his intention, where's he going. Now they've got about 33,000 people in the church, it's just risen to a whole new level now; and in Singapore it's not fully a democracy like we know it, so legally you're guilty until you prove yourself innocent. So he faces all kinds of potential challenges in the future, and at this stage none of that is certain what's going to happen. It's a matter of standing in prayer and believing God, so he appreciated that I was able to come to exhort the church, exhort the leaders, be there to help people, and also to minister into the Bible school. We had a fantastic time in the Bible school, 700 students. God moved, man it was great. We had a couple of outstanding sessions where, without laying hands on anyone, the presence of God just filled the place, and people began to weep. They just began to weep out loud, as they got revelation of the cross of Jesus Christ. Then they began to manifest, just coughing going on all over the place, and then just a great move of God to set people free.
We had that twice during the week, once as we brought them to an encounter with the cross, and the last time as we brought them to understand the love of God as a Father, and His willingness and ability to heal the broken heart. Of course we'll do this in the Freedom Retreat coming up soon, and I encourage you to come along, if you haven't been to a retreat. I don't know why you'd want to keep your demons, they don't help make life easy, and we do have the retreat for a specific reason. It's because we understand that people who come to Christ have issues and things in their life which need ministry, which need deliverance. A third of Jesus' ministry was deliverance, and so it's a part of submitting ourself to God, as we open our life, to be free of the things that come around our life, to be delivered and to be healed and restored. We have a Restoration Retreat later in the year. I encourage you to open your heart, open your life, rather than stay where you are. We don't want to stay where we are individually, or corporately, so let's make decisions to move in our life.