like a mighty wind
Written by Mel Tari
January 2026
the first book i ever read cover to cover…
Yep, it’s true. I was not, by any reasonable literary metric, a “reader” growing up. My attention span and bound books were, at best, casual acquaintances. This book, however, singlehandedly collapsed my long-standing aversion to reading. Mel Tari’s stories did what no assigned novel ever could: they captured my attention...and actually held it.
About the Book
This book is a firsthand account of the miraculous Indonesian revival. Though the stories are extraordinary and radical in nature, the most compelling observation is merely the fact that they were not seeking supernatural experiences for their own sake; they were simply preaching the gospel, and these unusual signs followed them as a result (Mark 16:17-18).
In this way, the book reads not as a ‘sensationalist’ catalog of wonders, but rather like a field report of ordinary people, faithfully obeying the Great Commission, and along the way encountering a God who seems entirely comfortable with interrupting mankind’s limited understanding of the ways of God.
Why I recommend it
I am a big believer in the power of testimony. People can argue theology all day long, entire libraries exist to prove this. Yet when testimony enters the conversation, argument loses much of its footing. Ideas can be contested, but experience stands stubbornly present, difficult to deny, and even harder to dismiss. Which leads to a notable reflection: if someone has been theologically “argued” into the faith, chances are they can be just as efficiently argued out of it. This book returns us to the heart of the gospel, which is people encountering a living miraculous God. After all, isn’t the Bible itself a collection of stories of people encountering this supernatural God? Whoever dared to say that God ever stopped visiting His people? This book offers a compelling case that... well, He didn’t. He did not stop being the God of miracles, and He isn’t planning to stop anytime soon. Like A Mighty Wind is the very faith-stretching proof that, even today, the dead are still raised, poison can’t hurt us, and ...
I’ll stop there before I give away too many spoilers!
You can purchase Like a Mighty Wind here