Part 5

At the next year's state camp meeting he came to me and said, "Can we go over into the timber?" Of course I said, "Yes." On our way over he told me that a would-be preacher had talked to him about me, accusing me of many things but that he had found out that they were not true. Then he asked me to forgive him and he also asked the Lord to forgive him, as he had lied to me.

It is too bad that such things happen, as a finer brother than Brother Gustafson there never was.

Then Brother Gustafson told me that the Lord spoke to him telling him he should have given ten dollars to me for that meeting, but now the Lord tells him it is to be fifty, and he wrote me out a check for that amount.

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A WONDERFUL INCIDENT

Father Brewster, as he was commonly called, of Hereford, Minnesota, was taken sick and was sick for some time. If I am correctly informed, he was 89 years of age. For a number of days it was thought that he was dead but the doctor said that he was still living, but he might go almost any time, and the family sent for me to come and conduct the funeral services. He had been in a coma for eight days. On arriving I found that the doctors had not yet pronounced him dead. I went into the bedroom where he lay and stood looking at him for a few minutes, meditating on the many good times we had had together in the Lord. Finally I fell on my knees and began to pray. Suddenly he called out in a loud voice, "Praise the Lord, Brother Susag." He never moved a hand or a finger, all that he moved was his lips and the next day he passed away. He had not spoken a word for eight days.

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One year when I was the evangelist at the S. Dakota State camp meeting, I mentioned one day in my sermon that I was very busy and had received enough calls since I had come to the camp meeting to keep me going for two years. After the service Brother Geselbeck, the elder of the church, came to me and said, "Let us go down to the car," which we did. He began by saying, "I've always had confidence in you, Brother Susag, but today in something you said, I thought you went too far, so I decided to speak to you at once as I did not want to lose my confidence in you." I said, "Thank you, that's fine, brother; what was it I said?" "You said that you had received enough calls since you had been at the meeting to keep you going for two years, and this is only the third day!" "Did I say that?" I asked. "Maybe I said too much, but we will see I have the letters here in my pocket and they are addressed to Arlington, Route 1, South Dakota." So we took the letters and read them and found that if I were to hold meetings at each place as long as they stated in the letters it would have taken me twenty-six months. Bro. Geselbeck then said, "I knew you were a busy man, but I never knew you were that busy, and I am glad that I spoke to you!" Yes, if we would all do that way when something is in question it would avoid a whole lot of misunderstanding.

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I once had a cancer on my upper lip and one day I met Dr. Sandven on the street of my home town. He stopped and said to me, "You had better come over to the hospital and we will burn that thing out or else you will have something." I replied, "I've got something already." "Yes," he said, "but we may be able to burn it out yet." "Well," I said, "I believe I will wait on my own Doctor a little while yet." "All right," he said, "if you don't get rid of it, come over and we will try to help you."

A few days after this I went to Erie, North Dakota to hold a tent meeting for Sister Bertha Gaulke who was the pastor of the church there. We had prayer often, but for two nights the pain was so intense it seemed as though the roots of the cancer were going into my nose and up into my left eye. The third night I was weeping and praying and finally I went to sleep, and in my sleep the Lord said to me, "Wake up and take hold of the cancer; I have heard your prayers and it will come out." I woke up and did as the Lord directed, and out it came, roots and all!

I have had (and still do have) many dreams. The Bible says, that "... old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions." (Joel 2:28).

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During the time I was pastor in Grand Forks I needed a fountain pen. Sisters Hulda and Louise Werstlein gave me five dollars to get a pen, to be my Christmas present. I sent to my son, who was agent for such things, and he got me a $7.50 Waterman pen for the five dollars. After the Minnesota State camp meeting, Sister Moon of Canbee, Minnesota asked me to take her and her two children home. On reaching Montevideo I met Brother Thomas Nelson who said he would like to have a long talk with me. I told him that he could take Sister Moon and the children and myself and we could talk then as we went back and forth, which we did, but when I arrived home my pen was gone!

I wrote to the pastor at Montevideo asking him to look in Brother Nelson's car and around in the grass where the car had stood, thinking the pen might have fallen out of his car when I took my coat out of his car and put in in mine. About a week later I got a card saying there was no pen to be found anywhere.

A few nights later I had a dream. I saw my pen. It was standing up against a small willow in a bunch of grass in the road ditch; it was very dusty.

Some days after this, as I was on my way to town going north, I passed the road going west which I had been on when I lost my pen. The Lord said, "Why don't you go and get your pen?" I laughed to myself, but kept on driving and again the Lord said, "Why don't you get your pen; why don't you get your pen?" Finally I had to turn back, and as I did so I said to myself, "This is a trip that I'll never tell anyone about, starting out for 136 miles to look for a pen in a road ditch!"

After going a mile and three quarters I saw to my left a little willow sticking up just like the one I saw in my dream. I stopped the car and went to look, and there stood my pen just as it was in my dream.

We might ask how it got there. The only answer I can give is that I must have had my coat over the front seat of the car and the coat must have fallen down, and when I reached for it while the car was going the pen must have fallen out of my coat pocket in the dark.

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A WONDERFUL INCIDENT

I had arrived home on Saturday, and Sunday I went to the service. The pastor said, "Now I know why I haven't a message today," and turning to me he said, "You speak for me." But I said, "No, I did not bring my Bible along." "Well," someone said, "we can let you have a Bible." I said, "Soneone else must have the message." There were two other ministers there, but neither had a message. Finally wife said, "Husband, I get a number of letters and here's one that reads like this, 'Dear Sister Susag: You should have been in our service last night. We had a wonderful message and a wonderful service. Several were saved, and do you know who preached for us? Your husband preached for us.'" Then she said, "Why don't you give us a message like that at home?" And they all said, "That's right."

Then I got a text. I looked at my watch and it was eleven o'clock. I knew the pastor had to be home at 12:30, but I forgot all about it, and not a person moved, not even the little children, while I preached. When I quit I thought it would be around 12:10 or 12:15, but on looking at my watch it was 3:15 in the afternoon. I had preached for four hours and fifteen minutes and the pastor and audience declared there must be something wrong with our watches! It seemed as if we must have been pretty close to the third heaven!

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On one occasion while I was in Europe I visited at my wife's request, a cousin of hers who had been ill and confined to her bed for twenty-one years. She had become bedfast when she was nineteen. When I first visited her, as she did not understand anything about divine healing, she got quite peeved at the instructions I gave her. However her father, my wife's uncle, got gloriously saved. Two weeks later I got a letter from the woman asking me to come again and I went. Then she repented and turned to the Lord. I prayed for her and the Lord raised her up.

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Once in a city called Stavanger, Norway, I was asked to come and pray for a sister who was in the last stages of tuberculosis of the lungs. As some of the people over there teach that it is witchcraft to heal by the word of God and prayer, a mob had gathered to stone me, and the folks called me and asked me not to anoint and pray for fear the people might do me bodily harm. I told them that I was not any better than the apostles or any other of God's ministers, and if that was to be my lot I would be willing to die for the gospel's sake.

I anointed and prayed for the woman and the Lord raised her up to the great astonishment of the people and no bodily harm came to me.