Sid: If you’ve been listening all this week I’ve had Heidi Baker on and Heidi is, I would not call her red hot for the Messiah, I’d call her white hot which is a shade more than red hot, red hot for the Messiah. I have her husband on the telephone right now. The Baker’s have a wonderful ministry in Mozambique, Africa. They’ve about 3000 churches started in the last couple of years. Leading large numbers of Muslims to the Lord, they have…Rolland how many orphans do you have now?
Rolland: We have well over 1000 in our main 2 centers in the southern capital of Maputo, then we have many others taken care of by our bush churches basically around the country.
Sid: Now I want the people to get to know you a little bit. I got to know you in a very indirect fashion. Many years ago I read a book called “Visions Beyond the Veil.” I was so impressed with this revival that occurred in China, then I found since he has the same last name as you that he was your grandfather. You recently… for those that are not familiar with “Visions Beyond the Veil” just very briefly what did your grandfather observe in China?
Rolland: Well he went to China as a Pentecostal missionary in the 1920’s and he really didn’t exactly what to do. He tried to be a classic missionary by preaching to adults and so forth. My grandmother didn’t really know what to do with herself, but she discovered outside their very very simple Chinese courtyard type house in this wild west town of Kunming where I was born. That she discovered children in the gutters just literally dying in rags and she began to take them in and wash them off and give them clothes and eventually they had a group of about 50 orphans. Many of these orphans were so sick and far gone when they picked them up they literally died in a few days, but eventually they had a group of 50 or so children that were actually were very ordinary children. They’re not particularly interested in spiritual things just naughty kids that wanted to play and so forth and didn’t want to sit in chapel and hear about the Bible or anything. So one day the Holy Spirit just fell on them very very powerfully so much so that these plain ordinary 10 year old kids were convicted of sin to the degree that they wept and hid under their benches and chairs, and for night and day, for days then were caught up by demons and carried off to hell. They didn’t understand the gospel for all they knew they were totally lost and had no hope whatsoever which is an experience I think most people need to go through but don’t in the western church. Then in these visions they experience being caught by angels saved by angels literally over the saints of hell and taken up into heaven and explained the gospel and taken to see Jesus. Then for days and weeks even months these visions would occur every day all day you know except for a brief times of rest and eating all heaven was opened up to these children in a fabulous way that I’ve never heard the equal of in church history.
Sid: Now did you ever meet your grandfather?
Rolland: Oh I knew him very well.
Sid: Did he ever prophecy or lay hands on you because it just seems there’s too close a connection with orphans both of you had with supernatural signs? It’s too close, did he?
Rolland: Well he never just formally laid hands and pronounced anything but he obviously took a deep deep interest in me. I have 4 sisters I’m the son in my father’s family and he only had one son. He just took a terrific interest in me as his grandson ever since I was a small boy 3 – 5 years old on his lap. He would just spend hours with me telling me stories of the supernatural world that he lived in when he was in revival in southwest China.
Sid: One quick story Rolland of what he told you when you were young, just one that had an impact, one supernatural story.
Rolland: Well he made the world of angels and demons very very real. He would tell me stories of how demons would get ahold of children and get ahold of people and entice them with worldly pleasures. In fact in his orphanages these demons would sometimes come inside and just spirits right through the walls and take them away and entice them with toys and money and delights and just offer them all sorts of enticements to keep them away from the things of God and thinking about the next life and all. The angels would come and rescue them and bring them back. Oh I could just go on and on. He always had a different story each time, but they would be so particular and so beyond the experience of the average Christian. So beyond the typical normal Sunday school life for the average kid. He would tell stories of demons giving them supernatural strength and power and insolence if only they would only give their soul to the devil and do his work and all. Then angels would come and he would tell stories of services in the mountains of China where demons would surround the churches outside in the night while they were trying to worship. Angels would be around the church inside the walls keeping the demons out and you could hear the demons outside screaming and cackling, and chanting, and yet these bright white angels inside would be protecting those who were worshipping. It was just extraordinary you know this whole supernatural world of heaven and hell and angels and demons and all was real; the average church goer never hears this stuff at all and the Bible just seems like a bunch of fairy stories and it’s hard to believe.
Sid: You recently went to China what happened?
Rolland: Well there is only one orphan alive still that I know of. He had been separated from the west behind the Bamboo Curtain for all those years. My grandfather was forced out by the communist in 1949. In 1980 China opened up again and my parents went in and met this particular man he’s now 83 years old. This is the man who became my grandfather’s walking companion, ministry companion all those 20 years that he was in the mountains after my grandfather moved out from the orphanage. He was my grandfather’s right hand preaching companion he did all his interpreting, and arrangements, and helped him with all his living arrangements, and carrying his possessions, he did all his translations he was just his man Friday. He just wanted to meet me that the years went by we were able to go to Kunming for a number of visits. But my father and even my mother had never been up to my grandfather’s territory in Yunam it was so far so remote and permission was not granted to westerners even after 1980 for a long long time to go up into that region. So even my parents had never seen it, but now China is getting more and more open, and more more free now finally those regions are open to foreigners to visit. But Lee Shui this man is now 83 and he does really not think that he could possibly go to heaven without a visit from me.
Sid: Hmm.
Rolland: He just really wanted to see me one last time in my grandfather’s territory in his home, in his mountain valley before he went to heaven. He was able to get that message by telephone to my mother last year. My mother went out to visit the city of Kunming where the orphanage was. It’s still a long ways from where my grandfather worked in the mountains, but she met with Lee Shui and he said he really wanted me to come and visit him, be with him, and go there before he died. He just could not die until I came. Last month, actually a few weeks ago I was able to finally make the trip and that was the first time a white man had been in that area in 50 years. It was so long ago most people had never seen a white man at all till they saw me.
Sid: So did you have people, children following you around wherever you went?
Rolland: Yeah nobody had ever seen a white and I was just a total object of attention. They had heard about my grandfather and my arrival just caused a huge stir. It was very emotional for me because when I was little I would hear about all his 20 mile hikes everyday from village to village evangelizing entire mountain valleys and one community after another with signs and wonders, extremely Pentecostal. Nothing had to be forced, contrived. He baptized personally some 10,000 people in wild cold mountain rivers and high altitudes and these people would just get so overcome by the presence of God on the river banks; they would just get lost in the Spirit and fall to the ground and roll and shake and laugh and get up in visions, and they’d come up out of the water speaking in tongues without ever hearing about tongues, and prophesying…
Sid: Speaking of prophesying out of curiosity in China or any of your travels have heard, or has the Lord shown you or Heidi, an indication as to where we are in history?
Rolland: Well my grandfather’s children had a lot of visions not just of heaven but past events and also future events of the tribulation. Now they do not know anything about the current controversy over when the tribulation is and the rapture is or anything like that. But they certainly saw a lot of the kind of power that we can expect in the last days. From those visions we can certainly see that God is not finished yet, He has not finished pouring out His Spirit on all flesh and we’re going to see a time of incredible harvest where the Holy Spirit takes ahold of His church, takes the reigns of His church and individuals of His body, and completely removes all reason for the world to accuse us of hypocrisy and weakness and all. He’s going to build a beautiful spotless bride and church and it’s truely going to glorify Him in the last days. The children would see God’s people transporting themselves like Phillip, you know to Samaria just going from place to place to place as they needed without the benefit of helicopters and airplanes, calling down fire from heaven on unrepentant towns and cities. Just being given extreme authority that was possible by the reason of their holiness and purity. We are entering that realm, we really are in Mozambique we’re beginning to see the possibilities. Our eyes are being open to that sort of thing and we realize that nothing is impossible all those dreams and desires and all the things we dared to hope for in God all of our lives, all the things we read in the Bible, all the greatness of God that we long to see fleshed out is actually unfolding.
Sid: We’re out of time!
