SID: Hello, Sid Roth your investigative reporter here with Joan Pearce. No one should have to go through what Joan was going through, but she found herself at a Full Gospel Businessmen’s meeting and she thought all those people were crazy. She ran out to the car just to get out of there and her neighbor was smart. She said, “Joan, I need to be prayed for. I’m going to go back.” So did you go back with her?
JOAN: Yes, I went back with her so she could be prayed for because I didn’t want them to be praying for me at all.
SID: Right.
JOAN: And she takes me right up to the evangelist and she said, “She needs prayer.” And I went oh no, I’ve been tricked. And so when the evangelist went to pray for me, he started praying for me and I felt sick, and all of a sudden, anyway to make a long story short, he commanded an evil spirit to come out of me, and I felt something leave me, I literally felt something come out of my body and come out of me. And he shared a little bit of Jesus with me, but he didn’t get me saved. But that night I had an awesome encounter, and in that encounter Jesus came to me and my room became brighter than the sun, and Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the light. You need me.” And I woke up from this encounter.
SID: Joan, what did Jesus look like?
JOAN: He just glowed. He radiated love. There is no way, to the viewers there is no way to explain the experience I had. All I can say is Jesus is so beautiful, and when you see Jesus all you feel is love. And you’ve got to remember I was raised in a family with no love, and the love overwhelmed me in such a way that I passed out. I don’t how to explain this but I literally when I saw Jesus passed out and then my room became brighter than the sun and I just collapsed. And when I woke up in the morning I was having my coffee, I started thinking, as I was drinking my coffee I was thinking I’m going to be Mormon any day because I was going to be baptized Mormon that weekend, that’s how, cut it real close there. And as I was looking at my coffee cup, the Lord showed me a vision, open vision, I had never had an open vision before, I saw the heavens open up, and I saw a vision of everyone that ever witnessed to me in my life. I saw somebody saying to me when I was four, “Jesus loves you.” And other people I saw, it was like a flash, I saw everything. And all of a sudden I saw that this evil spirit came out of me and
I ran to my room and I saw that, I called on the name of Jesus I ran into my room, dropped on my knees, right in my own house and threw my hands up in the air and I said,
“Jesus you’re real, you’re real, you’re real. I’ll live for you, I’ll die for you, I’ll serve you, I’ll do what ever you ask me to do. Jesus help me. Come into my life.” And I’ve never been the same. I’ve been telling people about Jesus ever since.
SID: So the whole deal isn’t religion; the whole deal is knowing Jesus.
JOAN: Jesus.
SID: Okay, you started a Bible study. Problem. You didn’t know how to read.
JOAN: Right.
SID: So what happened?
JOAN: I didn’t know how to read. God told me to start a Bible study in my house and I said, “Well I don’t know how to read Lord.” And everybody laughed at me too, because I actually wrote two books before I could even read and people discouraged me of that. But how many people can write two books before they could read, it’s unheard of. Only God. People say who wrote those books. I say, I didn’t, the Holy Spirit wrote them. But I’m doing a Bible study, and I’m getting ready to do a Bible study, and all I want to say to all the viewers, just hear God and obey. That’s the answer to everything in our life. I heard God say do a Bible study and I said I don’t know how to read. He said, “Just obey me Joan.” So I went out and invited neighbors, I said, “Who do I invite? He said, “Invite the Mormons, the Jehovah Witnesses, the Christian Science,” He said, “You invite everybody that, everybody, it’s not denominations. So I went out and invited people in my neighborhood and they laughed at me but that’s okay. And I knocked on one of the doors and one of the doors I knocked on I said, “I’m doing a Bible Study at my house, would you like to come?” And she said, “Come in honey.” And she took me under her wing and said yes you can do it even if you don’t know how to read. And her name was Gertrude Wright, which was John G. Lake’s daughter. And so John G. Lake’s daughter lived right in my neighborhood, came to my Bible study, and I couldn’t read, and a bunch of ladies laid hands on my head and said, “God supernaturally teach her to read.” And for the first time ever in my life Sid, I wanted to read. You see, my step dad made it so I hated reading cause he used to beat me, right. And he abused me so in my heart I said I’m never learning to read, I’ll fix you; which was anger.
SID: So how did you learn to read? They prayed for you but how did you learn?
JOAN: My Father in heaven said, “I’m going to teach you to read, if you will read.” God said, “If you will read from Genesis to Revelation in one year, I will put you in fulltime ministry. And I’m going like “I don’t know how to read.” And the Lord said, “Read Genesis to Revelation in one year.” And I opened the Book the day after they praised, and all of a sudden I knew what every word was. I just, no man taught me to read. God, supernaturally, in a twinkling of an eye, one minute I couldn’t read, one minute I could.
SID: In the twinkling of an eye, how in the world did you get a two million dollar business?
JOAN: Oh in the twinkling of an eye after I got saved you know from that experience at the Full Gospel Men’s meeting. I was so overwhelmed with my love for Jesus that I went to the Full Gospel Men’s meeting every month and I endorsed my paycheck. I didn’t know about tithing. I got a check on the first and a check on the fifteenth so I just took my paycheck, signed my name off, dropped it in, not knowing when you give to God, He blesses. All of a sudden, in a month it went to another, it just went like from here to top in the nation, and within six months God spoke to me again, I just learned to hear God. In a prayer meeting God said, “You will own your own business before this week’s up.” And that was on a Monday. Friday afternoon to Salt Lake City, and the president of the United States of this business, and the worldwide president of this business said to me, they called me into this special meeting and they go, “What have you been working for and what do you want more than anything in the world?” They are looking at me and of course I have just accepted Jesus and I said, “that everybody knows Jesus.” And they say, “Okay, that’s good, but what do you want second?” I said, “There’s no second to Jesus.” And they go, “Okay down to earth Joan. What have you been working for in this company for for eight years?” And I said, “Oh to own my own business.” And they said, “We have a franchise for you. There’s only two openings a year and you have to be the top in the nation to get these franchisees.” They said, “We have an opening for you and we want you to go up and check it out.” And I just looked at them and I smiled and I said I don’t have to. And they go why? And I said, Are you planning on giving any other openings between now and Sunday?” And they go no. And I says, “God told me on Monday and I’ve already told my children we’re moving, I’ve already told my mom I’m moving and everybody said where are you moving to, and I said I don’t know but God told me before the week is out I will own my own company and you are offering me a company on Friday and God told me on.”
SID: Yeah, but you didn’t have the money for this company.
JOAN: I know.
SID: How did you get the money?
JOAN: I told them that, I said, they said, “We need two hundred and fifty thousand for this and one hundred and eighteen thousand, anyway it was four hundred and fifty thousand all together.” And I just looked at these guys and said I have no money. And they walked off for a few minutes and they came back and said, “We don’t know why we’re doing this but we are going to give you this business, interest free, for, you have seven years to pay it back?”
SID: Okay, it was a million dollar business. How long did it take you to make it a two million dollar business?
JOAN: I didn’t do it, God did. One month.
SID: Did you hear that? One month.
JOAN: I went from one million to two million.
SID: Very quickly, your children, do they know God?
JOAN: They all know God now.
SID: Do they know Jesus?
JOAN: Yes.
SID: Okay. You’re married?
JOAN: Yes.
SID: What about that dad?
JOAN: You know what God did? I got ready to go to the Philippines after He taught me to read. I was getting ready to go on a mission trip and the Lord says you’re not going any further and I cannot increase the anointing on your life until you deal with an issue. And I said, what is that Lord? And He said go make a trip to your step dad and you tell him you’re sorry. And I went what? I said, God I’m not going to go tell my step dad I’m sorry. I was seven, he was a grown up man. He was sexually abusing me, he was beating me. What do you mean God?” And the Lord says, “You have anger and hate in you and I cannot use you and the anointing on your life is at this level and it will not go no further until you forgive your step dad and forgive everybody that has ever hurt you in your life.” And that was the hardest thing I ever did, Sid.
SID: but you know what? Let me explain something to you. She did it. She became free. I wish we had the time, we don’t. Miracles happen when she speaks if you will just do what God says. You know what, I haven’t heard His voice. Well, why don’t you start doing what He says in His written word? You can read. You don’t have an excuse. Start reading the words of Jesus. Start reading the entire New Testament. Find out about the one person that loves you no matter what you’ve ever done; the one person that accepts you. The one person that can look inside of you and say there is a destiny on your life because God could, would, and desire to do this for Joan; He could, would and desires to do it for you. So stop looking back, stop feeling sorry for yourself, repent for your sins, believe the blood of Jesus washes away your sins and ask Jesus to become your Lord, live inside of you. Start reading that Bible, start recognizing how loved and precious you are. You are God’s person.