SID: You think Hank Kunneman had problems. He had an adoptive father. He was a disciplinarian. Never said I love you, never affirmed him. His teachers said, you should never publically speak, you should never write. I mean, he would go into his bedroom and weep. But at 18, he became a believer in the Messiah, and in his bedroom, he was filled with the Spirit of God and began to speak in supernatural languages. What happened?

HANK: I had a vision of Heaven that night that I was filled with the Spirit of God. My mom, in fact, was yelling at the top of the steps trying to get my attention. Had no idea what was going on. And as I was praying in tongues, all of a sudden, I saw myself in a place where there was like a golden river and I could see a light all around me. It was so bright. And I could see a figure on a throne. I fell immediately down. I couldn’t stop weeping in the presence of what I believe now is I was getting a glimpse of Abba, Abba Father sitting on His throne. But the Glory was so great I couldn’t see beyond it. And that was a very, very dramatic experience for me.

SID: Now how did your parents take to the fact that you are now a believer in Jesus?

HANK: Well my dad and I had a working relationship. I worked for him and that was basically how I would sense any kind of love from my dad. We had a great working relationship. But he didn’t like the fact that I had just gotten saved because I didn’t use a lot of wisdom. Sometimes you know, when you’re first saved the tendency is you want to get everybody saved. You don’t use a lot of wisdom in the sense that you beat them over the head. I was pretty aggressive, over-zealous.

SID: Okay. They’re not happy with that. I get it. You had severe acne.

HANK: Yes.

SID: How bad was it?

HANK: Well that’s the part that made my dad even more angry. I had severe acne. Obviously, I worked at a service station, gas station, oil. And the Lord healed me at a service that I was attending. The pastor starts speaking a supernatural word of knowledge, calls out that somebody is being healed with severe acne. And I’m thinking, I didn’t what miracles were about. I had just gotten saved. But somebody next to me, an older woman who became a spiritual mother to me, said, “God’s healing you of acne.” All of a sudden, within a matter of days, it looked somebody took their handprints and went to my cheeks and left their fingerprint imprints, and little circles were appearing, different sizes on my face. My dad could not deny it. I began to tell him that I not only got saved, but I was being healed.

SID: But wait a second now. He saw severe acne. He saw it all gone.

HANK: Yeah.

SID: Did you see those fingerprints?

HANK: Yes. But he said this: “It would be a cold day in hell before I believe in miracles.”

SID: But he just saw one. So how could he say that?

HANK: Well I think part of it was, was my over-zealousness and my desire for him to get saved. Something happened. My dad was so angry with me declaring that I was being healed, even though he did see my face was clearing up, he said something to me. We got in a heated exchange. He said, “Hank, deny this Jesus or get out.” We were face to face. He was that close to me. I couldn’t believe it. Why am I in this confrontation with my dad? I don’t want this to be happening, but it was happening. And I said, “I won’t deny Jesus.” Now what he was saying is he thought I was an occult because he hadn’t heard of Divine healing like this. So he said, “Deny this Jesus.” Really, deny this cult in his mind or get out. And I said, “I will not deny this Jesus.” And the next thing I know, Sid, I’m tumbling down the stairs.

SID: He pushed down the stairs?

HANK: I don’t know exactly. I’m not going to say that my dad did that. But all I know is however it happened, we had a physical confrontation and I landed on the bottom of the stairs. I looked up and my dad was raging with anger. He said, “Get out!” I had just graduated out of high school. I had just accepted Jesus, been filled with the Spirit of God. I had nowhere to go. I didn’t know what to do. And so I began to pack my clothes and I remember the surreal feeling of backing out of that driveway that day not knowing where to go, questioning in my mind, is this Christianity really worth it? It just cost me my home. It cost me my dad. And I thought, well maybe I could just go back and patch this up. But I knew if I went back, I’d have to deny the expressive radical Christianity that I was living.

SID: And then his father develops terminal cancer. What happened?

HANK: So fast-forwarding into the future some 20 years later, my dad develops stage 4 cancer. I begin to talk to him about the Lord and about healing. I asked him, I said, “I know somebody who has a healing ministry, Dad. Have you ever heard of Oral Roberts?” He said, “Yeah.” But again, his thing was, he would say it often in life, it would be a cold day in hell before I believe in miracles. So he didn’t believe in it. But he said, “You know what? I know who Oral Roberts is.” I said, “Well I know his son, Richard Roberts who has a healing ministry. He’s having tremendous success praying for people with cancer. Can I have him call you?” I was surprised. He agreed. Richard prays for him. The doctors are amazed because the spots on my dad’s lungs are disappearing and they don’t have an explanation for it. My dad is seeing healing—

SID: Now did your father believe that was a miracle?

HANK: He said, yes. He told me, “Hank, I cannot deny.” In fact he said, because his words were, it would be a cold day in hell. He said, “Hell has a little bit more ice on it than it used to.”

SID: Hold that thought. We’re going to be right back because you are going to capture a revelation of how much God accepts you, loves you and is for you. Don’t go away.