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Prior to Bulgaria: 1980--1991
Spiritual events in my life prior to Bulgaria
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1980 (at age 40)
After losing a tennis match in very humid weather which fogged up my glasses, I was sitting alone (dejectedly) when God said very clearly within me (in a medium-volume voice) something very close to this: “When are you going to have had enough of this?”. I was shocked; absolutely no one else was anywhere around at the time ... I knew for sure that this had to be God!
1983
I was curious about a newspaper ad, and I dragged a friend to see evangelist Morris Cerullo broadcast live via satellite from Brazil. We sat in the front row, and I was overcome by the gospel message. About 6 months later ... my ideas, opinions, attitudes, interests, etc. changed. Soon I started reading the Bible and going to an evangelical
church. Later, I was blessed to hear Billy Graham say on TV that he didn't know he had been saved until 6 months after it happened!
1987
In the Spring, I met Yvonne (my wife). In the summer, I went on a previously-planned missionary trip for 3 weeks with a large group of 260 to Taipei (Taiwan), Bankok (Thailand), Hong Kong, and comm-unist China. In September, Yvonne and I were married.
1988
The church where we attended decided to install a baptistry, and God asked us to donate $500 towards the expense. In fact, He told Yvonne that He would really bless us if we were obedient in doing this. We were obedient, and a few weeks later we flew to Canada to spend the Christmas holidays with my relatives. On the return trip home, we were in Chicago ready to board our flight home, but the plane was over-booked. They asked for volunteers to give up their seats, offering $200 per seat in American Airlines travel vouchers.
We volunteered, but there weren’t enough others, so the money they were offering kept going up. At $1000 per seat, they finally had enough volunteers. Then 5 hours later, we were ready to take the next flight, and the plane was over-booked again! We volunteered to accept $500 each in vouchers, as well as a free over-night stay (and dinner) at the luxurious Westin Hotel.
So now we had $3000 in American Airlines travel vouchers to be used during the next year. Our desire was to tour Israel, but God never gave us peace about it. However, we did feel led to go on a 3-week tour of Europe. So, in the summer of 1989, we headed off for a whirlwind tour of 9 European countries, including the 2 Eastern European communist countries of Hungary and Yugoslavia. Any fear of me going to a communist country was lost because of this trip.
1990
While I was preparing to buy a boat, God said in a very loud voice, “NO!”. Like in 1980, there was absolutely no one else around at the time (the owner of the boat had gone upstairs)!
It was in 1990 (or maybe 1989) when Yvonne and I were going home from church. I was discouraged at not being able to receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and I commented something to her like: “I probably won't get it for another 93 years!”. I actually said this!
You can be assured, the one and only Living God has a great sense of humor; I received the baptism with the Holy Spirit in 1993!
1991
One Saturday morning, I woke up with a major “muscle pull” in my back; it must have been the way I slept. During many years of playing basketball, I have had several of these types of injuries, and I knew this one would take about 10 days to heal. At 9am, an elderly lady from our church phoned, and asked me how I was. I told her that I was in pain and why. She said, “No problem”, and told me to put my right hand where the pain was, and she said we would pray in agreement about it and the Lord would take care of it. So, we prayed in faith “in the name of Jesus”, and instantly the pain was gone!
It was very interesting for us because for the next several months ...
I had a very slight pain in that area of my back. I explained to people: “It’s obvious that God wants to keep reminding me of His great healing power, and when and how He healed me!”
Next up: Not sure I'm telling the truth?
my first trip to Bulgaria in 1992. ... Please CLICK HERE
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