"And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book he found the place where it was written The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor, he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised. To preach the acceptable year of the Lord."  - Luke 4:17-19

GO!

This is the scripture the Lord gave me when I entered into ministry. I saw a vision of the bible open on a table, and out of the bible a word began to rise up off of the page. It got bigger and bigger as it rose up out of the bible. It was the word “ GO” . I realize that everything in the New Testament was to get us to GO. Mark 16:15, Go ye into all the world, and Acts 10: 38, How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil: I ask the lord what it is I was to do when I went. That is when he said to me Luke 4: 18,19. So for twenty years I have been trying to fulfill this scripture in my life and many others.

In 1974 I came into the fullness of the Spirit while in a Baptist church. As I grew in the things of the Spirit I became aware of an anointing towards deliverance. Though the years I have tried to learn as much as I could about it. There was not much written back then on the subject. Along the way the Lord began to tell me that I would travel all over the world ministering. But for twenty years I never left Georgia.

In 1990 I was able to attend a three-week school on counseling and inter healing, put on by John and Paula Sandford of Elijah House. This brought a lot more depth and clarity to the ministry I was already doing. But still I had not left Georgia.

In Nov 1994 the pastor in the church I was a tending wanted to go to Toronto Canada. I thought I would go alone to see what was going on. I first was very skeptical about what I saw. But after two days the Lord broke through my resistance. And I entered the (Toronto Blessing) and Renewal. I came home filled with excitement and a new zeal of the Lord. The next month in Dec 94, I went to a conference at the Atlanta Vineyard where Randy Clark was the Speaker. Randy is the pastor who is credited with starting the Toronto Blessing.

Years of travel

During the last night of the meetings. The Lord spoke to me and said (I want you to go with this man and travel with him for one year and than after that you will begin to go out on your own.) I did not believe this would happen. I was very reluctant to say this to Randy Clark. But through a series of miraculous things, I began to travel with Randy the next month. We went all over the United States and Canada, over seas to England, Norway. Russia and Argentina.

At the end of that year we returned to Toronto for the anniversary of the Toronto Blessing. While there I was able to meet with John Sandford of Elijah House Ministries. We talked about how that Inner Healing needed Renewal and that Renewal needed Inner Healing. So we decided to go together and do both. It turns out to be a Glories combination. So I traveled with John and Paula Sandford for another two years to more countries. I have now been to thirty-five different countries.

My hope is to bring Inner healing and deliverance to as many as I can and to raise up others to do the same. That we might fulfill the scripture that says That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle.

The birth of NMI

After traveling with John and Paula. I started my own ministry call Nehemiah Ministry International.

In 2002 we had the first boot camp school here in Atlanta. We invited 37 students from 19 countries around the world to come for a seven weeks of training in how to minister to the whole man. We invited eight speakers’ International ministries to come and pour into these students. Speakers like Randy Clark, Bill Johnson, Heidi Baker, Bobby Conner’s, and many others. I taught the foundation of the school, which was the Inner Healing and Deliverance teaching.

The school was amazing. Since then, we have had five more boot camp schools. Two were in Australia and Brazil. We have trained more than four hundred students from 22 nations. Our goal is to go all over the world to train and raise up ministers. We are currently planning short-term schools in Thailand, Columbia, Kenya, and India.

I also own and operate three international businesses. We have a factory in China, and do some building in Ukraine and Brazil. But my heart is to do the ministry. I started my business base on Matt 6: 33, But seek (aim at and strive after) first of all His kingdom and His righteousness (His way of doing and being right), and then all these things taken together will be given you besides.

Letter from John Sandford

To Whom It May Concern,

This is to recommend the services of my friend, Michael Ellis. Michael has traveled with me in many places in America and Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Germany and Austria. Michael receives people for counsel and prayer all day each day as Paula and I teach. Many have received great help and freedom in the Lord through his ministry.

Michael's faith and doctrine are orthodox and biblically correct. At times he has assisted me in teaching, and expresses himself clearly and well.

In all the years and places of his traveling with me, I have never received a complaint against his ministry. I have no hesitation in recommending him as a speaker or counselor, or whatever ministry is desired.

Yours in Christ's service,

John Loren Sandford

VISION OF THE BOOT CAMP

In January of 1995 I began to travel with Randy Clark. We went to many places in America and other countries. On one of these trips we were in Charlotte, North Carolina. While I was there I received an open vision. It was like watching a video, and I saw young people coming in two’s to a retreat center outside of Atlanta from all around the world. I knew just the place where this would be.

I started getting a revelation from God that he wanted to have a boot camp school, which I understood to be a short period of time, about 8 to 12 weeks. At this boot camp young people would be trained and select ministers would impart to them the tools of ministry. This boot camp would be an intensive time of learning and receiving hands laid on them to receive the anointing that each teacher brings with him/her. I saw the purpose of this boot camp was to send these trained young people back to their country, so that they could start ministering and working as a missionary to their own country.

The Boot Camp

The goal of the training would be to empower students to minister in any situation that they found themselves. I believe this would be the most effective way to send out missionaries in the future. These young people would not have to learn the language, because they would minister in their native tongue. Additionally, they could live on a lot less money than sending foreign national missionaries from the USA. In the past, American ministries have raised up missionaries and sent them to foreign countries. They first had to raise their support, while simultaneously trying to teach them a new and foreign language. They had to learn a whole new culture. All of this could take years to accomplish. While this model worked, it took too long to implement, and of course, its cost was very large (and more expensive than raising up national ministers).

The Lord was showing me that when The Harvest comes, we will not have years to raise up laborers. We will have to come up with quick ways to train people and get them in the field as quick as possible. In our mission travels around the world, we are not able to stay in one place long enough to properly train the people of that country. We are going to ask the leaders in their country to send us the most gifted young people who have a strong desire to serve God full-time. We want to give them all the tools and gifts we can to help them do the work of the kingdom in their country.

We will be video taping the entire boot camp. We will make these tapes available to the ministry school students, with permission to dub the tapes into their own language. This will allow us to more easily transfer and establish schools all over the world. Many thousands of people can be trained in a short time, and quickly deployed to the field.

Confirmation

Right after I left Charlotte, I went to Minneapolis with Randy Clark. While we were there we met a minister from Australia. Randy asked this minister, who operated in the prophetic, what he was hearing from the Lord. He said the Lord was speaking to him about a boot camp type training. It was an immediate witness about the vision God had given me. A few months later I went to Texas with some fellow believers from the Marietta, Ga. area to attend a conference put on by Bobby Connors. While there we were up in front of the Church while he and Bob Jones were ministering. Suddenly, Bobby looked at me and said, “If you build it they will come.” I knew he was talking about the school. I began to talk to others about the school, but at the time, was unable to excite any interest about it.

I ran into John Sanford in Toronto, and he invited me to go with him on his trips. I accepted, and counted this a great honor. I spent the next two years traveling all over the world with him and his wife, Paula. I learned a lot from them during those two years. I had gone with them to Austria several times and had established a good relationship with the couple Paul and Holly Miller, American missionaries based there.

Later, Holly wrote me and said that Randy Clark was coming there to do a conference. She asked if I would come over with Randy to the conference, and stay after and minister in their church. I called Randy, and he was happy to have me accompany him. While on this trip we talked a lot about the school. We decided that it was time, so I began to work on this project. I did not realize how much detail would be involved, and after much pre-planning, we successfully completed the first school. Since then we have completed 4 more schools. Two of these were in Australia and Brazil.

Putting It In Motion

One of the first things that I did was visit the place where I felt God had shown me to have the school. It is a retreat center that a friend of mine, Paul Story, has just outside of Atlanta. I asked Paul if I could use the retreat center. His immediate response was, “Sure.” I am a board member of this retreat center. He originally thought I wanted to utilize the retreat center only for a weekend. When I clarified that I needed it for two months, He said that he could not tie up the retreat center for that long. So many people use his place for weekend retreats. I told him the vision, and all God had shown and spoken up until that moment. His wife Mary Louise remembered a word of prophecy they had gotten some years back about the retreat center. Mary Louise taped and then wrote out every word of prophecy they had gotten. She later faxed a copy of it to me.

It was a word they had received in May of 1995. Jim Goll had given this word to them while doing an intercession retreat there. He told Paul and Mary Louise I see young people coming here from all over the world. They are coming here to be trained and retooled in the ministry. They will be here for a short time, something like 12 weeks. They will go away for a while and then sometime later they and others would be back for more. This is exactly how I saw it. We would do the first boot camp school.

Then, sometime later do another. We would bring others to Atlanta for another school. This word came one month after I had my vision. I was excited to read this wonderful confirming word. Written across the bottom of the note was a handwritten note from Paul indicating that I could have the retreat center for the weeks I would need it.

I now have everything in motion for the first retreat. We will bring these young people here, and house and feed them for the entire time. The school will be divided into parts dealing with the various dimensions required of a Holy Spirit lead ministry. The topics that we are looking at include:

• Inner Healing by Michael Ellis
• Deliverance by Michael Ellis, The Nehemiah Company; Atlanta;
• Physical Healing by Randy Clark, Global Awakening;
• Prophesy by; Bobby Conner’s, and Steve Thomson
• Power Evangelism by Henry Madava. Kiev, Ukraine;
• Intercession, Pat Gastineau
• Operating with an Open Heaven by Bill Johnson, Redding, CA;
• Worship,
• How to move into Harvest, Heidi Baker, Mozambique;
• Teaching on the Holy Spirit, Walter Heidenreich, From Germany;

Each teacher will be allotted enough time to teach and impart his or her subject. We will do the training during the day. At night the candidates will minister in different venues around the city of Atlanta.

This is the most exciting thing I have ever endeavored to do. I can see in the Spirit all the fruit that will come out of these young people going to their country equipped with all of this training. What has taken years for us to learn and accumulate will be poured into these young World Changers. Then they will take this knowledge and training home and began to start working in the fields of harvest immediately. We will maintain contact with them and begin to build a network of young ministers. We will be able to continue to pour into them knowledge and support, as they help us establish these Boot Camp schools all over the world.

 
We will call the school The Nehemiah International School Of Ministry, sponsored by Nehemiah Ministries International (Michael Ellis, President) We believe numerous other ministries, businesses, and churches will join in by sponsoring this work to help increase the work of the Harvest.

The schools are dedicated to fulfilling Luke 4:18,19 (The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, Luke 4:19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.