From July 16-21, 1996 and again from Sept. 15-20, 1996, we engaged the Dragon in spiritual warfare to cast him out of the heavens, according to the pattern of Revelation 12. His attack on our sister from British Columbia had given us legal cause to come against him in preparation for the Jubilee declaration on Sept. 23, 1996.

As we read in Revelation 12, when the dragon is cast down, it does not resolve the problem, but appears to cause a different set of problems in the world for a time. Verses 13 and 17 say,

¹³ And when the dragon saw that he was thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who gave birth to the male child. . . . ¹⁷ And the dragon was enraged with the woman, and went off to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.

On June 19, 1997 Michele made a “tourist” trip to China with a group of 18 Christian women. It was actually a time of spiritual warfare. China is known as the land of the dragon. They arrived in Hong Kong June 21, and after touring cities in China, they returned to Hong Kong on the 28th. During their tour, 5 out of 6 of their tour guides were led to Christ.

They stayed long enough to watch the ceremonies where Hong Kong was officially being returned to China on July 1, 1997. Prince Charles presided over this ceremony. His flag is the only flag in the world with a red dragon on it. Hong Kong has long been called “The Pearl of the Orient.” Mythology says that the dragon came from the sea, and that in order to maintain itself on land, it must eat pearls. Thus, in the fireworks celebration over the harbor, the fireworks depicted a dragon coming up out of the water and swallowing up the old Hong Kong flag—i.e., the Pearl of the Orient.

I discerned that the Chinese were inadvertently prophesying of the Dragon Wars that had begun in 1996. In July of 1996 the attack had been against Margaret Price (the type of the “Pearl” of Great “Price”). In July 1997 this theme was continuing with the dragon swallowing Hong Kong, the Pearl of the Orient. Yet keep in mind that the red dragon was not China, but the insignia of the British monarchy, which had taken Hong Kong to defend its opium-smuggling merchants.

In the Hong Kong hotel room on July 1st, the 18 American women noticed across the ravine was the Ten Thousand Buddha temple and felt that they needed to do something about it. A few of them then went to the front gate and prayed for the overthrow of the idols there. There were two stone lions at the gate. Michele's report reads:

“Tammy . . . prophesied the lions were hungry and the Buddhas were coming down. We commanded them to bow their knee to Jesus.”

“It is raining VERY hard and has all night . . . During the night there had been a mudslide. On our side of the mountain it broke water pipes; on the Buddhist side, we would learn later, part of a retaining wall gave way under the room a lot of the idols were kept in, and they fell out into the mud!”

Significantly, these Buddha statues bowed the knee to Jesus Christ that night.

While all this was going on in Hong Kong, another prophetic event (showdown) was developing in America. It was the June 28 boxing match between Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield. Tyson was a convert to Islam and had a tattoo of Mao Zedung on his right shoulder (connecting him to China). Holyfield was a devout Christian.

In a report written by David Demian and Marc Bisebois, we read,

“Holyfield prepared himself not only physically, but spiritually. In his dressing room before the fight he prayed and praised. Surrounded by Christian praise music, he made it his aim to enter the ring with the presence of God.”

When Tyson came into the arena, he came with rap music blaring. Holyfield made his entrance to: “When the Spirit of the Lord comes upon my heart, I will dance as David danced.” Holyfield won the first two rounds, but in the third round, Tyson spit out his mouthpiece and bit a half inch of flesh from Holyfield's ear. The referee gave him a warning, but Tyson did it again, and so he was disqualified.

So Holyfield won in the third round, and this told us that we would see “three rounds” in the Dragon Wars. Because “the field is the world” (Matt. 13:38), Holyfield represents the “Holy World,” which I take as a reference to Kingdom of God (the Stone Kingdom of Daniel) being established in the earth. This fight also told us who was going to win this battle—as if we really needed more confirmation!

There is an old revelation from about 1980, used often in the Net of Prayer in those days: “July is like September.” In other words, every year some revelation or event occurs in July which is fulfilled or is directly connected to the same date in September. Every year we closely monitor the month of July.

Often this means that June is like August as well, especially events occurring toward the end of June. In this case, the Tyson-Holyfield fight occurred June 28, the day the 18 women finished their tour (spiritual warfare) of China. The Pearl of the Orient was taken from the red dragon on July 1st. So this was the time frame to watch two months later.

The problem is that June only has 30 days, while August has 31 days. So this raised a question about July 1st. Were we to watch Sept. 1^st or August 31^st? We did not know until Princess Diana was killed on August 31^st. But I am getting ahead of myself.

In August of 1997, my wife and I were led to make a lengthy trip to Texas, then to the Florida Keys, then to Huntersville, NC. The work was to be finished August 28, two months after June 28, and then we were to return home by Sept. 1^st, two months after July 1^st. The purpose of the trip was to do spiritual warfare to protect the Bride—the Pearl of Great Price—from the red dragon.

My wife's name, Darla, is related to the Hebrew word dar, which means “pearl.” (See Strong's Conc. #1858.) On this trip, she represented prophetically the Pearl of Great Price. The primary work was to set a boundary marker on Padre Island off the coast of Corpus Christi, TX, then at Key West, FL, and finally in Huntersville, NC, declaring that this land was off-limits to the attack by the red dragon. This prohibition would last precisely one year, and during that time, no hurricanes would hit the coast. (I will say more about the relationship between hurricanes and the dragon later.)

Deut. 19:14 says, “You shall not move your neighbor's boundary mark.” This Scripture was our authorization to establish those boundaries. In essence, we were posting “No Trespassing” signs for the dragon. He put Corpus Christi (“Body of Christ”) off limits, for we knew that this was the primary “pearl” that the dragon wished to consume.

On the long drive from Corpus Christi to Key West, I recalled something else that I had learned years earlier in the Net of Prayer. When the enemy is deprived of its primary target, it will often seek a secondary target. As I pondered this, I came to the conclusion that the dragon would find another woman, someone representing the Church. She would not be from America, since we were setting boundaries here. Most likely, she would be from Europe, perhaps from Britain, since Prince Charles had presided over the transfer ceremonies in Hong Kong on July 1^st.

Beyond that, I had no distinct discernment, other than the timing. The target would be taken either August 31 or September 1^st, since either date could fulfill the July 1^st event, when Britain released the Pearl of the Orient.

Well, we finished our work at Huntersville, NC on August 28 and began driving home to Minnesota. We came to Detroit on the night of August 31, and when I turned on the television at the hotel, they were talking about the death of Princess Diana. She was the alternate “pearl” consumed by the dragon. Since the royal family is the official head of the Church of England, this established Diana as a type of the Church. And the flag of Wales is the only one in the world that features a red dragon (or “griffin”).

The red dragon had consumed an alternate “pearl” at precisely the time we had discerned two months earlier. This ended “round one” of the Dragon Wars.