Europe has a reputation for being spiritually dead, but God has been moving in mighty ways in that continent lately—and He’s using a woman with a broken past to do so.
Shaneen Clarke, Christian author and founder of A Woman’s Call Ministries, says it’s actually a very exciting time in Europe. She and her husband, businessman Martin Clarke (whom I interviewed on my podcast recently), see God stirring up an intense spiritual hunger.
On my Strang Report podcast, Shaneen shared that as she has been traveling across Europe, she’s noticed that the spiritual hunger in Italy is unique.
“The evidence of this is really the meetings,” she says. “People are rushing to the meetings. They’re hungry to see revival and more. We’re seeing Catholic priests … stand there for a fresh encounter with the Holy Spirit.”
She recalls one priest in particular who came during one of the meetings and asked Shaneen to lay hands on him.
“So as I laid hands on this priest … he was touched by the power of God,” she says. “And he had a fresh encounter—slain in the Spirit. And you could see that it was so genuine and authentic. I think people are looking for that encounter with the authentic power of God again.”
When the priest finally was able to get up off the floor, Shaneen gave him a prophetic word that was a confirmation of what he had been praying for.
Those fresh, supernatural encounters are not uncommon in Shaneen’s meetings.
“We’re seeing miracles, many people healed,” she says. “We saw the recent meeting in Turin was powerful. We witnessed the glory of God in the meetings where we really couldn’t do anything. We just sat in the glory for hours and just worshipped.”
Journalists even came to the meeting to report on what was going on. Soon after, opportunities to minister in the government opened up and she was able to talk about abuse against women, and particularly femicide.
These topics are close to Shaneen’s heart, especially since she experienced abuse in her past.
Shaneen was raised in London, but her parents are from northwest India.
“They’re Punjabi,” she says. “They came here in the 1950s, and I was raised with a lot of restrictions culturally. And my father was very afraid that I would become very Westernized and marry an Englishman.”
Shaneen was engaged at 14. When she met Christ, she asked for this arranged engagement to be removed from her life, which it was.
From a very early age, Shaneen felt the call of God to preach. She says her pastor released her to preach her first sermon at only 16 years old! The anointing on her life was evident.
But when she told her father that she wanted to become an evangelist and go to Bible college, he said she had to get married first. So at 17, Shaneen got married—unfortunately, to an abusive man. The marriage didn’t last long, and in her 20s, Shaneen divorced.
She says this was a huge hurdle to overcome in her ministry life.
“The divorce issue—I feel I’m in a place now where I no longer have to please man,” she says. “I no longer have to please people. I don’t care what people think about me. I’m free to be me. And [I have] the freedom to be free in my anointing.”
But as a newly divorced youth pastor in her 20s, it was hard to feel confident in her anointing. She says she even pulled away from church for a time because people were so judgmental.
Her pastor, though, helped strengthen her passion and confidence as he told her stories of Kathryn Kuhlman, who he had worked with in his past.
He told Shaneen all about this incredible woman.
“As a teenager, I’m listening to these amazing stories of his experience in America, and he said, ‘This woman was the boss. She was weird. She was strange, but God’s hand was upon her,'” she says. “And he described the meetings as very tangible, that it was like goosebumps. People used to spend time in the presence of God. So I was captivated by that.”
Reading Kuhlman’s book Daughter of Destiny caused Shaneen to realize that if God can use a divorced, strange woman like Kuhlman, He can certainly use Shaneen.
One night she was watching a preacher on TV and she was so overcome with conviction of the Holy Spirit for running away from her calling. She wept for hours, repenting for not obeying God’s call on her life.
“I realized, you know what, I need to be true to me,” she says. “I need to be true to what God has placed in my life. So today with what I do, I witness God’s power.”
That’s the same power she sees in Italy—the power of God to heal bodies, change lives and save souls.
I hope you will take the time to listen to my full interview with Shaneen. I think you’ll be inspired and encouraged by what she is seeing God doing in Europe.
And as always, share this article with a friend and remind them that if God can use a young woman with a broken past to accomplish His purposes, He can use them too!
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