Sialkot city is situated in the north east of the Pakistani province Punjab at the edge of the great mountains of Kashmir. It is about 125 km North West of Lahore, the capital of Punjab. Historical references date the city back to 327 BC and advocate that the city is of Persian and/or Greek origin.

The city played an important role during the Pakistan Movement; and when Pakistan was founded during 1947, thousands of Muslims from Pathankot and Gurdaspur and from other parts of East Punjab came to Sialkot as refugees and settled.

The district area, 2,067 sq mi [5,354 sq km], stretches from the Ravi valley on the southeast to the Chenab River on the northwest. Sialkot (district) has a diverse population of 3,500,000 which mainly consists of Punjabis with a significant number of migrant Kashmiris and Pashtuns. The population of Sialkot city is about 550,000.
Sialkot has gradually become one of the major industrial centers of Pakistan and is well-known for its manufacture and export of surgical instruments, musical instruments, sports goods, leather goods, textile products and other light manufactures. Its people have built on their tradition of being hard working, entrepreneurial and progressive. It is one of the important cities of Pakistan generating revenues to boost the Pakistani economy.

The Sialkot Revival

It was to the Punjab in 1892 that the son of an Illinois Presbyterian minister, John Nelson Hyde (1865-1912), felt led to begin his lifetime of missionary endeavour. With periods of outright persecution, and few if any conversions, Hyde immediately began praying for revival.  So deep was his call to prayer that by 1899 he had begun to spend entire nights face down before God. But it was twelve years before he saw an answer to his prayer.

In 1904, Indian Christians and western missionaries gathered for the first of an annual series of conventions at Sialkot. To support this time of spiritual renewal, John Hyde and his friends formed the Punjab Prayer Union, setting aside half an hour each day to pray for revival. The results of their prayers were plainly seen at the Sialkot Convention as a special anointing fell upon those gathered. Year by year the prayer union fasted and prayed, and at each convention a growing urgency for evangelism and intercession filled each attendee. John Hyde emerged as the prayer leader, and all were amazed at both the depth of his spiritual insight, and the ferocity of his burden for India.

By 1908, John Hyde dared to pray what was to many at the convention an impossible request: that during the coming year in India one soul would be saved every day. Three hundred sixty five people converted, baptized, and publicly confessing Jesus as their Saviour. Impossible -- yet it happened. Before the next convention John Hyde had prayed more than 400 people into God's kingdom, and when the prayer union gathered again, he doubled his goal to two souls a day. Eight hundred conversions were recorded that year, and still Hyde showed an unquenchable passion for lost souls.

At the 1910 convention, those around Hyde marvelled at his faith, as they witnessed his near violent supplications, "Give me souls, oh God, or I die!" Before the meeting ended, John Hyde revealed that he was again doubling his goal for the coming year. Four souls saved every day. If on any day four people were not converted, Hyde said at night there would be such a weight on his heart he could not eat or sleep until he had prayed through to victory. The number of new converts continually grew.

It was in Calcutta that friends persuaded Hyde to see a doctor about his rapidly deteriorating health. The years of travail had obviously taken a toll. Yet no one expected the medical examiner's incredible diagnosis. John Hyde's heart had shifted out of its natural position on the left side of his chest to a place over on the right. It was unlike anything the doctor had seen before, and he warned Hyde that unless he got complete rest he would be dead in six months. In fact, Praying Hyde lived for nearly two more years, long enough to see a wave of revival sweep through the Punjab and the rest of India.

John Hyde died in 1912, aged just forty-seven. But his incredible life of prayer, faith, and soul-winning continues to inspire Christians today.

May we follow in the footsteps of this man of prayer, and intercede in expectant faith for the salvation of souls. May we too have the joy of seeing a harvest of souls won to Jesus?