He said, "Jerry, I really feel in my heart that God wants me to send you out there to meet this man. When I go home, I'm going to call Dave, and then I'll call you back and let you know what I find out. But I really feel impressed of the Lord that you need to meet Dave Malkin. You need to spend some time with him, because I believe he can make an impartation into your life that will be a great blessing to your ministry."
So he and Gloria went back to Fort Worth, and a few days later, I got a phone call from him. He said, "Jerry, this is Kenneth Copeland."
I said, "Yes, Sir."
He said, "I called Dave Malkin. Dave said you can come any time you want to. Now, Jerry, God told me to pay your expenses out there, and to tell you to stay as long as you feel like you need to stay until you learn what God wants you to learn through this man. So when can you go?"
I said, "Well, I can go any time."
He said, "Well, Dave tells me that there's going to be a lot of people on the beach on the Fourth of July, and he and his team intend to invade Pismo Beach with the Gospel. There's going to be over 100,000 hippies at Pismo Beach. Can you go then?"
I said, "Yes, Sir. I can go."
A New Adventure in Faith
So, I left around the First of July and flew to Los Angeles, California. That was an experience in itself. I was a country boy from Louisiana, born in Mississippi.
I didn't know there were cities as big as Los Angeles. I didn't know there were airports as big as LAX, and I didn't know a soul there. I took a young man with me named Don Burton, who had been delivered from drugs. He and I had been doing some witnessing together.
Dave Malkin met us at the airport and drove us to his home. I had never met a man more excited about Jesus in all my life than Dave Malkin.
We stopped and had lunch at a Denny's restaurant, and Dave led the waitress to the Lord. Then, he led the busboy to the Lord, and he led the cashier to the Lord. I had never seen anybody who was so bold, and not intimidated by anything or anyone.
No matter what they said to him, he had an answer, and it was fresh and full of life and joy. I was amazed. I'd never seen anybody win people to Jesus so quickly and so easily.
All the way to his house, he was telling us about the great adventure we were about to have, and how he would teach us and train us.
That evening we arrived at Dave's house. There were over one hundred former hippies, drug addicts, prostitutes, and alcoholics gathered up in his house along with Don and me.
To this day, it was one of the most wonderful experiences I'd ever had. I'd never seen so many young people so on fire for Jesus.
He had them share their testimonies, and they were absolutely amazing. One guy had been addicted to heroin for 21 years and was totally delivered.
Some had been in prison, some were delivered from witchcraft...everything you can imagine. Needless to say, the glory of God was present, and I was enjoying every minute of it.
The next day, we packed up and drove to Pismo Beach. We camped out in a little church that opened its doors to Dave Malkin's ministry and allowed us to sleep on the pews, on the floors, anywhere we could find a place. The next morning, we hit the beach.
We invaded Pismo Beach. There were over 100,000 hippies at Pismo Beach on Fourth of July weekend in 1970. And we had 113 turned-on-to-Jesus, Spirit-filled, tongue-talking, God-loving, soul-winning believers who were ready to invade that beach. We baptized hundreds of people in the Pacific Ocean after they had been born-again that weekend.
A nationwide magazine later wrote an article about this new thing that was happening in California, and they called it the "Jesus Movement."
I spent thirteen days with Dave Malkin learning how to win people to Jesus one-on-one. I returned home from that trip higher than a Georgia pine tree. I went to my church and told them what I had learned. Now I was ready to put to work in my town what I had learned in California.
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Dr. Jerry Savelle was an average, blue-collar man who was struggling and needed God's help. While he considered himself a "nobody," when he became a believer God told him not to worry about it because He was a master at making champions out of nobodies. God has since taken Dr. Savelle from being a constant quitter to a man who knows how to stand on the Word of God until victory is experienced. Because of the life-changing combination of God's faithfulness and Dr. Savelle's "no quit" attitude, his life is totally different than it was thirty-eight years ago.
