Our Encounter With the New York Mafia
It was the year 2000 and we had just moved into our new home in Euless, Texas when we came face to face with our next door neighbor, a tough looking woman in
her mid-50s. We shook her hand and told her our names. With a cigarette
dangling from her mouth she shook our hands and replied, “My name’s Adele. I’m a backslidden pastor
from Brooklyn, New York.”
We had no contact
with Adele for the next three weeks except to wave if we saw her in her yard. It
was obvious to us that she had been through some deep and painful experiences
with church. A superficial Christian cliché or a chic tract would do nothing
for her, except probably make her angry.
The
Holy Spirit Knows How
The Holy Spirit,
however, knows how to reach the most difficult cases and He moved powerfully one
day as Sue and I were about to back out of our driveway. Sue, who was
driving, suddenly began experiencing a deep compassion flowing out toward Adele
who was working in her yard.
We sat for a
moment not sure how to respond to what Sue was experiencing. Finally, Sue
rolled down her window and called out, “Adele!” Adle came walking over with the
cigarette dangling from her mouth. When she reached the window, Sue suddenly
began speaking to her in tongues.
I was sitting in
the passenger seat and had the interpretation, which was a prophetic word for
Adele. I knew that I should look her in the face and so I leaned across Sue in
the driver’s seat, looked Adele in the face, and said, “Adele, God is saying to
you, ‘My daughter, you are precious in my sight."
Adele burst into tears and then broke out praying in tongues and we had revival there in our driveway. God bonded our hearts together. She later came to our home and shared how she had grown up in an Italian, Catholic mafia family in Brooklyn, NY, and as an adult had herself joined the mafia.
However, one of her uncles and his wife had come to Christ and had invited her to church. She went and had a glorious encounter with the Lord. She was on fire for the Lord and opened a storefront church in Brooklyn where she was reaching many of the homeless, drug addicts, and what someone described as “the hard cases.”
However, opposition from Christians to her pastoring as a woman and an ill-advised marriage to a Jewish husband who turned on her, brought her to despair. She gave up on church, but she did give up on Jesus. That day in our driveway a tremendous healing took place in her soul and her faith and hope were renewed.
About two months after this encounter, Adele and her husband (since deceased) moved to Florida. We stayed in touch and several months later I received an email from Adele saying,
I
am putting a check in the mail. I want you and Sue to come to Florida for about
three days, and you can stay with us. I will have about forty people over. Most
of them are not Christians. Do whatever God tells you to do.
The
Holy Spirit Falls
We arrived at
Adele’s home in Port St. Lucie, FL. Howie, her Jewish husband who
professed to be an atheist, asked how long the meeting that night would last. I replied, “Howie, it will probably be safe for you to come home
around 10 PM.” He then departed for an area casino.
Later that evening
the people Adele had invited began to arrive. As starting time approached, the
living room and kitchen were filled with people and it seemed that everyone was
smoking. Clouds of smoke hung heavy in the atmosphere.
Many of the people
were members of the mafia or former members. One little Italian woman’s husband
was a mafia boss who had recently been sent to prison. She had come to Florida
to work for her brother who owned a pizza chain. Some of the people had been
members of Adele’s church in Brooklyn, and when she “backslid” they all
backslid with her.
One woman sitting
across the kitchen table from Sue and me had been a part of Adele’s
congregation in Brooklyn. She and her family had recently moved to Florida and
opened a restaurant. As smoke billowed around us, she said to me, “We’re all
backslid.” I thought, “Well, at least, they are not trying to impress us with how spiritual they are.”
Starting time arrived and I picked up my
guitar intending to lead them in some praise and worship songs. It soon became obvious,
however, that I was the only one singing. Everyone seemed to just stare at me
as they puffed on their cigarettes.
Realizing this was
going nowhere, I put my guitar aside and picked up my Bible. God had given me a
message about His unconditional love, and as I shared this message, I sensed a
change in the atmosphere.
At some point, I
noticed that everyone had put out their cigarettes and the smoke had
dissipated. As I completed my message, a sense of solemnness and the fear of
the Lord seemed to fill the atmosphere.
I then invited
anyone who wanted prayer to come forward to receive prayer from Sue and me.
Everyone sat quietly as if afraid to move. Adele then stepped forward and in an
emphatic tone, said, “I know that everyone here needs prayer; so come on up and
let Eddie and Sue pray for you.”
The first person
to come up was Isabelle who was from Brooklyn and part of a mafia family. She
was in deep depression for her husband and two sons had been murdered by a
rival mafia family and her daughter was a drug addict, living on the street.
As we laid our
hands on Isabelle and prayed, she began to sob and then fell to floor. We had
no catchers, but no one was concerned, as their minds were taken up with God. Another
person then came up for prayer, and she too fell to the floor.
At this point, the
Holy Spirit “fell” on the people just like in the Book of Acts. Suddenly,
everyone was on their knees or lying in the floor, weeping and calling out to God at
the top of their voices.
The Joy of the Lord flowed
It was a surreal
moment when God came down and did a mighty work beyond anything we could have
ever imagined or planned. Later that evening there was a release of joy such as
I have never seen and our hearts were further bonded with Adele. Howie arrived home in the midst of this joy and was obviously astounded as everyone loved on him and greeted him.
We returned numerous times for meetings with Adele and those we call our mafia friends. On one of those visits Howie was obviously touched by the Holy Spirit and opened his heart to us and the Lord. But that is another story for another time.
Drs. Eddie and Sue Hyatt are still active in ministry and their numerous books are available on Amazon and their websites at http://eddiehyatt.com and http://godswordtowomen.org. Of particular significance at this moment in history is Eddie's book, America's Reawakening, and Sue's book, In the Spirit We're Equal, which contains a message that "has the power to begin a mass movement from Islam to Christianity, beginning with the women."
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