The
nearness of death made him fear for his eternal
welfare and, havingrecovered, he went to live in
Connellsville, Pennsylvania, where a converted Jew,
Maurice Reuben, was conducting an evangelistic
campaign. Reuben’s testimony and preaching broke
Howells’ resistance to the gospel, and he
unreservedly yielded his life to Christ.
By David Littlewood -
Remnant History Editor
Rees Howells was a man of little
worldly fame, yet through Norman Grubb’s
best-selling biography, ‘Rees Howells –
Intercessor’, his life story is known to
millions. As he came to know the redeeming power of
his Lord and Saviour, he faced the implications of an
entire surrender, learned to love the unlovely and
discovered the key to praying with power.
It was from this position of power
that Rees became a channel of revival in Southern
Africa, and, on returning to Britain, a mighty
spiritual force which many believe changed the course
of World War II.
Rees Howells was born the sixth of
a family of three girls and eight boys in the mining
village of Brynamman, South Wales. His grandparents
had been converted in the famous 1859 revival, but
Rees himself, although religious, knew nothing of the
new birth.
After leaving school at the tender
age of twelve, Rees worked in the iron works for ten
years before leaving Wales to join his cousin, Evan
Lewis, in America. He got a job in a tin mine and
began to make very good money. However, he was
startled one day when Evan Lewis asked him if he was
‘born again’. Rees was a good churchgoer
– in fact, he never missed the prayer meeting
– but his cousin’s question flummoxed him.
So much so, that he moved to Martin’s Ferry,
about 100 miles away.
Suddenly, at the age of 23, Rees
was struck down with a near fatal dose of typhoid
fever. The nearness of death made him fear for his
eternal welfare and, having recovered, he went to
live in Connellsville, Pennsylvania, where a
converted Jew, Maurice Reuben, was conducting an
evangelistic campaign. Reuben’s testimony and
preaching broke Howells’ resistance to the
gospel, and he unreservedly yielded his life to
Christ.
The experience of a living Saviour
put a new set of ambitions into Howells, and soon
after he left America for his homeland of Wales,
arriving home in 1904, the year of the great Welsh
revival. The deep sense of the presence of God in the
land left a lasting impression on the young convert,
who quickly matured and gave himself to discipling
the many converts left by the revival.
On his return, Rees went back to
live with his parents and working down the mine, but
all his spare time was taken up in furthering the
revival. However, this convinced him of his own need
for greater spiritual power, and when attending the
famous Llandrindod Wells convention in 1906, he was
again challenged to yield unconditionally the whole
of his life to Christ. After no less than five days
of seeking God, Rees yielded and immediately received
such a powerful infilling of the Holy Spirit that he
returned from Llandrindod Wells a new man. However,
so fierce had been the inner conflict, that in five
days he had lost seven pounds in weight!
From this point, Howells’ life
may be seen as a series of experiences and testings
through which God took him in order to prepare him as
one of the great prayer warriors of this century. His
first test came when God challenged him to pray for
an alcoholic tramp named Will Battery, whose nights
were spent on the warm boilers of the local tin mill.
Prayer filled Rees’ heart with God’s love
for this poor creature, to the extent that he even
spent Christmas Day with Will in the boiler house!
Finally Will came to Christ, and was fully
rehabilitated back into society.
Rees learned about what he later
termed ‘princely giving’ by giving another
converted drunk, Jim Stakes, a full two years rent to
save Stakes and his family from being evicted. Then
the Holy Spirit laid on his heart the neighbouring
village of Tairgwaith, which had been completely
passed-by in the revival, and had no place of
worship. Wickedness abounded here, but Rees’
prayers, coupled with his extraordinary generosity,
touched the people’s hearts, and a church was
started. Every night for two years, rain or shine,
Rees would walk the two miles each way to Tairgwaith
to look after his flock and win others for Christ
– and that after a hard day’s work down the
mine!
One day Rees noticed a group of
intoxicated women, and felt a stirring in his heart
to pray the ringleader – a woman of terrible
reputation – through to salvation by Christmas
Day. During this time the Holy Spirit made it clear
to him he was to have no contact with her – she
was to be won by prayer alone by ‘binding the
strong man’ as in Matthew 12:29.
During the weeks of prayer for this
woman, God took Rees deeper into the realm of the
Spirit and spiritual warfare. As he prayed, he was
encouraged to see her getting nearer to God,
attending the open air meeting, then the house
meeting. Finally, on Christmas Day, she attended
church and, in the middle of the meeting, went down
on her knees and cried to God for mercy.
A phrase which became part of
Rees’ prayer vocabulary was ‘the gained
position of intercession’. This he believed
occurred when one had by prayer gained the place of
power and victory for whatever one was praying for.
One particular area of victory God led Rees into was
divine healing, and he saw some hopeless cases of
sickness were delivered in answer to his fervent
prayer.
There is no doubt that
Howells’ piety and desire to obey the least
prompting of the Holy Spirit, made him look eccentric
and even foolish to his peers. For example, his
desire to pray while walking the two miles to the
mission meant he felt he had to leave his head
uncovered, as one would in church. And this at a time
when it was unknown for a respectable man to walk out
in public without a hat! But Rees defied social
convention – to the consternation of the rest of
the village.
More rumours started to fly when
Howells withdrew from the work of the mission in
order to give himself to prayer three hours a night,
but people finally decided Rees was but people
finally decided Rees was crazy when he took the vow
of a Nazarite (Numbers 6:2-6) and went many months
without cutting his hair or shaving. However, by the
end of his intercession, which he finished off with a
fifteen day fast, people had begun to sense the
presence of God in his life, and many of the men
would touch their hats to him as he passed.
At the end of this intercession,
Rees announced that his Uncle Dick, a fellow prayer
warrior who had been an invalid for 30 years, would
be healed at 5am Pentecost Sunday and walk the three
miles to the church. On the Saturday, Dick was as ill
as ever – so much so that many people pitied him
for being led stray by his nephew. However, Sunday
morning Dick rose from his bed perfectly healed and
never had another day’s illness until he died
some years later.
In 1910, Rees married Elizabeth
Jones and, after a period of training at a
theological college in Carmarthen, entered the
Congregational ministry. However, God dropped a
bombshell by calling Rees and Elizabeth to work in
Africa, so in 1915 they sailed to work with the South
Africa General Mission in Gazaland, close to the
border with Portuguese East Africa. Here the Howells
experienced a mighty revival – greater even than
they had seen in Wales in 1904. And when the
directors of the mission asked Rees to visit every
one of the 43 mission stations, he claimed a promise
that every one of them would see revival – and
they did.
After five years of incredible
fruitfulness, the Howells returned home in 1920,
where the crying need for a Bible College to train
young people for the mission field and the ministry
was laid upon Rees’ heart. In 1923 during a
visit to Mumbles, near Swansea, God pointed out a
mansion called ‘Glynderwen’ as the place.
Although other interested parties were willing to pay
up to £10,000 for the property, God showed Rees he
must only bid £6,150 for it. After a series of
miracles (and some hair raising moments), the college
was opened in 1924.
The college was run on a faith
basis – tuition was free and the charge for
board kept to a minimum. As Rees and his group gave
themselves to prayer, money began to come in and
other neighbouring properties were purchased, with a
conference hall, a chapel and student hostels being
also built, with every penny of the costs being
prayed in. Howells had begun the college with only
eighteen shillings (90p), but in fourteen years he
had prayed for and received £125,000!
At the beginning of 1935, Rees had
a new burden to pray for world missions. He shared
this with staff and friends and they agreed to
intercede for any nation and country, as well a
missionaries, as the Lord indicated.
With the rise of Hitler and
Mussolini, Rees and his intercessors were called to
‘stand in the gap’ in prayer; as prayer
warriors they were to have no more claim on their
lives, time or possessions than if they had been
drafted into the forces. Particular prayer was made
for Ethiopia when Mussolini invaded. Rees experienced
a great trial of faith when Addis Ababa fell, but the
outcome of their intercession was seen when in later
years S I M missionaries returned to Wallamo
Province, where they had anxiously left 48 young
believers, to find a church of 10,000 Christians.
In the new year of 1937, Howells
and his group experienced a visitation of the Spirit
and for three weeks lost all sense of time as they
were taken up in intercession. This prepared them for
the battles ahead, as they interceded for Britain
during the dark days of World War 2. Throughout the
war Rees and his company – often up to a hundred
people – interceded every day from 7pm to
midnight. And that after a full day’s work! They
were sustained by the power of the Holy Spirit, and
only eternity will reveal their part in the conflict
for freedom.
The end of the war and the return
of the Jews to Palestine in 1948 were a great cause
for celebration for Rees and his team. Howells’
burden to the end, however, remained the ‘every
creature’ vision, and he continually prayed for
an outpouring of the Holy Spirit which would make
this possible. Part of the answer to this prayer came
when an aspiring young German missionary, Reinhard
Bonnke, was trained at the college during the 1950s.
Bonnke has since experienced an unprecedented
outpouring of the Spirit in Africa. In February 1950,
Rees Howells suffered a series of heart attacks and
died aged 71. His last whispered words were
"Victory! Hallelujah!" His son, Samuel,
took over as director of the college, which still
operates on the same faith principles as its founder.
The Bible College of Wales stands as Rees
Howells’ earthly memorial. However, eternity
alone will reveal the effect this remarkable
intercessor has had on spiritual life in the
twentieth century.
