Peter Hosein and I became friends in 1989 at a Caribbean conference. Along with our wives, we traded lots of visits between Trinidad and Southern California until Peter passed away five years ago. The story of his life is one miracle after another.
Peter was a 12-year-old child of a slave family who had been brought to Trinidad from India. His family was Muslim, and his parents had already dedicated Peter to become a Muslim cleric.
One afternoon after school, he went far out of his way to stop at his older brother’s general store. He was meandering behind the counter and saw a book that was strange to him. It was a Bible that a poor man had traded for a dollar’s worth of food. Peter asked if he could take it and read it. His brother agreed.
Peter took the Bible home, not knowing that book, inbreathed by the Holy Spirit, would transform his life. He began to thumb through its pages, finally settling on the Book of John. The Holy Spirit illuminated his young mind to the truth. At the end of the reading he realized—without anyone ever saying a word to him about it or by reading other material—that Jesus was God’s Son and that he needed to open his heart and receive Him as Savior. In that moment, he experienced a thorough conversion.
He created a “prayer closet” out in the bush behind his house. After reading about Jesus baptizing with the Holy Spirit, he asked the Lord for that experience himself, and one day out in his “closet,” he was baptized.
Peter knew of no other Christian in Trinidad. In reading the Scriptures, however, he saw that he needed to be baptized in water, so he went to the local beach and baptized himself.
In the coming weeks, he carefully shared his new faith with members of his family, who brushed him off, assuming he was “going through a phase.” But then something happened that the family could not brush off or ignore. Jesus Himself stepped into Peter’s life with an undeniable miracle.
A Miraculous Healing
Peter had been born with a terrible speech impediment, barely able to make himself understood at times. Rather than encouraging Peter, his cruel schoolteacher deliberately sought to embarrass him, calling him to the front of the class and making him speak, to the mocking laughter of the other children. Peter was left with huge emotional scars.
Little did Peter know that there were two significant healings on the horizon for him. First, he was clearly healed of his shyness and inferiority, becoming a confident young man, to the amazement of family and friends who had known him all his life. People were constantly asking, “What happened to Peter?” And one day, they would be asking that question with even more amazement.
One afternoon, Peter was sitting in his room when Christ Himself appeared to him in a trance or vision. Jesus kindly touched Peter’s cheeks and asked him to put out his tongue. As Peter later described it, Jesus had a small stick, something like a popsicle stick. As Jesus scraped his tongue with the stick, it was as if thousands of tiny worms came off Peter’s tongue. His mouth was now clean. Jesus lovingly touched Peter’s cheeks and vanished from sight.
Puzzled, Peter walked to the other room to talk to his mother. As he spoke, her eyes suddenly grew very wide. “Peter!” she cried out. “Your speech impediment is gone!”
Instantly Peter became aware that the heaviness of his tongue had disappeared. From that day on, he became a gifted, articulate communicator. As the years would go by, innumerable people would come to Jesus Christ under his spoken ministry.
Later that day, Peter’s mother talked with him and said, “I want to become a Christian.” She was the first of many family members and even neighbors who would come to Christ as a result of Peter’s miraculous healing.
An Angelic Intervention
As time went on, Peter felt compelled to conduct public, outdoor services in some of the nearby communities. One night a Muslim woman made the decision to receive Christ as her Savior. When she told her husband of her decision, he was enraged and made the decision to kill Peter.
He knew Peter always traveled by bicycle, and he was aware of the road he took. One night Peter pedaled his bike down the road, not knowing that the man hid in the bush, crouched at the bottom of a decline in the road, with a sharpened machete, ready to butcher him.
Just as Peter was reaching the crest of the road, a driver in a pickup truck stopped Peter, inviting him to put his bicycle into the bed of the truck and then get in. Surprised, Peter thanked the man for the offer but explained that it wasn’t necessary.
The driver then spoke authoritatively: “Put your bicycle into the back, and you get in and ride with me.”
Peter did as he was told, frustrating the plans of the man who had been intent on murdering him that night. The driver of the pickup delivered Peter safely to his house, leaving the would-be murderer frustrated in the bush. It should be noted that Peter, who knew everyone in Trinidad and everything that went on, had never seen that driver and the pickup before, nor did he ever see him since.
The rest of that night and the next day, the Holy Spirit gave the vengeful husband a big dose of conviction for his intentions. The next evening he told his wife he wanted to attend the service with her, and at the end of the service he went forward and put his trust in Christ. He confessed to Peter that the night before he had planned to kill him, and asked Peter to forgive him.
For the rest of his life, Peter was an apostolic pastor, preacher and missionary in the West Indies; he also made frequent trips to the U.S., Africa and Asia. At the very outset of his ministry, the Holy Spirit warned him never to become engaged in a battle over the “holy books” of the various religions of Trinidad. It was his job to hold up the Bible, the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit Himself would help people to see the veracity of its claims. It was a veracity they could see so clearly in Peter Hosein’s own life.
This is Part 2 of a three-part article series.
To read Part 1, Financial Provision, click here.
Part 3, Revival in Brazil, click here.
By: Dr. Paul Risser, well-known for his pastor’s heart and love for people, is a former president of The Foursquare Church and a popular speaker who has traveled worldwide. This article is adapted from his new book, An Eye for Miracles: Be Surprised by the Hand of God, published by Foursquare Media, copyright 2010. Used by permission. This article may not be republished or redistributed in any form. An Eye for Miracles is available for purchase from Foursquare Media.
