The New Life, Inc.

Some of the events that happen in our lives we never forget. I remember one that took place many years ago when I was a small boy. I have a brother who is about one and a half years older than I am. I have always been small of stature, he is taller and larger.

The house we lived in had a shed on one end with a cellar underneath with a stone wall supporting the shed above. The cellar was used to store the wood for the winter, in the summer it was empty and we often played there.

My dad always warned us to stay away from the stone wall because it was crumbling some and needed repairs.

One day we were playing hide and seek. I was hiding and my brother had to find me. I made the mistake of hiding right by the base of that stone foundation. The stones were rather large and square and one fell on my head and pinned me to the ground. It was a dirt floor and the soil was very soft and moist so my head was pushed part way in the dirt. I started to scream, I was terrified. My brother came running, he grabbed that big stone and picked it off my head, it was a miracle. I believe it would have taken two men to pick that rock up. I believe that God intervened and gave my brother the strength he needed.

As I look back, I know God has given every one of us extra strength when the need was there. 

One day when we were at our home in Barton we received a call from a lady out on a farm about six miles away. She was really stressed out and could hardly talk on the phone. She was sure that she was dying and she was all alone in her house and she wanted us to come at once and pray for her. We got right in the car and drove to her home.

When we got there she was hardly able to breathe or stand on her feet. She said; “You must pray for me I am dying”. I said Lord; “What can I do for this lady?” the Lord reminded me of a healing event from the bible where Jesus said: “Is it harder to say your sins are forgiven or to say you are healed? I knew this was what I was to say to this woman.

I have discovered it is not always easy to follow the Lords direction. Your mind goes nuts. What will this person think, she will think I am crazy, but then I remember what the Lord had told when he called me into this ministry. “I will tell you what to say and do”!

I reached out and touched her and said; “Is it harder to say your sins are forgiven or to say you are healed?” She threw her hands in the air and started praising God. She said; “I am healed!”

We left and she was praising and thanking God.

A little event happened at Lake Eden last summer. We camp there for two weeks with the extended family every summer. We were all sitting by the lake watching a family of loons out in the middle of the lake; two adult loons were feeding their two babies.

Several hundred feet up the lake, a chunk of Styrofoam as large as a basketball was floating down toward the loons. As the styrofoam got close to the loons they became very excited. The male finally attacked the Styrofoam, jumped on it, threw it in the air, and then tried to drown it. He finally stabbed it with his beak and headed up the lake with a great commotion for about five hundred feet and dropped it. He went back to his family, the threat removed.

The wind was blowing in just the right direction and a few minutes later his family was once again under attack by the styrofoam. He once again fought with it for a little while. He did not seem to be winning. He somehow grabbed it once again, only this time instead of heading up the lake, he headed for the further shore and dropped it by the edge of the lake.

The lesson here; if one direction doesn’t work, change directions!

We had a little dog named Tippie, a mixed breed rabbit dog. She was a wonderful house pet and loved to chase rabbits. She would visit all the neighbors and they all cared for her because we were gone most of the time.

When she was about fifteen years old she became very stiff in her rear legs and hips, it really hurt her to get up. She always slept right at the bottom of the stairs of our split level house. We had to step over her to go up stairs to the living room and the master bedroom.

One night we came home from a meeting and she tried to get up and she was crying from the pain. I knelt down by her and laid my hands on her and said; “Lord you love animals as well as people, and I am laying my hands on Tippie to be healed, Thank you Lord”. When we got up in the morning, Tippie Jumped to her feet and ran out doors, she lived several more years with good health.