Sid Roth - Karen Dunham Was Beaten and Left for Dead. Then She Saw Jesus and He Raised Her Up
Sid Roth: Welcome. My name is Sid Roth. Welcome to my world where it's naturally supernatural. My guest was abused as a child, unloved, went from foster home to foster home, got into drugs, ended up in prison, got involved on the wrong end of the stick with the mafia. They tried to kill her and she bumped into the first one that really loved her. Yeshua, Jesus, the Messiah and day after day God drenched her in his love. It was like a coat, it was like layer of layer came off of her and she became the person that God really created her to be. Her life reads like the book of Acts. Why not? She's normal. Normal is defined by the Bible. How many of you want to be drenched every day in God's love? Just two or three? How many? Okay. You know Karen it is amazing that you survived. Any one of these things that happened to you is enough to sink anyone. But all of this, how did you manage such things as going to prison for drugs, being poisoned by the mafia, abused as a child, being in foster homes, how did you survive? You didn't know God. How does someone do it? I mean I don't see how you did it.
Karen Dunham: I believe I was kept a live for a future purpose.
Sid Roth: It was a destiny on your life. Okay so she has a son, she's a single parent, she gets into real estate and she starts blessing her family and she sees that her brother gets a nice house, but then there was something irregular in the records. She starts doing some detective work and it turns out that she found out a mafia connection. Turns out the mafia found out that she knew what was going on and was going to blow a whistle so they start spying on her. What did they do to you?
Karen Dunham: Oh I was poisoned. They wired our house and there were men that stood around the house and they drove me... Mafia works with fear and it got to the point where I was sleeping with two loaded pistols in my pocket. My teeth just rattled day and night. I was a mess.
Sid Roth: I don't know how you even functioned as a single parent and having the mafia operate through fear. You must've been a nervous wreck.
Karen Dunham: I was and I realized I was going to die.
Sid Roth: Where did you think you'd go if you died?
Karen Dunham: I knew I was going to hell. The devil was speaking to me.
Sid Roth: Okay so her sister-in-law gets saved, becomes a believer in Jesus. Karen, you're visiting your sister-in-law and this one question changed your entire life. What was it?
Karen Dunham: Do you want Jesus to help you?
Sid Roth: What was your first thought?
Karen Dunham: I said "Jesus", I said, "Why would he help me"? She said, "I'm sure he'll help you. Get on your knees because he'll hear you when you ask him into your heart". And me and my son, 9 year old, dropped to our knees and asked him into our heart.
Sid Roth: She shortly thereafter had an encounter with God and with Jesus. Tell me about that encounter.
Karen Dunham: It was just amazing. I've had a lot of encounters with the Lord since then but that day it's the Lord, I heard a voice and I saw a silhouette and a silhouette of a man's face and it was like a cloud and I heard a voice say, "My son wants you for a bride". Everything inside of me started melting and it was just locking eyes with the Lord and having all this love just pour through his eyes into you was just totally a transformation for me.
Sid Roth: Tell me about being drenched in God's love.
Karen Dunham: Being drenched in God's love is like waterfalls of love washing over you. Just unconditional love and when it floods your body it's like everything in your body responds. Everything in your body has peace. It's like even your blood veins, your bones, everything in you, everything in you, your hair. Everything in you just responds to this love of God that drenches you, washes over you. Just unconditional power and love. This is available for everyone, everyone. I was nobody. I was a nothing. I was something Satan had thrown out. This love is for everybody.
Sid Roth: Alright, but she still has the mafia that's trying to kill her but watch what God does when he stands up for one of his kids. Be right back.
Sid Roth: Karen you've been bathed, drenched, I love that word, drenched daily in the love of God. Were you fearful of the mafia listening to your conversations, following you everywhere, trying to poison you at that point?
Karen Dunham: No. I was laying on my bed meditating on just how beautiful and how good God was. I was no longer afraid of anything. I just wanted to keep being drenched by the love of God. The Lord gave me a vision and I saw the Lord and he had these very large clopping shears. He was cutting wires and I knew that it was finished, that the mafia would never follow me again. That day there was a white van outside, a big guy got out of the van and he threw a football in the air and he said, "Touchdown". And they took the wires off my house.
Sid Roth: I'll tell you what if God is for you, who would dare be against you. Your son Blake prophesied to you one day and says, "Mom I think we should help the hungry, the starving, the needy people of the world". That sounded right to you and then you started moving in miracles. Tell me about the lady in the park that was dying from cancer.
Karen Dunham: Oh it was just wonderful. Her name was Mary and she had cancer all over her. I think she had seven cancers if I remember right. The doctors told her there was no hope for her, to not come back any more. I told her, I said, "Well I serve Jesus". I said, "Cancer's no problem for Jesus". And I said, "Let me pray for you". So I prayed for her and she said the next morning there was a lump on her and it was gone. She went back to the doctor and it was so funny, she said they bought a new machine, $100,000. They couldn't figure out, thought there was something wrong with their equipment and she was giggling. She says, "Now they want me in there all the time. They want to know what I'm eating and everything else". She was a poor woman, they wanted nothing to do with her. Now that the Lord was healing her and the cancer was getting smaller and smaller and smaller, she said they want her in there all the time. They're asking her all these questions, "What are you doing? What are you eating"? I said, "Tell them Jesus".
Sid Roth: So you get a call to go to Israel. Tell me briefly about that.
Karen Dunham: I got the call to go to Israel the first time with the Samuel Howells Bible College in Wales. The second time I was, every time I heard the word Israel I would... The spirit of God would fall on me and it was like he gripped me and he told me, "You must go to Jerusalem".
Sid Roth: And you do that?
Karen Dunham: I did.
Sid Roth: Faithful.
Karen Dunham: Of course.
Sid Roth: And then you were directed to a refugee camp in Jericho and you started going through horrible persecution. What did they do to you? Because she's a witness. Tell me the type of persecution you went through.
Karen Dunham: Well when I moved into the refugee camp I was the only one in a Palestinian refugee camp. It was a militant refugee camp. You know the Israeli army tanks would come in and it was very edgy during the Iraqi war, so I'm in the camp talking about Jesus and they blew up my car, they threw Molotov's through my windows, all kind of things happened. They talked about me on the mosque. It was war.
Sid Roth: Did they talk about you on the loudspeakers?
Karen Dunham: Yes.
Sid Roth: What did they say about you?
Karen Dunham: They said, "There's an American here going to steal our children". And they said, "She's giving out food. Don't go there". And the more they spoke about me on the mosque the bigger the crowds would get around our house.
Sid Roth: Tell me about the Muslim man that had the incurable eye disease.
Karen Dunham: I remember this guy. I mean he was just, we were trying to help him. He had 10 children. He came to me one time and his eyes were all infected and running and he said, "Mohammed's power is greater than Jesus". I thought, "Well have Mohammed take care of you". The spirit of the Lord just gripped me, and said, "You pray for him and you tell him if Mohammed's power is greater he will never be healed but if Jesus's power is greater he'll be healed immediately". I prayed for him and the next day he came and his eyes were totally healed.
Sid Roth: Tell me about the last big fire bombing.
Karen Dunham: This is fire number 7. Like 7 years of famine, 7 fires. The fire came in, they used 100 plastic chairs, put them up against the house and made an explosive that every window in the house blew out when the explosive went off. I heard Thomas scream, "Fire"!. The kids, I had two volunteers then, not many. Now we have closer to 50 but back then it was hard to have volunteers because the persecution was so high. They run out so I started crying out to the Lord. I said, "Lord, what? Around this mountain again? Buying more furniture again? The house all full of flames"? At that point I knew I could walk through fire and not get burned. At that point, I mean, I was convinced God would rescue me but I was tired of fires. And the Lord said to me, the Lord said, "If you would just lift your hands in the air and you will praise me and you will give me glory", God said, "I'll carry you into the next realm". I told the kids, they were worshipers, I said, "Come on we've got to worship. We've got to praise the Lord". We just lifted our hands in the air and began to praise. I just want to say if you're out there right now and you're just being crushed, every wall is caving in, if you would just give him glory, if you would just lift your hands and praise him, God is going to carry you through.
Sid Roth: You're doing such a marvelous job there that you get called to Jerusalem. What did the Israeli army say to you?
Karen Dunham: The Israeli army called me in after about 5 years. They said, "We've watched what you've done". They said, "When you first come into Jericho we thought you were crazy". But they said, "You've accomplished much". And they said that terrorism has fallen in the city of Jericho. They said, "There's 27 more refugee camps out there. We want you to move into Jerusalem and take an office in Jerusalem because you're a partner with Israel".
Sid Roth: Did they give you the office?
Karen Dunham: No, no. We rented the office but they gave me a political status and they registered us sovereignly as an NGO.
Sid Roth: Alright, everything now, she's at the height of her ministry. She has success in one Palestinian camp, Jericho. The Israeli army takes note of it and says, "We want you to open up an office and manage over 20 Palestinian camps. Do the same thing". She's so excited. We'll be right back.
Sid Roth: Okay Karen. You're ready for the ministry of your life, what you're created for. I mean the Israeli army wanted you to do the same thing you did in Jericho. You get back to your destiny, you're in Jerusalem, you're managing these Palestinian camps and then the persecution gets beyond the pale. They literally try to kill her. Tell me about that day.
Karen Dunham: Well that was very recent. A year ago. They surrounded our church, they gassed us, they threw rocks through the window. Nine people got hurt.
Sid Roth: This was the Palestinian militants?
Karen Dunham: Yes in Jerusalem. Arab/Israelis and some of the Palestinian militants from the West Bank. There was a weapons specialist that used to work for President Arafat. There was another few of the men that had been arrested by the Israeli army for previous incidents. They wanted my building to make a mosque and they just were relentless. I'm talking about 4-1/2 months of serious prosecution where I couldn't even step outside without them saying, "We're going to kill you".
Sid Roth: Okay so you're in your church and they come up to you. Was it from behind? What did they do?
Karen Dunham: One morning I go outside and I'm feeling that God's going to give me a breakthrough and I'm waving a flag that says Yeshua. Sunday morning, 10 o'clock waiting for our service to start. People are coming in and as I was walking towards our double doors behind me the men charged me and just hit me from behind and fractured my wrist. I flipped into the air, my knee was cracked. I mean I was bleeding in the face. I don't remember exactly all that happened. All I remember is the initial impact.
Sid Roth: And you told me you left your body.
Karen Dunham: Oh for sure. I laid on the ground and I left my body. I couldn't breath and all of a sudden I'm just in the air with Jesus. I'm just in the air with Jesus. I'm saying to the Lord and I feel the Lord had put this in my heart because afterwards I thought it was a strange thing to be praying about when there was no life in my body laying there in front of the church, but I began to tell the Lord, "Lord they're laughing at you, they're blaspheming you". I said, "Your enemies are mocking you". I said, "I have no breath, I'm laying there like a piece of flesh". And it was a woman, an Israeli, came out of the church, Kathy. She began to pray in tongues and then I heard a heavenly choir. I just hear this angel singing and it was just so beautiful and next thing I know it was like a lighting bolt hit me, the breath of God comes back in me and I'm on my feet. I really felt like I shot into the air but I'm standing on the earth and I tell my secretary, "Give me the flag". I didn't even know my wrist was fractured and I began to wave the flag wildly. They were watching and I was just waving this flag in front of their cameras just screaming, "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus"!
Sid Roth: But then a group of Chinese came to Israel and they had these big drums. How long did they play these drums?
Karen Dunham: 72 hours.
Sid Roth: And at the end of 72 hours, and this wasn't' just drums. This was spiritual warfare at the highest level. What happened at the end of 72 hours?
Karen Dunham: Well it was so wonderful because when they arrived they said, "Pastor Karen we know how to fight the dragon". They just beat those drums for three days and prophesied and I felt it in the spirit. I just all of a sudden felt a flood of peace and I knew the stronghold had fallen.
Sid Roth: I believe that if you pray for people right now to be drenched in the love of God, it's going to change your life. I believe that. Pray.
Karen Dunham: Holy and righteous Father, we just thank you. We boldly come to the throne of grace and Lord we come for all of these out here that are so thirsty God. Lord, these that are out there that have never really known love God. Those that just need this unconditional love, to drench them, to pour over them, to transform their lives. Lord there's so many out there God and I just ask God, your mercy triumphs judgment God. I ask that you just breakthrough today God and drench those that are out there God. They've waited so long for you God. Drench them with those rivers, those waterfalls of love God. I have a vision. I have a vision right now of a waterfall just coming your way. Just coming your way. Just waterfalls. Just rivers coming your way. This is your time for love.
Sid Roth: Some of you just experienced being drenched in God's love and some of you don't know or have intimate knowledge of God. This is your moment. You've felt his presence now say with your mouth, repeat after me. "Dear Jesus, forgive me of all of my sins. I'm sorry. I believe your love washes away my sins and makes me clean. And now that I'm clean Jesus come inside of me. I make you Lord of my life. Amen".