Part 13

When Brother August Christofersen of Norway Lake, Minnesota, was down with double pneumonia I was sent for to come and pray for him. I went and prayed for him and the Lord raised him up. I stayed for three days, went home and in three or four days received a phone call to come back. I asked whether he was sick. They answered, "No, but he wants to see you." I was able to get a ride almost to his place, and walked the rest of the way. On nearing his home I turned in to a grove I had to pass and kneeled down to pray for the brother. The Lord said to me, "You do not need to pray for him now; he is home with me." On coming toward the house his brother came out to meet me, and I said to him, "So Brother August is home with the Lord!" He said, "How did you know?" I said, "The Lord told me over in the grove."

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While I was in Denmark I was invited to come to a certain town with which I was entirely unacquainted. Finally when I found time to go I went without writing to announce my coming. On arriving in the city I found I had forgotten both the name and address of my friends. I walked back and forth on the depot platform, racking my brain, as it were, to come across the needed address, but I just could not remember it. A man spoke to me and said, "You seem to be in deep meditation, or in trouble of some kind." I said, "I surely am." To which he replied, "Sometimes we get into such a fix; do you suppose I could be of any help to you?" But I answered, "I don't suppose you can." However, I told him my trouble. He laughed and said, "Surely you are in bad fix; can't you think of anything?" "The only thing I can think of," I said, "is that they are the parents of Mrs. Anna Nelson of Kaas, Denmark." "Well," he said, "you haven't struck it so bad after all--I am her father!"

When I was pastor in Grand Forks we had in the congregation a mother in Israel, a German sister who could not speak English. One Sunday evening the Lord had blessed in a spiritual way. Mother Calm said to Brother Shave, "I can preach Bro. Susag's sermon in German now." (I had preached in English.) Bro. Shave said, "You can't do it." But she said, "I can." At that, Brother Shave raised his voice and said, "Everybody wait a little while." And, sure enough, Sister Calm preached my sermon, the Germans said, "almost to a word."

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At the St. Paul Camp meeting one time, Sister Aamot came to me telling me she had lost a five dollar bill, over which she was feeling very badly. Her husband was not saved. She wanted me to pray that the Lord would help her find it. She told me she thought she had lost it on her way coming from the Old People's Home to the tabernacle. It had been blowing pretty hard that day and she had the bill in her handkerchief.

I went out into the timber to pray, and how the wind did blow! After I had been earnestly praying that the Lord would help me to find the bill for her and was getting up from my knees, on looking down into the leaves, lo, there, between my knees, was the five dollar bill! And the sister had no difficulty in proving that it was her five dollar bill.

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While still in Denmark, one time Brother Morris Johnson and I were holding a meeting on a farm. As we saw a large, fine looking man coming toward the meeting place, Morris said, "Let's go behind the barn and pray God Almighty to convict and save that man this afternoon." And the Lord honored our faith and really saved the man that afternoon.

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I was holding a meeting in Albert Lee, Minnesota and from there was intending to go to Greenwood, Wisconsin. I looked at my time-table to find out what the railroad fare would be and I figured it to be thirteen dollars, so asked the Lord to give me thirteen dollars that evening. At the close of the service someone put some money in my pocket and I began to thank the Lord for thirteen dollars. The devil said, "You haven't got thirteen dollars in your pocket," but I said I had. He said, "Just feel in your pocket and you will find there is hardly anything there, or take it out and count it and you will see." I told him that I would neither feel in my pocket nor count the money for him, and that I had thirteen dollars.

When I got to my room I knelt down and thanked the Lord for thirteen dollars, and then took the money out of my pocket and counted it and found I had $13.05. On buying my ticket the next day it cost $13.05! I had made a mistake in my figuring, but the Lord knew the exact fare.

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During the meeting at Greenwood I went out inviting folks to the services. One day I came to a farm house where the man of the house was ill in bed with tuberculosis of the spine. I told him that I was a minister and also, that I believed in Divine healing. When he heard this, he said, "You are the very man the Lord has sent to me that I may be healed." I said, "I do not know about that; however, I will pray for you. I am impressed of the Lord not to anoint you. I will be back on Friday afternoon, and in the meantime will pray the Lord to show me what to do." With this arrangement the sick man was satisfied. It was now dusk, and on reaching my room in the house where I stayed, I knelt down beside a chair to pray for him. As I did so, a cow and three sheep stood right before me. I did this four times, and as soon as I would get on my knees here were the cow and three sheep between me and God, so to speak. So I gave up trying for that time, but the next day at ten o'clock I went in to pray for him again in broad daylight. But as I did so, the cow and the sheep were there before me.

On the appointed Friday I went to see him again. He inquired at once what the Lord had made known to me about him. I told him the Lord had shown me something but that I did not understand what it meant. He was anxious to hear what it was, and I related the vision I had had. He said, "I perceive that the Lord has sent you to be a help to me," and continuing, went on to say, "We used to live in Iowa on a good sized farm and we were well-to-do financially. I was very much interested in spiritual work, even to printing and sending out a number of tracts. But it seemed that my poor soul was clinging to the worldly thing too much. I was troubled about it, off and on. However, your vision means that if I only had a cow and three sheep--which we have--if my soul is clinging to them I can never enter heaven." "Surely," he said, "the Lord has sent you to help me. Please pray that I get right with God; that is the main thing." The dear man bitterly repented and became very happy. The third day following this event he went home to glory.

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I had promised that after this meeting I would go to hold a meeting at Dallas, Wisconsin, but the Lord impressed me to go home. Knowing no reason for going home, I bought my ticket only to a certain station where I would have to change if I went to Dallas, thinking that maybe my feelings would change before I got there. But there was no change in my feelings when we got there, so I bought a ticket to St. Paul and from there got a ticket to Hawick, Minnesota, which is just three miles from my home.

On the street in Hawick, I met a young brother who exclaimed when he saw me, "Oh, so you got our postal card?" I replied, "I did not get any postal card." Then he said, "But you got the telegram?" I told him I had not received any telegram either. "Well, then," said he, "how did you happen to come home?" I told him that the Lord wanted me to come home, and then asked him what the trouble was. He told me that my wife was very sick, near to dying. Then he very kindly said he would take me out home. On arriving home wife said, "I knew you were coming; I asked the Lord to send you." She was suffering from an internal malady from which the nurse had told her she could not recover, and so made up her mind that she was going to die.

Right at this time we received a letter from Brothers Nelson and Niles requesting me to come and hold a tent meeting for them in San Antonio and that I should bring my tent with me to hold the meeting in. Of course, I felt I could not go and wrote them to that effect. Meanwhile, wife had persuaded me that she was going to die, and being in poor circumstances, I said to her, "You will not hold it against me, if when you die, I sell out and take a homestead and so get out of debt, will you?" And her reply was, "When I am dead you can do what you please."

Just about that time we got a letter from the Brothers Nelson and Niles telling us they had been praying and the Lord had showed them that Sister Susag was not going to die. On hearing this, wife said, "The good brethren do not know any better; I am going to die." (And I was thinking so, too, as she was getting no help.) More and more I was thinking about the homestead; but wife told me I had better go to Texas. It seemed almost impossible to get anyone to come and stay with her and the children, yet she would say, "We will get along some way and you had better go or else souls will be lost. If I should pass away before you get back you know where I am going and if you keep true to the Lord we will meet in glory."

But I did not feel as though I could go and leave her that way. A couple of nights after I had had this conversation with her I had a dream. I saw a little table standing beside my bed on which was a kerosene lamp. The light was just about to go out. It would light up a little and then go down till it looked as though it was just ready to quit burning. I saw Jesus standing on the other side of the table with a sad look on his face, pointing to the lamp and saying, "Your lamp is about to go out." And I awoke from my dream and jumped out of bed, ran into the next room and said to my wife, "On Tuesday morning, I leave for Texas whether you are living or dying." To which she replied, "Praise the Lord for your decision."

The Lord miraculously sent a good sister to our home from Washington. She arrived the morning I was leaving for Texas. When she discovered the circumstances, and that wife was sick, she said, "Now I know why the Lord sent me here, and I'm here to stay until Sister Susag is well."

So I went to San Antonio. This was in the year 1902. At one place where I had to change trains on the way, I took my grip and walked out on the platform toward the train I was to take. There I stood and did not get on the train, and the train pulled out without me. I walked back to the depot, and the agent asked me whether I had intended to take that train and why I did not get on it. I simply told him I didn't know why. "Well," he said, "you fool, you will now have to wait four hours and take a slow train." (I understood a little later why I was held back from boarding that train. Only forty-five miles out it became derailed and some forty passengers were seriously injured and, if my memory is correct, some were killed.)

When the tent meeting was over at San Antonio, Bro. Nelson left with me and we were expecting to stop over in Hamilton and Kingston, Mo. to hold some services. As we came closer to the first place Bro. Nelson said, "Here the saints are well-to-do people." So, I thought, if they are well-to-do we will not need to spend our time asking God for our car fare, for they well know that preachers need car fare. The congregation rented a room for us about a couple of blocks from the depot and we ate our meals in the different homes.

After the meeting had closed and we had gone to our room at eleven p. m., Brother Nelson asked me whether I had received money for our car fare. I told him I had not; that I thought he had received it all, since he had been there before. But he hadn't received any. We then decided we had better see whether we had enough money to take us to the next place. Brother Nelson had enough for his fare and eight cents over; I was lacking two dollars. We were to leave on the four-thirty train in the morning, and now we had to pray the Lord to get us the two dollars!

As for me, I was not acquainted in the city and did not know where to go to raise a penny. We prayed until two o'clock, then I said to Brother Nelson, "We do not need to pray any longer; the Lord says He will attend to it." We went to bed for about an hour and a half. We went to the depot and Brother Nelson bought his ticket, then I ordered mine and put what money I had in the window of the ticket office. While the agent was counting the money, a man came running very fast into the waiting room and stuck his left hand right in front of my nose through the ticket window and left two dollars there, then turned and went out so fast that I had no chance to thank him. Brother Nelson looked at the man, and then asked me whether I knew him, but I had never seen him before, nor had Brother Nelson. The lesson I learned from this incident was that it is better to depend upon the Lord than on well-to-do saints.

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On arriving home I told wife of the incident. She at once asked me whether I was sure it was a man who brought the two dollars. I said, "To me he looked like an angel, and he would have looked so to you if you had been in a like fix."