Part 6

I met her twin sister several years later who said she had been well ever since, healthy and strong.

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In 1916 while in Denmark I contracted tuberculosis of the throat and head. I got so weak that while holding a meeting in company with Brother Carl Forsberg out from Pandrup, Denmark, one evening before the service started I was suffering so intensely that I went out into the cow barn, sat down on a milk stool coughing and spitting, praying and weeping until I was so weak that I was unable to get up when I tried to do so. Time for meeting came, and the folks did not know what had become of me, so a Brother Madson, a big strong man, went out to look for me. When he found me he picked me up and carried me in, laid me on the lounge and the saints prayed for me, and I got strength to get up and preach. We closed the services that evening. Brother Forsberg returned to Sweden and I to my headquarters at Hjoring. I went to a specialist and asked him to write me a permit so that I could return to America. After he had examined me he said that he could not give me the permit as I would not be permitted to go aboard ship in the condition I was in. He said, "You would not live until you got there if you did start." I told him that I would like to be with my folks when I leave this world. He replied, "I don't blame you but it can't be done."

Then I got a letter from Brother and Sister Johnson of Jotta, Sweden, saying that "Brother Forsberg had come home saying that it looked as though the Lord was through with Brother Susag, he was no near gone. Wife and I agreed in prayer and the Lord says He is going to heal you and that you are going to preach to us here many times."

The following Sunday we had services in Hjoring at eleven o'clock, although I did not seem to be able to stand up, but I thought I might just as well go to heaven from the pulpit as to go from the bed, if I was going to die anyway. After I had been speaking about fifteen minutes I quit, as the pain got so intense in my throat I could hardly speak above a whisper, and the audience could not hear me. I went up stairs in the chapel where I had my room, and I lay down on the bed suffering intensely.

Outside my door was a tree and a little bird hopped onto a branch and began to sing. (I do not know the name of the bird, but the species was like the birds that used to come to our grove at home in Minnesota and sing. But I had never before heard one in my travels in Europe). I turned to the bird and said, "Did my heavenly Father send you from Minnesota to Denmark to sing for me when I was so troubled?" And the more I would speak to him the more he would flap his wings and sing and sing until I could forget my pain and had to laugh aloud. It was nearly four o'clock and that was the time for the next service. I got up and got ready for the service, and when I came into the pulpil to preach, to my surprise, I was perfectly healed and could speak as loud as ever without pain.

The next morning I went to the specialist and asked him to examine me again to see if I could go home if I wanted to. After examining me he said, "Man, O man, what have you done? There is not a T. B. germ about you--you can go or stay as you please." I told him I had done nothing, but that the people of God had been praying for me, the results of which was a great surprise to the doctor. This is the way the Lord deals with his unworthy, humble children that trust and obey Him.

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I have generally observed a rule of not eating my evening meal until after the evening service. One evening in Sweden I ate a little fish out of a can that had been standing open for some time. After eating a little of the fish I remembered that the can had been standing open and did not eat any more. About a half an hour after I had retired and gone to sleep, I woke up feeling deathly sick with ptomaine poisoning. It seemed as if I was to be taken out of this world. All through the night Brother Forsberg, Sister Bettie Miller and others kept praying for me and the next day my life seemed to hang on a thread, but at five o'clock that evening we got the victory and I was perfectly healed, and able to speak in the service that night.

Some years afterwards while at Camp meeting at Anderson, Ind. I was poisoned in about the same manner. A number of brethren prayed for me without my getting any relief. Finally, Brother George Green, now pastor at Hanford, California, a true yoke-fellow of mine who loved me dearly, broke down and wept and had compassion on me and prayed a short prayer of faith and rebuked the devil and the sickness, and I was healed instantly. The Bible says of Jesus, "He had compassion on the people and healed all that came unto him."

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On one ocassion in 1933 I was not feeling very well. I was on my way to California and stopped in Minneapolis where my three boys live. When they saw that I was not well, they were determined to take me to a doctor and have me examined. He ordered me to a hospital where five doctors took six x-rays. After taking the x-rays, the doctors asked me, "What do you think you have?" I said, "The same as you think." They said, "What do we think?" "Cancer!" I said. "No," they said. I said, "Why do you lie, you said it was cancer and a bad one." They said, "Do you understand Latin?" I said, "I understand that much." In the evening the doctor called my son Clarence and said to him, "Shall I tell your dad what the matter is with him, or will you?" He answered, "It doesn't matter who tells him, as he is ready to live or to die; we want to know the worst." The doctor said, "It is the worst. Bring him to my office tomorrow at three o'clock." I heard the five doctors talking the case over between themselves, stating the position of the cancer.

On coming to the office the next day the doctor said, "I have good news for you, Reverend, you have no cancer." I asked him, "When did you lie to me, yesterday or today?" He said, "Neither, the picture clearly shows cancer. They forgot to take your food test so you had to go back to the hospital to have it taken and in the food test there was no cancer." The doctor asked, "What did you do, once a cancer but none now?" I said, "I did like a little story we ministers have about a little boy and his sister. They were out playing, and at eleven o'clock Mary was hungry and went in to ask mother for a slice of bread, but mother said, it is soon time for lunch, go out and play now, until lunch is ready. Then Freddy went in and asked for bread and he came out with a slice of bread with butter on it. Then Mary said, 'What did you do to get it?' 'I cried for it,' answered Freddy," so did I.

The Lord made them forget to take the food test at first in order to verify the miracle.

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One day I was plowing, since I had asked the boys to let me plow for the exercise it gave me. It was about ten o'clock in the morning and I had stopped and gotten off the gang plow to let the horses rest and stood looking south in the field when I saw six or eight feet before me dear Brother A. G. Ahrendt standing and smiling at me, just as real as if he were there in the flesh. "Brother Ahrendt is leaving Grand Forks by my orders," the Lord said to me. "If by your orders he is leaving there, amen," I replied. I then turned to get on the plow when on the other side of the plow there stood a lady minister and the Lord said, "Some are contemplating getting her as the pastor and that will be the ruination of the work in Grand Forks." (Not because there was anything wrong with her as a minister but because she would not fit in the place). The vision disappeared and I went to plowing.

Two or three days later I became so burdened about Grand Forks that I was almost sick, so I wrote to Brother Ahrendt and asked if anything was wrong or anyone sick, for I was so burdened. I expected an answer right away, but didn't get it, so wrote again and still no answer. The next week I wrote for the third time telling them that I was going through Grand Forks on my way to Raab for a meeting, and would be in Grand Forks and they could arrange a meeting for me over Friday night, Saturday and Sunday if he wanted me. Then a letter came from Sister Ahrendt saying her husband was away and that they were leaving Grand Forks.

Sunday afternoon, when in Grand Forks, I went by invitation to Brother Lars Olson's home and there met the four leaders of the congregation: August Shave, Bertha Gaulke, Lars Olson and Sister Johnstone. They told me that they had been talking of sending for me; Bro. Shave had proposed sending me the money for carfare, but Bro. Olson said, "No, we won't do that; we will ask the Lord to send him here and we will pay his expenses when he comes." These prayers going up from the dear ones in Grand Forks was what made the Lord burden my heart before I went there.

They then begged me to be their pastor, and I finally consented to come and stay with them for a month or three months or until they could get a pastor. I stayed with them for almost five years.

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While holding a meeting in company with Brother Renbeck in a school house out in the country between Kelly and Manville, N. Dakota and staying in the home of Bro. and Sister Holman, one afternoon as I was praying the Lord gave me a message on the judgments of God, and what would happen, even in this world, if people reject the Word of God. The Lord said to me, "They will close the school house." Then I asked Brother Holman if we should close the services tonight, where shall we go if we continue them? He said, "We surely are not going to close the services tonight; we will continue at the school house." I said, "The school house will be closed to us tonight." To which he answered, "Who said so?" I told him that the Lord had told me. Brother Holman then said, "You are a good Brother, but this time you are mistaken, for they would not dare close the school house because three of the saints' families are the biggest taxpayers in the district."

At the beginning of the service that evening, Brother Renbeck got up and commenced to preach on the subject, "The Church as a House." After speaking for about ten minutes, he sat down and said, "This is not the message for tonight." We knelt down and prayed asking the Lord to give a message, and the Lord said, "I have given you a message." I said, "Lord, that is too strong," but the Lord answered, "It is the message for this people."

The school house was large and it was filled. It was said that there were two or three congressmen in the crowd. I got up and spoke for an hour and fifteen minutes on the message the Lord had given me and when I was through I said, "Shall we close the services now, or has anyone a place to offer so we can continue the meeting, as I understand that the school house is closed against us?" The clerk of the school board (who with his family were professors of religion) went over to Bro. Holman and asked him who had told Susag that the school house was to be closed. The Board had only met just before meeting and decided to close. Brother Holman replied that Brother Susag told him that afternoon that the Lord had told him that they were going to close. The man went back to his seat. Then I said, "Is it true or not that the school house is to be closed?" Brother Holman answered, "It is true."

One man in the audience sat on the front edge of the bench so deeply interested in the service that his mouth would be wide open, and after the meeting was over he stuck a five dollar bill in my hand and said that the meeting had been worth that to him.

A man in the audience, who was an infidel, said, "I own a store building in Mechinoch, a few miles away, that these two preachers may have as long as they please, if some one can furnish a stove and wood to warm up the building." The stove and wood were promptly furnished, and we went there accordingly, and continued our services.

I am sorry to say that many who heard the Word of God preached in that school house rejected it and became real outlaws. The family of the school board clerk lost their salvation and two of their sons, who had previously professed salvation, became bootleggers.

At the store building a number of people got saved. One man sat in the back seat every evening and left as soon as the preaching was over. I saw that he was under conviction and one evening I got to him before he had left, and I asked him if he did not want to get saved and he told me, "Yes." While praying with him I felt a hand on my shoulder and a man said to me, "Brother Susag, Brother Susag, never mind this man; there are thirty-three at the altar and this man has not been sober in fourteen years." I said, "If he has not been sober for fourteen years he surely needs salvation and I will stay with him until he gets saved." And I did; and as far as I know he remained a true Christian and lived the life.

The first revival meeting we ever had in our neighborhood was held in our own house. The house 16 x 24, two rooms down stairs and one room upstairs. As many as thirty-eight slept in the house; the women and children slept upstairs and the men downstairs. There was one bed in which the children slept and the women slept on the floor as did the men downstairs. People were saved, sanctified and healed. It was salvation the people wanted in those days.