DEAN SALTHOUSE
Part 1 of 2 parts
“My Mum a devout Christian, read Bible stories to me every night. As I grew older, I progressed to youth group, but despite all this, I never felt a touch from the Lord. I’d heard ‘the bow your head and we will pray for you when you feel a touch from the Lord’, but that never came for me.
“In my teenage years I got busy with life and sports, although still went to a youth group. When I started earning money, bought a car and became more mobile, I drifted away from church. The foundation had been laid but I never felt a personal touch from God.
“I married a woman who had been to church and said she believed. Later I discovered she was a very prophetic woman. After having kids, we looked for a good school for them to attend and found a private Christian one with a great reputation. To be accepted there, we had to show we were regularly attending church, so we found somewhere close to where we lived. I was surprised it was far removed from quiet church service I had grown up with, which was exactly like the Mr. Bean skit with hallelujah hymns. Mum would dress me up to the nines in a tie and pair of knitted woolen pants that made me itch. I had to pretend to be this perfect little Chistian boy. The head stuff was there but not the heart stuff.
“We loved the rock band worship. I watched when others went up the front and fell down in the Spirit, but it never happened to me. I wondered if there was something wrong with me.
“One day a visiting preacher came and was preaching up a storm. It really touched me and when he did an altar call, I went up the front. In that moment the Holy Spirit came on me and my forehead started to shake, I wept, and snot came out my nose. I had my eyes shut although they were flapping like birds’ wings. The heat came over me and the Pastor kept saying something is happening here. I denied it and tried to fight back which was ridiculous because for 6 months I had been asking the Lord to show me He was real. This was crazy.
“After that little encounter I thought wow, I need to take this more seriously. We were only going there to get the piece of paper signed and our kids did get into an amazing school.
“During this process we met some great people and both my wife, and I became Christians. At an evangelist conference in Nelson we witnessed people prophesying, waving their arms round, falling out of their seats to the floor, slayed in the spirit, manifesting and pinned to the wall. As new Christians, we had never witnessed anything so amazing before.
“ Our eyes were opened to Pentecostal teaching how to function in the giftings, deliverance and prophesying. We planted a church in our home with other on fire believers.
“We went to every training and teaching on offer. We were so hungry for God and chased after everything we believed He had for us. We were super committed, and I was especially drawn to Smith Wigglesworth and inspired by the way God used him in healing.
“God called us to Australia to support a new church plant. It was a crushing season, when we realised we could not work with the leadership, but God used the time for us to bond with some incredible people and learn more about ministry.
“We learnt about the Sozo a powerful forgiveness ministry and I found stuff broken off me that was inhibiting my walk with the Lord. I’d done all this training on deliverance but there was so much from my past that had not moved.
“There was a childhood thing that happened with the next-door neighbour. She sat me down and told me my mother was a nuttier, breaking into his house and writing stuff in her diary and just wacko. I went into the woods and cried and thought I couldn’t go home. Although I had not remembered this, it was revealed and lifted off me. I had suppressed this memory and immediately felt a lightness in my spirit.
“From that week on I felt I could ask the Holy Spirit anything and over a period of time, as the Holy Spirit has revealed things, and through His power I have been freed. The Bible talks about how unforgiveness restricts our giftings and it was those legal attachments shutting me down from hearing from the Lord. The Lord would show me things before they would happen.
“I would call myself a spiritual, prophetic, gifting prophet type and can see things before they happen. It has guided me through my whole life, and I can attribute my success in business to His leading and guiding. I got 4 subjects in school cert so don’t have the ability to do what I’ve done in my own strength and have lived a very blessed life in His leadership.
“When we returned to New Zealand we lay in bed one morning asking God what He wanted us to do next. We felt Him prompting us to open our house again and create a place where people could come, connect and share life.
“We often went to a little bakery ‘Little and Friday” and the idea came to us; why not ‘Little and Tuesday’. Then as confirmation, we walked up the road and bumped into someone who said, ‘you should open up your home to a group.” When we arrived home the couple staying with us said ‘we think you should open up your house to a group’.
“We had a big place with lots of parking and 10-12 met every Tuesday. Very Holy Spirit led meetings where we worshipped, soaked in the Lord and shared honestly with one another. So, when covid lockdowns came to New Zealand those little gatherings became an even more important place for people to connect, encourage one another and keep their eyes focused on the Lord.
“We had one older guy who wrote poetry and every Tuesday he would read what God had downloaded to him early that same morning. It was always exactly what we had been praying and talking about. We prayed for so many and so much and witnessed incredible encounters.
“It’s great to have head knowledge but that can often be hard to change. When people connect with the Lord themselves, something deeper begins to happen. They can communicate and sit in the presence of God and allow the Holy Spirit to bring change.
“Alongside the Tuesday group we held early morning prayer meetings which I loved. People came with real business needs. Praying for business deals, employment, favour in business proposals, strategies and breakthrough. The testimonies from those prayer meetings were so effective, we eventually had to split the group in half. Daily we had breakthroughs and for years we continued with this powerful ministry.
“The Lord asked me at one point ‘if I blessed you what would it look like?’ I thought about my answer. If he doubled our boat sales then my wife would be so busy doing office work, we wouldn’t have time for ministry, and I would be running round after more people, and we would probably need to move from our farm. Within 6 months the doors opened for our boat building to be shipped off to Taiwan and sold to the world. Now when one of our boats sells, I don’t need to do anything, I get paid a royalty in US dollars. There have been some tough times, but I have also seen God open doors to abundance. God found a way to pour money into our account so we could expand the ministry and the work He had called us to.
“For the past 6 years we have been working at Orama Christian Camp on Great Barrier Island. I volunteered there for the first 3 years and took over repainting and restoring the property. We have almost completed renovations and refurbishing after bringing new life back to the buildings and grounds.
“Orama sits in a beautiful remote part of Great Barrier Island surrounded by native bush and a vast expanse of beach stretching out in front of the camp. It has been a significant season for us, particularly as the camp has gone through a period of transition, moving from the previous secular organisation Hillary Outdoors to a new organisation.
“It was during this season at Orama, God began to speak to us about something much bigger than the camp itself.
God gave us a vision for Aotearoa New Zealand.
“Before there is a significant move of God across our nation there needs to be genuine unity, reconciliation and forgiveness between Māori and Pakeha.
“Before He could move powerfully in Aotearoa, Māori and Pakeha would need to come into genuine unity – a place of reconciliation, forgiveness and restored relationship”.
Part 2 posted next Wednesday