70 years of ministry
David was born in London in 1932, the younger twin son of Rev and Mrs. WG Hathaway and dedicated to the Lord as a baby by George Jeffreys, the founder of the Elim Pentecostal Churches in Britain. At the time, David's father, a great Bible teacher, was working with Jeffreys to establish these churches.
As a boy of 15, David was on holiday with some friends in Brighton, when one Saturday night, walking alone along the beach, he felt God begin to speak to him. He knew that God was calling him. You may ask, was he called as an evangelist, called as a pastor? No! God simply put His hand on David's life and said, "I want your life, everything, not just an hour, not just a day. I want everything."
At age 18, whilst still in Bible College, David pastored his first church in Dorking, Surrey. After 10 years as a full-time pastor and evangelist in Britain, David's ministry to Russia and Europe began in 1961 when he organised the first ever post-war overland expedition to Jerusalem - through the Iron Curtain countries.
(Listen to David speak about being called by God - and what has driven him to serve Jesus for 70 years.)
David Hathaway was dedicated to the Lord by Evangelist George Jeffreys.
David & Zena Hathaway; in her final days, Zena said of the ministry, "David, we did it together!"
David's ministry to Russia and Europe began in 1961 when he organised the first ever post-war overland expedition to Jerusalem - through Iron Curtain countries. Out of this, David began smuggling Bibles into Communist Russia and Eastern Europe until in 1972 when he imprisoned in Czechoslovakia. After serving just one year in prison, Harold Wilson personally came to release David, Easter 1973.
Bible smuggling using David's travel company buses.
Preaching in the Royal Albert Hall, Easter 1973, 4 days after his miraculous release from prison.
In 1988/89 & 1991/92, David organised four East/West 'EuroVision' conferences in Karlsruhe West Germany. Thousands of East Europeans came by a miracle through the Iron Curtain to receive a new Fire of the Holy Spirit.
David was at the forefront to bring the Good News to the Soviet Bloc, holding a crusade in Rovno, Ukraine in 1991, before communism fell there. In 1992 and 93 he was the first evangelist to hold a crusade in the Dynamo Stadium in Kiev.
All-Russia LIVE TV broadcast: In 2004, during one major campaign, David reached over 40 million Russians every day for ten consecutive days with LIVE-TV Evangelism.
In 2009, David held the first of two mass crusades in Vilnius, Lithuania. Attended by tens of thousands of people, these events unified for the first time, Christians across all denominations - Catholic and Protestant - in the preaching of the Gospel.
September 2011, David took an airfield to evangelise in Karkow, Poland.
In April 2011, David began preaching the Gospel to Russian Holocaust Survivors living in Israel, culminating in 4000 Russian Jews hearing in the Gospel in the amphitheatre in Caesarea 2016. Despite coronavirus, the ministry in Israel continues with many receiving Christ.
Faced with external territorial aggression since 2014, every major Ukrainian denomination has united with David in annual National Days of Prayer, so that in 2018 the President could say, the whole nation is turning back to God!