FSM 416—August 2005

FD/MM/FM/AM

Recommended reading for ages 12 and up. May be read to younger ages at parents' discretion.

[Editor's note: These articles and testimonies have been collected over the last couple of years, so some of them are older, and in some cases the people are no longer in the countries mentioned. However, the Lord led us to put these stories together in an FSM in order to boost our faith in His power to do miracles on our behalf through the keys. We pray these are a great encouragement and inspiration to you!]

Family members in China use pen names for their contributions to the FSM.

Healing the Unborn

By Priscila (of Francesco), Moldova

While out one day, we bumped into Mariana, a girl who'd been a catacomber a few years ago. She'd been making progress for a while, but then it had become obvious to us that she was very materialistic, and wasn't about to serve the Lord with the Family. She started going to different churches to look for a job, and finally settled on working with an American church in town, where, due to our training, she was almost right away put in charge of the youth meetings, the new converts, music, and teaching English to the children.

We knew about all this when we met her on the street. We also knew that she had gotten married, as we'd even tried to have classes with her and her husband, but though she would have liked to continue, her husband proved to be a disturbance in class, questioning everything we'd say. So we'd stopped.

When we saw Mariana, she was pregnant. After talking a little, she told us that she was facing some big trials in her life. The doctors had told her that she would have a handicapped child. She was seven months pregnant at the time. She told us that the doctors had detected a cyst next to the baby's head, and so had decided to do further investigations. Though the cyst disappeared by itself in a few weeks, the baby was diagnosed as having 47XXY syndrome (Klinefelter syndrome). They tested for it twice, and both tests confirmed this. We told Mariana that we would pray for her, and she thanked us.

On our next prayer day, we prayed for her situation. One of us saw a vision of a big light, and the Lord told us that two of us should go that day to pray for Mariana's baby's healing. We phoned her, letting her know that we would like to come and pray for her. She was very happy about that, and when we arrived we found that her husband had also changed a lot, and was much more respectful and receptive.

They told us how the doctors had gotten quite impatient with her when she refused to have an abortion, and had even started treating her badly, as if she was crazy. They told her that no woman ever kept a baby who was diagnosed as having this disease. They showed her horrible pictures from a book printed in the '60s in the former Soviet Union that described how she could expect her baby to look. They told her the child would be violent, unable to recognize his family, hitting his parents, etc. When she insisted on keeping the baby, they called her husband over and started working on him. Though he had become a Christian, he'd asked her to have an abortion. When she had stood her ground, he left for a month to think about whether they should stay together or not. He came back, determined to have the baby and to pray for a miracle.

Before we prayed, I explained to Mariana about the keys of the Kingdom. I told her that we'd be calling on the keys, so that she wouldn't be surprised. When we prayed for her, I again saw a big light surrounding her tummy. I told her about it, and she said she believed that it meant healing. When I returned home, I asked the Lord about what effect our visit there had, and He said that her baby was now healed. Though I didn't have the faith to show her the prophecy right away, I kept reminding the Lord of it when I was praying for this situation.

They did have a healthy baby boy, Bogdan Emanuel! The only specialist on this kind of disorder in Moldova saw the baby and said that there is no trace of this sickness in him. The specialist kept wondering how the other doctors had come up with such a diagnosis. Bogdan is not only a healthy child, but also a very well-developed one. At only a few days old, he held his head up for the first time. He makes noises that older babies make, and the doctor considers his intelligence and physical development well above average.

Made-to-Measure Miracle

By Michael Newman, England

This miracle of healing took place 21 years ago, when I first joined the Family in England. One day, when returning from outreach, the brother I was with, David (of Dove), noticed that I was wearing a special shoe with a built-up heel on my right foot. This was because one of my legs was shorter than the other. Because of this, I was medically classed as disabled. A specialist, whom I'd consulted about back trouble I was having, told me that a difference of more than one cm between leg lengths (mine was about 1.5 cm) was technically a disability. My spine had taken on an "S" shaped curve to compensate for the short leg, and normal daily activities caused aches and pains. The only remedy was to wear a special shoe to compensate for the short leg.

After I explained this, David told me he too had suffered from the same problem, but a Christian doctor had prayed with him and the Lord had grown his leg out on the spot! Immediately after hearing this brother's testimony, the faith was born in me that the Lord could do the same for me. I received the verse Hebrews 13:8, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever."

"Let's pray for your leg when we get home," said David, and I agreed!

Back at the Home, I sat on a straight-backed chair and extended my legs straight out in front of me, and David held my feet in his hands. After we praised the Lord, David said a simple prayer, asking the Lord to grow the short leg to match the other one. Only a few seconds later, I could feel my short leg heating up and a strange sensation as though it was becoming elastic. Then I watched in amazement as my leg actually started to grow out from the bottom of my trouser leg. Some skin started showing between the bottom of my trouser leg and the top of my sock, and the visible area of this skin started to increase. This lasted for a couple of seconds, after which I noticed that the bottoms of both of my feet were now level with each other, whereas previously they were not. David said, "Keep your feet still—you're moving them around." I replied that I hadn't moved a muscle.

I then stood up, and it felt like the floor was raised up underneath my right foot, as my body wasn't used to having both legs the same length! Also, looking down, I could see that the made-to-measure trousers I was wearing were now too short on the right leg, as they had been shortened to compensate for it. I looked in the mirror also, and noticed that my shoulders were now even, whereas before the right shoulder would hang down, with my whole skeleton being out of balance. Then when I put my shoes on, they were useless, as it felt like my right foot was standing on a block. All the back pain disappeared immediately! I had to go out and get new shoes and trousers, but I wasn't going to complain about that, ha! Praise the Lord!

Although this happened so long ago, it came to me that if miracles like this happened before we were given the mighty power of the keys of the Kingdom, how much more should we now expect even greater miracles?

The Whispering Nurse

By Joanna (of Adino), Brazil

When in the 18th week of my ninth pregnancy, I started bleeding a little. I went to the doctor to have some tests done, and that is when he discovered I had a tumor. Three days later, when I went in to have surgery on it, the doctor told me that it would be a miracle if I kept the baby.

I prayed that the Lord would let me keep the baby, because I felt that it was going to be my last pregnancy. And the Lord did a miracle and brought the baby to full term, in spite of a lot of pain in my back and uterus. She was born by cesarean—beautiful, big, and healthy!

After the birth, the doctor said I needed to wait for two months before he could operate again. He did a lot of exams, and then operated to remove my uterus, as the tumor was malignant. Three days before one of my exams (right before my surgery was scheduled), I woke up early hemorrhaging. I called the doctor and went immediately to the hospital. They told me I had lost a lot of blood and had to have a transfusion right away. Apparently the tumor had erupted inside me, causing the hemorrhaging. The doctors couldn't stop the bleeding. Though I was given 18 bags of blood, the hemorrhaging continued. My husband called our Home to ask for desperate prayer.

I didn't want any of my kids to see me, because I believed I was dying, and I didn't want them to see me that way or remember me in that way. The nurses started calling for the doctors, because they saw I was getting worse. I couldn't feel my legs at all. The head nurse told the doctor, "All the blood in her body is just going out again and nothing we do is helping it." I knew at that moment that I was on my way to meet the Lord.

By then I couldn't feel any part of my body, and I told the Lord that I was willing to go if He wanted me to, and that I wouldn't fight His will if that's what His plan for me was. It was quite an experience—telling the Lord I was ready to go to Him right then and there! (I didn't tell my husband about this at the time.)

Later, when they took me into the operating room, there was a nurse there, an older, dark-skinned lady with a very sweet face. She took my hands, looked at me and said, "Don't worry! The angels are all here waiting. Jesus is here waiting!" She kept looking into my eyes, petting my face, head, and hands, and I started to relax. She said, "The Lord is here with you. He loves you. I'm here with you, too, and I'll stay by your side always. You are going to sleep now, but I'm going to be right here."

She started whispering when all the doctors came in and everything got very hectic in the room. They were all talking very fast; there was a cancer specialist who had come in, as well as several nurses. This lady started whispering a lot of verses in my ear. One of them I remember was, "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them who fear Him and delivereth them" (Psa.34:7). She kept whispering it in my ear, and it was life to me. I then went under anesthesia and was in surgery for four hours.

When I woke up, I had a strange sensation, and the first thing I thought of was that nurse. I tried looking around for her to talk to her, but I couldn't find her. When my husband came, I said, "The nurse, the nurse!" I was trying to tell him how she had come and helped me, and what she had said about the Lord and that there were angels all around where I was operated on. But I was so tired, and I couldn't express myself well.

Later, after I had recovered from the anesthesia, I asked one of the doctors about the nurse I had seen the day of my operation. He and the others with him said that there hadn't been anyone by that description in the operating room. It seemed that she was indeed an angel!

The cancer specialist told my husband that the tumor had been there for seven years, but had been hidden. The part that the doctor had seen while examining me during my pregnancy was very small in comparison.

An amazing thing was that at the same time that I was bleeding so heavily, the brethren were praying for me in a meeting, and they saw a legion of angels at my side. When I told them about this nurse, I found out that the things she was saying to me were exactly what they were receiving in their prayer meeting.

I was able to witness to many of the nurses and assistants who came to see me while I was recuperating. I told them how the Lord had performed a miracle for me, and many of them prayed to receive Jesus.

Dreams and Miracles

By Stan Piper, China

The Lord had shown me several times over my 25 years in the Family that I had the gift of miracles. It humbles me to even write about this, because I feel so unworthy of so many of the things that the Lord has said. I am truly tempted to think that others, especially those who really know me, will think that I have flipped my lid.

One incident that stands out is when my wife was pregnant with twins, and she began to have a miscarriage at four and a half months. Because she was bleeding quite heavily, I wanted to take her to the doctor. But we were at home alone, with a few teens and our kids, and the car was unavailable. It was high traffic time, and calling an ambulance was out of the question as it couldn't possibly reach us in time.

All of a sudden, her face turned ashen white and she lost consciousness. I was very scared, as it seemed that I was losing her. I called to the teens downstairs to pray, and I knelt by her bed with a Memory Book claiming verses and asking the Lord to heal her. As I started reading, one of the verses stood out to me. Then there was a knock at the door, and one of the teens who had been praying with the others said that they'd gotten a verse, and the Lord had told them to tell me. It was the exact same verse!

Faith soared in my heart, and I knew that she was going to be healed. She immediately regained consciousness and started improving, although she was still very weak and ashen in color. I asked the Lord to have her completely stop bleeding from that point on, as she had already lost a lot of blood. The bleeding immediately stopped. This was very unusual, as it turned out that she had in fact miscarried the twins.

The Lord had already given me the gift of faith many years before, when I'd only been a few years in the Family, and I read Grandmother's book on faith and healing—The Hem of His Garment. The part where she challenges us to venture out in faith and see the mighty things that the Lord can do through our prayers spoke to me, so I made an extensive list of things that I wanted to happen or for the Lord to supply, and claimed the verse, "Delight thyself in the Lord and He shall give thee the desires of thy heart" (Psa.37:4).

At the time, the Lord told me to delight myself in Him by going out witnessing door to door every day, and winning as many souls as I could. As I fulfilled this little obedience, He answered every single thing that I'd requested on the list within a fairly short period of time. It made an impression on me, and has always encouraged me. There have been other miracles, maybe less dramatic or too long to write about here, but I knew that I had the gift of healing and the gift of miracles.

I know quite a few others who have prayed for things and the Lord performed amazing miracles for them, and I feel that it is pretty commonplace in the Family, even though sometimes we take it for granted. But about a year ago, I was riding alone in a taxi in China, and the Lord spoke to me and said that He was giving me new gifts for the specific ministries of healing and of miracles. It came out of the blue.

When I arrived home, I was sitting in the living room thinking about what the Lord had said. I was sort of wondering if it was really the Lord, and He told me to turn on the TV, and that He was going to confirm it to me. I turned on the TV without changing channels, and there was a movie on about a woman who was injured and paralyzed from the waist down in an accident. She was praying for her legs, and she was rubbing her hands up and down her legs, praying for them to get healed. She ends up healed and receives the gift of healing, and her healing starts a revival in her little town. I got goose bumps all over, and I was stunned. I didn't say anything to anyone about it until about a month or so later, when I suddenly felt led to share the testimony with my wife. After telling her about it, suddenly the Lord said, "Turn on the TV again." I was tempted to not do it for fear of looking foolish. But I did anyway, and it was the exact same movie at the exact same place. I was blown away, and still get a funny feeling just talking about it.

I had another experience that I felt was the Lord preparing me and building my faith. I was on the road with my four oldest boys, and we were in one city where there was another Home. Our shepherds had asked me to visit a particular Home, as they were asking for fellowship and had gone through some discouraging times with some of their teens. We had written them and asked them for a phone number, but they had not written us back. I was in a hotel with my boys, and we were praying for the day and taking a few minutes to hear from the Lord, and I received that if we would go out by faith He would lead us to them.

I told the kids what I'd received from the Lord, so we got ready and went out to the front of the hotel, and the Lord said "Go left." So we did, then the Lord said, "Get in the next taxi." So when the next taxi came along, we got in. The driver asked where we were going and we said to just drive, and we would give him directions as we went. After quite a while, we passed a small restaurant that had tables outside, and the Lord said to get out and go to that restaurant. We got out and sat down in the restaurant, and within five minutes I saw a foreign couple standing nearby. (I had never met the couple that we were supposed to visit.) I just knew it was them.

I called the woman's name, and she said, "Yes?" I asked, "Why don't you come in and sit down and have dinner with us?" They stood there shocked for a while, and then it sort of sunk in who we were. We ate together and laughed for hours at how amazing and funny the Lord is. It was miraculous, as we were in a city of six million people, and had never met, or even talked to each other before. They lived an hour away, and had never been to that area of the city before. We had a wonderful time of fellowship before continuing on our faith trip. This little miracle helped my faith to soar.

My Christmas Present

By Gabriella, Austria

It was Christmas Eve, and my husband and I had gone to bed when I began to have a small pain in my chest. Within one hour, the pain grew until it was absolute agony! I'd had this same pain only twice before, once when I was 16 and another time when I was 23. I dreaded it recurring.

I kept hoping it would go away, but as I lay in bed I knew it wasn't going to. Soon, it was unbearable to even lie down anymore, and the only thing that helped a little was pacing around the room. I kept walking and walking round and round the living room, but by 3 am, the pain had not let up. It had in fact intensified to the point that I was actually groaning. I was so tired I felt like I would fall down, but if I even sat down, the pain would become nearly unbearable.

By 3:30 am, when I felt I would collapse on the floor, I remembered the verse, "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them" (Mk.11:24). I had used that verse years earlier when I'd desperately needed a miracle, and against all odds, the miracle had happened! So I wholeheartedly began to claim it again this time.

As I quoted it over and over again, the pain subsided a little, but didn't go completely away. I thought, Why doesn't God heal me all the way? Then, in my mind I heard clearly, You're not acting like you're healed!

Then the Lord said, "If you really believe you're healed, what would you do?" I answered, "I'd go to bed!" His reply was crystal clear: "Then go to bed!" At first I was tempted to be afraid, because when I'd lain down before, the pain doubled. Then another memory came back to me of how God had miraculously healed me from this exact same pain many years ago in Puerto Rico.

I realized that if I was going to get any results from all my praying, I was going to have to take a stand of faith and believe.

Our bed was up some stairs in a loft, and as I started to climb to go to bed, I kept quoting the verse, "Whatsoever you desire when you pray, believe that you receive. ..." As I took each step up, the pain lessened, until by the time I lay down, it was totally gone, and has not come back since.

Through the Gifts He's Given

By Ericka (SGA), Brazil

A while ago, the Lord told me He had given me a special gift to be able to see and feel the past, the present, and the future. The Lord said I was given a measure of this gift when I was born, but that now with the new moves of the Spirit, He was giving me a new infilling of this gift, and that He wanted me to use it for His glory to bring others to Him. I had always wondered about this, as I remember a few times when I told people something was going to happen, and then it did. I thought then that it was coincidence, but the Lord showed me that it wasn't. He then told me I was going to find out more about this gift little by little.

One night a young man I had met a few weeks earlier came over to talk to me. He was facing a number of problems, and as we talked, he started crying. Suddenly, as we were sitting there, I started receiving in the spirit a lot of things about him, how he felt, what was happening to him, etc. I felt I should tell him, but I was embarrassed, so I didn't say anything. But I was in for a surprise when he started telling me what he was feeling and what he was going through, which was exactly what I had been receiving only minutes earlier—word for word! Later on, I asked the Lord about it, and He then confirmed that indeed this was the gift that He had given me. After that, I started practicing this gift, and sure enough, the things I received were right.

I started practicing using it with some of the people I was witnessing to, and they were so happy and so surprised that they told others about this gift I had. One of the ladies I had first told about the gift was the owner of a small coffee shop. It was a nice, quiet place, and sometimes I would spend my afternoons there witnessing to people. This lady started telling her friends about this gift, and her friends would tell their friends, and on and on it went. People would come to the coffee shop just to have a "hand-reading session" with me. (They called it a "hand-reading session" because I would hold their hands while praying and receiving things for them. This helped them to feel more comfortable with the things I would tell them.)

It was a great witnessing opportunity, as I was able to pray with all those who came to see me. I would also give some of them an Activated magazine. They would then thank me, and some would give a gift in return. It was neat, because I didn't know a thing about their lives and yet the Lord would show me even some of the smallest things about them, which they hadn't told anyone else before. People would sometimes call, asking if I could pray and receive something about someone they were close to, and then they would ask me to pray with them to receive Jesus.

A friend of mine once asked if I could go over to her house to have a "session" with her daughter's friends. One of her friends was very sick; she had been to a lot of doctors and none of them knew what was wrong with her. She hadn't been eating right and had lost a lot of weight. She had strong headaches and dizziness, and they didn't know what to do with her. It was a fight for her to go over to this lady's house. She almost didn't go because she felt so sick, and the Devil was fighting her, but she made it there. She was shaking and pale when she arrived, and as soon as she sat down in front of me, the Lord told me this was a spiritual problem—she had a strong spirit of fear. I held her hand and told her she had nothing physically wrong with her. I told her she had to fight this spirit of fear and let Jesus into her life.

All the girls that were in the room then received the Lord, including this young girl. I prayed for her to be delivered through the power of the keys, and instantly she felt better. I gave her some verses to memorize, so that she could claim them when she started feeling sick. After that, we all went home. I continued going to this lady's house to follow up on her, but for two months I hadn't been able to visit this young girl because she lived a ways away. She called me a few times after that "session," asking me to pray for her, but that was about it.

Two months later, she came over to see me and she'd been totally healed! She had regained her weight and looked so much happier. She brought her mom to meet me, and her mom was so happy. She thanked me over and over for giving her daughter Jesus. She then prayed to receive the Lord as well. This healing was a big testimony to this girl's parents and friends, because nobody had been able to find out what was wrong with her, and she had been sick for months. A lot of people have come to know the Lord through this gift. Thank You, Jesus!

Long-Distance Healing

By Karina, Argentina

My three-year-old sister Milagros woke up one morning, and her feet were so swollen she could barely walk. My mom took her to see the doctor, who said she had kidney stones, and that she would have to start undergoing treatments on a regular basis.

My mom and my little sister are no longer in the Family, and it hurt me that I couldn't be there to help them. Though we've been apart for so long, the Lord is helping me to see that if I trust and serve Him with all my heart, and do my part by praying, He will take care of my loved ones and do what I can't.

My mom took Milagros to the hospital for almost a full day every week, so they could give her the drugs needed to diminish the stones. It was a slow process, and sometimes when she would go to the bathroom she would expel blood. Due to the treatment, her body would reject the stones as if they were pieces of broken glass. To complicate things even more, she had a very high diabetic count and the doctors weren't sure what to do.

The economy in Argentina is not doing well, and the treatments cost a lot of money, which my mom didn't have, but the Lord never fails, and He supplied every time.

Finally, the big day arrived—the prayer meeting—the day that the impossible became possible! We wanted my mom and Milagros to come to the meeting, but when we prayed the Lord gave us the verse, "He sent His Word and healed them" (Psa.107:20). We didn't understand what it meant until we tried to call and weren't able to contact them.

That night in our prayer meeting, I cried out to the Lord with all my heart. I knew the Lord had to do it. It was an impossible situation and we needed a miracle.

The following day, my mom took Milagros for her regular treatment and analysis. The doctors couldn't believe it—the stones had disappeared! She didn't have even one stone in either of her kidneys, and her diabetic count was normal—as if she'd never had any problem at all! They took her to another hospital because the doctor said that the testing material they'd used must have been faulty, and that it was impossible that her kidneys were perfectly healthy. He explained to my mom that this particular problem doesn't just disappear. You can control it, but the diminishing process is very slow. The stones convert into a spongy substance, and later into a gel-like substance that diminishes little by little, but it is a very painful process.

For a doctor it would be impossible, but for the Lord it only took faith. Now, Milagros is completely healed! She does not have even the slightest side-effect from the drugs she took.

Even if I had been with her all along, had all the money in the world, or had been the best doctor there is, I still could not have healed her. The Lord did a very special miracle, and I know that if He did it for her, He can do it for anyone, whether they personally pray or someone intercedes on their behalf.

At the Scene of the Accident

By Stephen (of Heaven), New Zealand

I was driving home one night when I came upon the scene of an accident at a three-way intersection. A young man had been hit by a speeding car as he was crossing the road, and I was the first motorist to arrive at the scene. I stopped my car next to the spot where it happened, and proceeded toward the injured man who was lying motionless in a pool of blood.

His girlfriend was crying over his body and calling out for an ambulance, and the person who had been driving the car that hit him was freaking out. A few other motorists were beginning to stop by now. I told his girlfriend that I was going to pray for him. I laid my hands on his badly injured head and prayed for him, claiming the power of the keys, and asking the Lord to heal any serious injuries as a testimony of His love and power.

Someone called for an ambulance, and I began directing traffic around the accident site for the next 20 minutes or so, until a police patrol car arrived. Amazingly enough, as I started to get back in my car, the injured man regained consciousness, and began talking with his girlfriend. His girlfriend looked up at me with tears in her eyes and said, "Thank you so very much."

This surprised me, because when I had been praying for the man, she had been crying and shouting out to bystanders to help, and I had gotten the impression that she wasn't a believer, or at least didn't necessarily respect or believe in prayer. I was also amazed at the direct answer to a desperate prayer and the unfailing power of the keys. Other people had seen me on the road praying for the man, and it was a powerful testimony to everyone around. Everyone was amazed and very relieved to see him regain consciousness due to God answering my prayers. Thank the Lord for the multiplied power He's given us access to through the keys.

The Two-Way Prayers

By Victoria, Brazil

Ever since I was a child, I'd had very bad eyesight. Often, my eyes would get swollen and badly infected; they were also very sensitive to sunlight.

The Lord told me very specifically when I was 17 that if I was faithful to pray for Mama's eyes, He would heal me completely, and that I would never have a problem with my eyes again.

So I did. I constantly prayed for Mama as if I were praying for myself. And about six months later, I was completely healed, and I've never had any problems with my eyes again!

When in Need of Proof

By John (of Linda), India

My wife and I witnessed a series of miracles 30 years ago, which resulted in her joining the Family. I was already in the Family, and had gone back to my hometown to visit Linda. I witnessed to her and read to her from my little Letters to a Shepherd book. She got turned on and wanted to forsake all and join and go back with me. But she was held back by her worldly possessions.

Many of her friends were calling the Family "an evil cult," and trying to talk her out of joining. So she told the Lord that if He would show her clearly that the Family was the truth, and that Dad was His Endtime prophet, she would join and serve the Lord, no matter what anybody said. Well, immediately miracles began to happen to prove to her which way the Lord was leading.

The first and most incredibly impressive of these happened shortly after Linda prayed that prayer. We were witnessing in downtown Wichita, Kansas, when we came across a man who had a bright-red face. It was a terrible color, and he also had big ugly sores on his skin. We began to witness to him, and as Linda told him about how the Lord loves everyone, she was allowed to read his thoughts as he said in his mind, "The Lord might love everyone, but not me—look at me!" so Linda felt led to pray for him.

She asked if he minded if we prayed for him, and he agreed to let us. We all held hands to pray. Linda felt that we should get down on our knees, so she and I and his friend did so, but he remained standing. This was at about 2 pm on a busy weekday, and there were people going by and thick traffic on this major artery—a real public spectacle, ha! People were driving by, and a few of them shouted slanders and ugly comments at us and made fun of us, but we kept right on praying.

We all had our heads reverently bowed. Linda was doing all the praying, and about halfway through her prayer, I couldn't resist looking up at the man, and boy, did I get the shock of my life! Right in front of my eyes in broad daylight, I saw a light appear around the man's head. I was shocked. I was wondering, Could I possibly be seeing this? It looked like a sort of white mist surrounding his head. It looked like swirling molecules of energy. My wife saw it, too.

But this was just the start. Then the redness disappeared, right in front of my eyes! Starting at his neck, it flushed out of his skin from his shirt collar and went upwards—receding to nothing more than a little tiny dot right in the middle of his forehead. His skin turned flesh color right in front of our eyes. After we were done praying for him, we invited him and his friend over to our house to talk more about the Lord later that night. They agreed, and we turned and left to go on witnessing. We both felt as if we were floating and not walking.

We got so turned on that we started jumping up and down and exclaiming to everyone passing by, "We just saw a miracle of a man healed," and we would try to explain the whole thing in our frantic voices. Everyone was looking at us like we were from Mars, ha.

That night, the man explained that he had skin cancer, and that his face was red from radium treatments! Now the redness was gone, but the sores were still there. But the next morning when he got up after spending the night at our place, the sores were gone. You couldn't even see where one of them had been! He went into the bathroom to wash his face and bent over the sink and splashed some water up into his face with his hands, and then looked into the mirror and just lost it. His knees weakened under him and he staggered backwards and almost fell. He said, "A mighty Power has taken over my life!" He then prayed to receive Jesus as his Savior.

This was just the beginning! For two full weeks, we saw many more miracles, until we were overwhelmed by the power of God!

Another astounding thing that happened was when we witnessed to a Mexican boy named Reggie, who claimed to be an atheist. We told him that if he prayed and asked the Lord to show him He was real, that He would. So Reggie did. He prayed that the Lord would help him get a job. That night in a tremendous Kansas windstorm, with 80-mile-per-hour winds bending trees clear over to the ground, a mysterious man came to his door. When Reggie opened the door, the man's hair was not even blowing in the wind. Reggie said that to look into the man's eyes was like "looking at the oldest person who had ever lived, but at the same time the eyes of a little baby." He knew this man was an angel!

The man gave Reggie a piece of paper with the name and address of a company on it, and said that he had heard he was looking for a job, and that maybe these people would hire him. When Reggie followed up on that note and went to the business to apply for a job, they asked him who'd told him about them. When Reggie described the man and the car he was driving, they said that this was remarkable. This man had worked for them, but had died 15 years ago!

Then later when we took a bus to Dallas to join up with the Family, my wife saw her grandmother board the bus with us. Her grandmother had loved the Lord dearly and had been a sweet Christian. She used to sit Linda at the piano with her when she was small and they'd sing hymns together as she played. Linda had been her favorite grandchild, who'd shown tenderness and a desire for the Lord that the others hadn't. Although she had passed away some years previously, Linda saw her as a being of light, getting on the bus with us. She told Linda that she was now one of her angels!

During those few weeks the Lord answered prayers directly and quickly, and gave us prophecies that came amazingly true! We knew for sure that the Lord was real, and that He was indeed with the Family and Dad, as all these things were a direct result of Linda's desperate plea and commitment to join if shown God's power!

Healing—Via the Phone

By Elimelech, Venezuela

One of our Active members called to tell me that he'd had a very bad fall in the bathroom. He could barely walk because his leg hurt badly, and even the slightest movement made him cry out in pain. He was planning on going to the doctor, but as we were talking, the Lord said, "Why don't you pray for him over the phone? Call on the keys!"

So I said, "Put your hand where it hurts you and I'm going to pray for you right now." I claimed healing for him through the power of the keys, and said goodbye.

The next day, he called me to tell me the good news. Right after we'd prayed, the pain totally left him, and he began walking fine! Even his father and mother were surprised that he was walking so well, when only minutes earlier, he'd barely been able to move. Praise the Lord for the keys!

A Child's Faith

By Claire Faithful, India

My four-year-old daughter Tanya and I went to follow up on a Christian lady who had previously been our neighbor, and had been suffering from an itching problem for the past two years. After reading the Word with her for some time, the Lord showed me to let Tanya pray for the lady's healing, which she readily agreed to do.

I asked Tanya to hold the lady's hand. From the moment Tanya started praising the Lord while holding her hand, the lady started to speak in tongues, crying, praising, and thanking the Lord. After we'd finished praying, she told us how she'd felt some power coming through Tanya's hands into her body, healing her. She was so thrilled about how the Lord had healed her. For me it was an awesome experience as well. I believe Tanya may have a gift of healing, because exactly one year before, she'd prayed for my dad to be delivered from cancer, and had shared a prophecy with him, where Jesus said that he'd been healed; sure enough, the Lord answered our prayers, and he was healed.

Miracle Hands

By Ericka (SGA), Brazil

One day, while my six-year-old brother was playing in the boys' room, a metal piece of a bed fell on his foot. His foot immediately turned purple and swollen. I was resting in another room, but I could hear him crying, so I got up and went to see what had happened to him. I found him crying in pain, and I felt so bad for him.

I put my hand on his foot and I started praying and claiming the power of the keys for his foot to heal up right then and stop hurting. I felt my hand getting hot, as energy surged through my hand. When I finished praying I asked him if it was better, and he said that it still hurt. I suggested that he should try walking around a little to see if that might help, which he did. About two minutes later I came to check on him, and when I looked at his foot, not only was the swelling and the purple color completely gone, but he no longer felt any pain! The only trace of the accident was a very light pink mark.

Healing Miracles in Bangalore

By the Bangalore Service Home

We have a healing group in our Home that meets to pray for others. We mostly pray for Family members, although lately we've also been praying more for our friends.

One friend in particular was asking for prayer to be able to stop using some sleeping pills and a tranquilizer-type medicine. He'd been taking them for about 30 years and had become very dependent on them. It was a real step of faith for this man, who is from a Hindu background, to resist his fears, and ask Jesus to help him break completely free of these medicines.

Now, after two months, he's stopped using them altogether, and gives all the glory to the Lord. When he battles with restlessness in the night, he reads Word on fighting fear, and is so much more at peace. He said he has the faith he'll never need the medicines again. He's also grown a lot closer to the Family and has been helping more.

There have been other encouraging answers to prayer also. A sister had a fallopian tube pregnancy and was having bleeding problems. She was traveling when we prayed, but she sent word that almost immediately after we had prayed for her, she stopped bleeding. Another sister had a painful lump on her breast. After prayer it disappeared, and the pain stopped. Someone else, who was battling severe insomnia for a long time, had prayer, and now she can sleep normally.

One life-and-death answer to prayer that we are very encouraged about involved an unborn baby who had severe toxemia. A few times, things became very unbalanced in the baby's system, and even the mother was in danger. Each time the couple prayed, the Lord encouraged them to call on the keys and trust Him. The healing group also had desperate prayer, as did the Home. She required a C-section, so as to put less strain on her and the baby, but it was certainly a miracle that both of them came through alive and healthy.

There have also been numerous cases of almost instantaneous healing of headaches, stomach problems, colds, fevers, etc., which, though small in nature, have been just as miraculous.

There is a team that does hospital witnessing, and there have been many miracles of healing there. Many times when they have prayed for patients, they later find out that they were discharged during the week. This has helped to increase our faith to expect greater miracles, and to use the power of the keys to their fullest potential.

Gift of Healing Manifested!

By Mick and Filly, China

One day, a sister came to Mick and told him what the Lord had shown her. She said, "The Lord told me that you have the gift of healing, and that you need an opportunity to manifest that gift." Then she asked Mick to pray for someone who had a serious problem with her eye, and was close to going blind.

At the time, Mick didn't know which eye he was supposed to pray for, or what the exact problem was. But when he met the friend, he felt the Lord leading him to pray for her left eye, so he laid his hand on her head, right beside her left eye. At that moment, he felt something like an electric spark go through his hand to her retina. Immediately, the friend testified that she was healed! She hasn't used medication since, and can see clearly, with no pain at all.

Saving Hearts

By Rebecca Faith, Russia

Peter and I were having lunch in the metro station when a middle-aged man almost fell next to us. With shaking hands he asked for water. After a few minutes, he was able to speak and explained that he'd had a heart attack, but didn't have any medicine with him.

We started praying for him, claiming the power of the keys, and for a moment he felt much better. Peter asked if he had ever invited Jesus in his heart and his answer was no, telling us that he believed in God, but he didn't want to talk about Him right then. Again, his heart started hurting to where he could hardly speak. We kept praying and comforting this man that Jesus loves him and could help if he would only invite Him into his heart.

We called for an ambulance, but his condition was rapidly worsening, and I wondered if he would even survive. People were passing by, but hardly anyone paid any attention. Some elderly ladies stopped for a few minutes and gave him some pills and said that they could help, but then another lady said that those kinds of pills could kill him! Another sweet lady from a church stopped and prayed with us and then left. Peter and I didn't leave him for a minute.

Then the poor man said that he couldn't breathe any more, and that he felt he was dying. Finally he started frantically calling for God, like he was in agony. He nearly fainted, but this time prayed with Peter to invite Jesus into his heart, crying and thanking us for staying with him and praying for him. It was then that he was instantly raised up! It was a real miracle and he gave all the glory to God! When the ambulance came at last (an hour later), the man, though still weak, had totally recovered. He could even walk to the ambulance by himself!

We live in a city where many people have become unreceptive and deaf to God's Word. They're driven by the pace of their work, living in constant fear of losing their jobs, and never having peace in their hearts. This man was one of them, but Jesus used this situation to save his lost soul and give him another chance to live. He is a manager of a network of supermarkets in our city, and had been so busy that he hadn't had a day off in years! The Lord used this extreme situation to get through to him. As we were parting, he kept saying over and over again that God had sent us to save him, and that he'd be forever thankful!

No Space to Park

By Aaron, Taiwan

I was on my way to have a follow-up meeting with Mr. Chen, but there were no available parking spaces anywhere near his shop. After dropping my wife off, I went on the dreaded search for a parking space. I was desperate to find one fast, so I shot up a key-powered prayer, and the Lord asked me, "Where do you want to park?" And I said, "No way, Lord, that is too darn specific. How can I claim a spot in front of Mr. Chen's shop?"

No sooner had I thought that than my phone rang. "Hi, honey. Did you find a parking spot?" my wife asked.

"No," I said.

"Well, there's now one right in front of the shop, and I'm standing in it to save it. Hurry!" I got the goose bumps. The keys work, even when our faith is small.

Even when All Seemed Hopeless

By Johnny Thai, Thailand

M. is an Italian friend who supports us monthly. When we went to see him, he told us about a Thai girl who had tested positive for HIV whom he was trying to help. After visiting him a few times, we came to know that it was in fact his sister-in-law who was dying. Their whole family was in distress, and they were spending every penny they had to get certain drugs for her and to find the right doctor. They were at their wits' end, and the doctors at most hospitals had already given up on her. M. asked us if we could visit her and talk to her. We accepted, but we didn't know what exactly we could do. When we went to the hospital the next day, we were shocked. What we saw was not much more than a skeleton with skin on it. Her sunken eyes were full of fear, and she could hardly move.

Even though this seemed like a hopeless situation, we had to speak faith for their sakes. We stayed outside and talked to M. and his family for a while. After that we returned home. I started re-reading the Keys of the Kingdom series, the key quotes from the "Era of Action," and other faith-building Word.

The next day, I called M. and asked if we could go to see the girl again, and that this time I was going to pray for her. That day, when I prayed for her and showed her a picture of Jesus, she nodded and accepted the prayer.

Two weeks after that, we had to go on the road and conduct a seminar in another province. After we returned, we thought that perhaps the girl had died, as she looked like she could've passed away at any moment.

So we went to see M. and his family to find out about her. To our astonishment, they said that she was up and around, working around the house and eating, even though she was still skinny. She'd been suffering from about five diseases at once, but she was now healed of them all.

*

In her own words:

Hi, everyone in the Family! First I'd like to introduce myself: My name is Somsri Boonviset. I came from Udorn Thani in northeastern Thailand. I'd like to share with you about what happened in my life and about my faith in God. It started off when I was tested positive for HIV. I thought I was certainly going to die.

I remained in the hospital for quite some time and I wasn't getting better. I stayed in that hospital for about two months until I was at the last stage of the sickness. I couldn't eat anything. I had weighed 64 kilograms, but I'd lost so much weight that I went down to 29 kilograms.

One day, I heard the doctor tell the nurse who took care of me, "Prepare to move her to the corpse room." I heard the whole conversation, but I couldn't move or couldn't open my eyes. My brother-in-law also heard the conversation and he was very upset at the doctor. He said that I was still alive. How could he have said that?

He then called one of the Family members named John. My brother-in-law asked Mr. John to come and pray for me at the hospital before I died. He thought he couldn't do anything else for me. John came to the hospital at 9 am. He was shocked at my condition, as I looked like a dead person.

The next day, John called my brother-in-law and said that he was ready to come and pray for me at the hospital. They came back around 2 pm that day. When he arrived, John put a picture of Jesus in my hand and started to pray out loud in English. While John was praying, I saw a very tall man with long hair standing next to him. His face was glowing and he smiled at me. I desperately prayed that God would bless me so that I could live longer. I was worried about my two children from my former husband, and I wanted to live at least long enough so they could grow up and be able to take care of themselves.

After John left, I felt that I had strength, and asked my husband for some food as I was hungry. I started to eat and I got better. Finally, I was well enough to go home, and three months later, I had regained almost all my weight. Now I live a normal life just like everybody else. I have received a priceless gift from God.

The purpose of this account is to proclaim to all that if we have faith and trust in God, He will abundantly bless us. And I would like to show my gratitude toward all members of the Family who work to bring the knowledge of Him to everyone.—Somsri Boonviset, who has a new life from Him

"…But for the Glory of God"

By Abigail Miguel, Costa Rica

When praying for an eight-month-old baby who'd been blinded after an accident, we received the verse, "This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God to be manifested." The baby was placed in a hospital, where the doctors soon diagnosed him with cancer as well. They performed several emergency operations on him, and started chemotherapy treatments, but his health only got worse, and soon it became obvious that the child was dying.

One night, I asked the Lord to explain why the baby was doing so badly when He'd given us that promise of healing before. Jesus reassured me that He was going to fulfill His Word. He also said that no doctor would be able to heal him, but that if we would anoint the baby with oil and pray for him, he would be healed.

His 18-year-old mother, the daughter of a former member, was thrilled because the Lord had given her the exact same verse as well. We prayed for the baby, anointing him with oil in obedience to what the Lord had said. After two days, however, she called us to say that the baby was still dying, and that she was ready to let him go, as it was hard for her to see him suffer. The doctors had made so many mistakes, and by now, almost all his internal organs were infected, and they wanted to amputate one foot to stop the spread of infection.

The doctors expected the baby to die at any moment, but nevertheless, we prayed again for the Lord to heal the baby, and we rebuked any evil spirit that could be attacking him. The next day, we were dreading a phone call asking us to organize the funeral, but the call never came.

That night, the baby's body had been completely healed and he'd started to eat. The doctors were shocked. Now the baby is at home, happy and healthy.

The Successful Keys

By Sarah, Iceland

At a youth festival in the northwest of Iceland, I met a lady who had a blinding migraine headache. I asked her if I could pray for her. First, she got saved, and then I claimed the power of the keys for her to get healed. The Lord healed her on the spot! She said that as I prayed for her, something left her head that was causing the pain. She told me she had already been to various doctors, and even faith healers, but without success.

The Rain Obeys the Keys

By Simon (SGA), Kenya

"Oh no, it looks like rain!—Again!"

We had been experiencing a lot of hard rains recently, as it was the rainy season. It can get quite dangerous, as the roads' conditions are, well, shall we say, less than optimum, and they don't always have a terrific drainage system (or any at all, for that matter).

It was the day for our weekly provisioning pick-ups, and we were praying and claiming the keys that it wouldn't rain, mostly for our safety and well-being, but also so that we could make the most of our day.

When we were praying about the day, one thing that the Lord showed us was about the importance of our follow-up and witnessing, as opposed to just trying to be "efficient" and do all of the pick-ups as fast as we could. We prayed that the Lord would help us to bear this in mind, and that we would not get so accomplishment-oriented that we wouldn't take the time for the most important thing—the sheep!

You might be wondering what connection this has with the fact that it looked like it was going to be a rainy day. Well, the Lord worked it out, miraculously, so that whenever we had to drive or walk from place to place, there would not be a drop of rain. But then, when we would sit down and talk with the sheep, just so that we would be reminded to not rush, but to really take that time to witness to them, it would start raining cats and dogs. But then, when the Lord was leading us to finish up and move on, it would completely stop. Isn't that something?

So the Lord answered our prayers for both of those requests, in the way that He knew best! It reminded us of that part in "Action Through Prayer," where the Lord explains how He doesn't always answer our prayers in the way that we think is best, but that the prayers are never wasted, and He always works out the best—His best!

Later that day, we also witnessed key power in action in an immediate and amazing way. We were leaving the supermarket, heavy-laden with all of the shopping bags to take to our vehicle about 50 meters away.

Now, on a normal day, and if it was just drizzling, or even raining moderately, it would have been okay, and we would have barely gotten wet. But when we came to the exit of the supermarket, the rain was pouring down so hard, it was like someone had opened a fire hydrant up there! We would have gotten soaked even if we'd been able to run to the car.

Well, it was time to sharpen those key swords! "Lord, we pray and claim the power of the keys that You stop this rain right n…"

We had barely finished uttering the word "now" when the rain came to a dead stop! No drizzling, no "light rain," but a full and complete stop! And the sun came out as well!

It may seem like a small miracle, but to us, it was so amazing, as it was such an instantaneous answer to prayer and calling on the power of the keys! It boosted our faith, and was encouraging, showing the Lord's wonderful love for us!

Now Not Even a Trace

By Ivanhoe, USA

I used to be a surfer when I was younger, and for over three years spent many hours in the sun. I didn't know about melanoma (skin cancer) back in those days, so I know the Lord has been merciful to me. Now I do wear hats to avoid the sun while on outreach.

I had this little, tiny wart thing on the back of my neck for a few years, but recently it began to grow. Within about three weeks, it grew to about the size of a pencil eraser. I have a friend who is about my age (in my 50s) who had some cancers cut out of his face. He looked at my wart growth and told me that it seemed like cancer too.

Needless to say, I was alarmed! So I went on the attack, rebuking it out of my body! Every time I would think about it, I refused to accept its growing presence and rebuked it with the keys. I would ask the Lord's body to be one with mine, and within two weeks the growth dried up and fell off, leaving not so much as a trace!

The Lost Wallet

By Shiloh (of Phil), Russia

In Russia, winters are long, dark, and frozen. That's why when summer arrives, everyone wants to stay outside as much as possible. In our Home, it's become a tradition to take a summer faith trip. We usually start praying about it in April, asking the Lord if He wants us to go and where, and then we start asking Him to supply the funds. It's been amazing how everything the Lord shows us always works out! For one of our summer trips, the Lord showed us to go to Latvia, and also showed us the amount of money we would need to pray in for the trip. In our monthly newsletter to supporters and friends, we'd asked if anyone would be able to help with a special gift for our trip, and one sweet young couple sent the exact amount the Lord had shown us we needed. So we knew that it was His will for us to go!

Our team of six set off for Moscow in our van, camping in tents at night, and stopping each day to witness in whatever town we happened to pass through. Souls were getting won, addresses were collected for follow-up, and lots of lit was getting out. It was exciting to be on our way to a new land where none of us had ever been, and according to the prophecies we had received, the Lord was going to do a lot there!

Our first destination was Moscow, where we needed to work on visas for the Russian members of our team. We needed to wait for a week for the visas to be ready. Moscow was experiencing a terrible heat wave at the time, and Lord help us, we started to get a bit lazy. We even found ourselves subconsciously thinking that our faith trip wouldn't begin until we got to Latvia.

Finally, the time came when the visas would be ready. We decided that the Russians would go to pick up the visas, and in the meantime Phil would take the van to a mechanic for a last-minute checkup. Phil, Daniel, and Milah went to the mechanic, while I stayed back to spend time with Milah's mother.

After a while, Daniel came home with a strange look on his face. When I asked him what was wrong, he said, "Dad lost his wallet." Phil and the mechanic had taken the van for a spin to see how it was driving. At one point the mechanic and Phil had gotten out of the van in the middle of the street to change places. But, five minutes later, Phil realized that he didn't have his wallet, and that it must have fallen out of his pocket when he'd gotten out of the van. He immediately drove back to the spot, but the wallet was nowhere to be found.

At first I didn't think too much of it, as I knew that he usually doesn't carry that much money in his wallet, but then it dawned on me what it meant—the end of our faith trip! In the wallet were his American and Russian driver's licenses, which meant that not only could he not drive in Russia, but we wouldn't be able to cross the border or drive in Latvia either. Phil and Milah reported the loss to the police, and they gave Phil a paper giving him permission to drive for only ten days without a license.

Then the others called excitedly to tell us they had the visas and were ready to go. We had to sadly break the news to them that Phil's wallet had been lost. It seemed that the only possibility was to return home. Then we got the idea that maybe Phil could fly back to our city, try to get a new license, and fly back the next day. We started calling our friends back home to see if anyone could help, as without "knowing someone" it would be nearly impossible for him to get another license. But everyone we called was either out of town or on vacation.

Then we decided to pray and ask the Lord why it happened. We each prayed separately, and all of us received the same thing—that the Lord had let it happen to shake us up. He told us that we weren't supposed to be on vacation but that He had called us to the battlefront! Three of us received specifically that if we would learn this lesson and call on the power of the keys, the wallet would be restored. The Lord also said that Phil shouldn't go back to our city, but that we should wait.

Well, these words gave us a faint glimmer of hope, but to be honest, we "old-timer FGAs" were having a hard time taking this promise literally. Every few hours, our full-of-faith Russian nationals would call to ask if we had found the wallet yet. At one point we even got a little irritated and said, "Guys, it's gone! It fell out of Phil's pocket in the middle of a busy street!"

"But the Lord told us we're going to get it back," they'd answer. But what did we do but try to book a flight back to our city anyway. Oh, we of little faith! But even that wasn't possible, as all the flights were full.

Discouraged, we went to bed that night, feeling so bad that our trip was ruined. The next morning, we were sitting in the living room when the phone rang. Daniel answered and exclaimed, "You did?!" He handed the phone to Milah, who got the details. A man named Dimitri had found the wallet the day before. He apologized for taking so long to call us, saying he and his friend had spent the past 24 hours searching for us on the Internet. Using all the clues he could find in the wallet, he traced us to our city, and finally to our apartment! The team back at home had given them Milah's mother's phone number.

We arranged a meeting, but were on our guard as we went, as we were worried that it might be some kind of trap. But as soon as we saw Dimitri, we knew that he was a good man. He handed us the wallet and Phil opened it, expecting it to be empty, but praying that at least his driver's license would still be there. He was shocked to find that everything was there—both of the licenses, the dollars, rubles, credit cards, even the metro tickets!

Dimitri told us that he wouldn't think of keeping it, especially because of the driver's license, as he knew how hard it was for foreigners to get a Russian driver's license. What was also interesting was how much he had learned about us on the Internet. They had even found a house in the States where we used to live. He said that it had become like a game to him and his friends to find out what kind of people would leave such a beautiful town in the U.S. to move to Russia! And what made the whole experience worth it was that Dimitri prayed with us to receive Jesus in his heart. It increased our faith in the power of the keys and taught us not to doubt prophecy!

We left that very evening for Latvia, where we spent one of the most fruitful months of personal witnessing that any of us had experienced.

"Take Up Thy Bed and Walk"

By C., China

I went to Chile for almost one year, to visit my family and have a break from China. During that time, I went through an experience that I wanted to share with all of you.

You've probably heard of the healing ministry in Colombia. Well, when I first heard about that ministry, to be honest I was a little skeptical. I knew it was true, but I was afraid to "get into the power" myself. That changed a bit later that year, when the brother who started this ministry went to Chile to hold a seminar about healing. For me, it was life-changing!

During the seminar, this brother prayed for us (about 100 or so people), that the Lord would fill us with faith and the full power of healing. In the late afternoon of that one-day seminar, miracles happened, and I saw people healed right before my eyes. I remember walking away from that meeting thinking, This is real! I was encouraged to start using that power myself.

About a week later, I was out for the afternoon selling tools at a few schools. The Lord had told me to go, but after an hour and a half, I hadn't sold anything and it was getting late in the afternoon. I was feeling discouraged, so I sat down to pray and read something about prayer. After about ten minutes of reading, the Lord told me to go home.

While walking to the bus stop, I heard a noise, and looking across the street, I saw a construction worker falling from the sixth floor of a building! I quickly confirmed with the Lord and then ran across the street. When I got there, I asked one of the other construction workers if he wanted me to pray for him. He agreed, and explained that as the man was falling, his body had flipped a couple of times in the air, banging against the scaffolding, and when he landed, his body had bounced two feet in the air. His stomach was convulsing, and he was barely able to breathe. There were a few people around trying to help him, and some other people standing around watching.

I told everyone that I was a Christian missionary, and wanted to pray for the man. Putting my hand on his shoulder, and feeling the Holy Spirit running through me, I asked the Lord to heal him right then and there, and take away all the pains in his body. His stomach was still shaking, so I put my hand over his stomach and rebuked the pains, claiming the keys. By that time the ambulance had arrived, so I passed out some tracts and left.

During the next few weeks, I wondered what had happened to that man. I thought that maybe the Lord had taken him, or perhaps he was in a wheelchair at best, since a lot of his bones had probably been broken. Out of curiosity, a brother and I went back and talked to the boss of the construction site. It was then that I discovered the miracle that the Lord had done that day through the keys!

First, they told me that the same day, after they'd taken him to the hospital, he'd wanted to walk! The doctors had to order him to stay in bed! The next day, though, he was up and walking, without a single bone in his body broken or fractured in any way! They kept him in the hospital for a total of five days to do exams, but couldn't find a single thing wrong with his body. That encouraged my faith in the power of the keys.

The Jade Ring

By Amy, WS

Several years ago I'd been to the hairdresser's to get a haircut, and they sweetly gave me a week to decide whether it was right or not. They said that if I came back within that timeframe, they would adjust it for free. Well, a few days down the line, I was in town as a partner and decided to get it cut an inch shorter.

As I stepped out of the car, I was thinking about photos that I was supposed to have developed, and I was a bit absentminded. As I closed the car door behind me, I saw something on the ground that I'd nearly stepped on. It was a ring; I picked it up and put it in my pocket, but didn't think much of it right then.

When I got home, I looked at the ring and realized it was gold and it had a big patch of jade in it. I jokingly offered it to Gabe, but really, neither of us would wear such a big ring, so I put it on my shelf and left it there. I vaguely wondered what to do with it, but things were busy and there was lots going on. I had the fleeting thought that even though it was very nice, it wasn't that special to us, whereas maybe it was special to someone else.

Early the next afternoon, I had a nagging thought to pray about the ring; in fact, it was just pulling on me in the spirit. It seemed I couldn't stop thinking about it, and felt I should pray about what to do about it.

So I asked the Lord about the ring, and He said to call the jewelry store near the hairdresser's and ask if anyone had brought in a ring recently or inquired about a lost one.

I looked in the phone book and found the number of the jeweler, so I called. The lady who answered was excited. She asked, "Was it jade?" I said yes. She said she'd gotten off the phone with the lady who'd lost it, and that she'd been weeping over its loss. Then the lady said, "She'll be so happy. I'll call her right now." I told the jewelry store lady that I'd prayed, and that God had told me to call them, so it was a sweet testimony to her. She was very inspired about the power of prayer.

It turned out that this was a very special ring, as this woman's husband had given it to her only two days before he'd died. Well, we exchanged numbers and soon the lady herself phoned me. Her name was Mary and she was in her 70s, but a very refined and sweet lady. She called me, and she couldn't stop crying over the fact that the Lord had answered her prayers. She choked out the words, "I'd prayed," and she cried and cried. It was very touching.

She wanted to meet me, so I went to see her and return the ring. It was a beautiful experience. Before going, the Lord had told us to listen to her and let her pour out, and then to pray for her and encourage her.

Mary lived in a beautiful home on the outskirts of town, and we ended up sitting on her porch with her, as we talked. Then she poured out her heart about how she'd been doubting God's love because her husband had died. It had been very difficult for her, and she felt guilty about his death because she'd okayed some medication for him, knowing it would dull his pain, but also knowing that it would shorten his time. We encouraged her that she'd done the loving thing, and that God certainly wasn't condemning her for anything, but that His love was unconditional. We talked for quite awhile, and held her hand, and then prayed for her and encouraged her about how real the spirit world is, and that her husband is close to her still, just across the veil.

She insisted on giving me a little thank-you card with something in it, for returning the ring. I kept trying to give prayer and the Lord credit, and she acknowledged that, but she still wanted to give me something. I finally accepted, thinking she'd slipped a small donation in or something, but when we got to the car and I looked in the envelope on the way home, it turned out that she'd put virtually the amount that the ring was worth, which showed how much she valued the fact that we'd returned it. Her gift paid for Activated subscriptions for a number of my friends, and benefited many others in that way as well.

I had planned to just drop the ring off at the jeweler's for her, but when I'd asked the Lord, He'd specifically said that He had gone to these lengths to reach her and touch her life, so that she could be drawn closer to Him. And that's what happened. Her faith in the Lord was increased, as well as her faith in prayer.

Reading the Coffee Grains

By Rosa (of Brian), Romania

I had the strangest experience right before I was about to leave my mom's place after a visit to Bulgaria for Christmas. Her cousin, Ani, came to say goodbye before I left. I invited her in and made her coffee, and then we started chatting. My family and relatives are not in the least religious. They've always professed to be atheists, and that's how I was raised as well, but Ani had recently gone through some difficult breakings, due to the death of both of her parents as well as her best friend, so I wanted to use this chance to witness to her. I was praying and kept trying to swerve the conversation in à direction that would lead to witnessing. But I wasn't having much success, as Ani kept talking about her own affairs.

After a while, I simply decided to interrupt her, and explained to her point-blank that I had brought some booklets, which I wanted to give her. They contained the Treasure articles of "Hearing from Heaven," "Death—Our Graduation," and "Thoughts on Comfort." I wanted to use the opportunity to give these to Ani (as she is one of my more spiritually open relatives), and I definitely didn't want to risk my mom coming home before I'd have been able to do so. (My mom often gets very irritated when she hears me witnessing to someone.)

After I'd explained the nature of the booklets, Ani started telling me of different dreams that she had been having about her parents (who had died only à few weeks earlier), and I in turn told her about some prophecies that I'd received about them à few days before seeing her. Our conversation had taken à much deeper turn.

The time for my train was getting closer. Soon, Peter and Clair (who were visiting Clair's mom at the time) dropped by to pick me up and drive me to the station. And then my mom also came back home. This is when the amazing experience happened.

Remember how I'd made Ani coffee? It was what we call "Turkish coffee"—that is, you boil the coffee in à little jug, and when you pour it in the cups, the coffee grains are still floating around in it. In Bulgaria it's very common to serve coffee in this way to visitors, and then for entertainment, someone (either the hostess or one of the visitors) will start "reading" everyone's coffee, trying to tell their future. (The way it's done is that after drinking the coffee, you are supposed to turn the cup upside down on the saucer, and then wait à few minutes for the coffee grains to drain down the sides. The person who knows how to do it will then start "reading the coffee," according to what shapes or "pictures" they can make out of the coffee grain formations. There are even books published in Bulgaria on how to do this, and what "pictures" to look for and how to interpret what you see. It's also not unusual to see old Gypsy women offering to read coffee to someone for money.)

When I was younger, I often saw my mom doing this to entertain her guests, and she was quite proud of being able to "read correctly." I, on the other hand, had never learned how to do this, and had never even tried. So, during our whole conversation, Ani had kept her cup turned upside down, waiting for my mom to come home. And now that she was back, Ani was teasingly telling her that she wouldn't leave till my mom read her coffee cup. My mom was saying that she wasn't going to, as she was sort of unhappy about me having to leave.

Then I picked up Ani's cup and in jest said that I'd read her cup.

Clair looked at me questioningly. "Do you know how to read coffee?" she asked in English.

"No," I replied, and continued in jest, "but I've always wondered if we'd be able to actually prophesy one day under the guise of reading coffee—kind of like they do in 'Esmeralda's tent'" (referring to the Blood and Freedom book, which I was rereading at the time).

And then it happened!—I hadn't been serious about it at all, but as I looked into Ani's cup, I had prayed quietly, wondering if this would truly ever be able to happen in real life. And as soon as the question crossed my mind, the words started flowing. It was nothing I had planned! As I was looking in the cup, I thought I saw something that reminded me of à lake, and I instantly got the words "like the lake of her life," so I told her that. Then, I meant to tell her that it was odd for me to have seen anything at all out of the coffee grains, but as I opened my mouth to say that, it was like à floodgate was opened, and that was it—I couldn't stop it. It was stronger than me, I just had to speak. We've been using the gift of prophecy for years now, and I'm used to receiving prophecies, but nothing like this had ever happened to me before.

Here I was giving à prophecy for Ani, looking into her coffee cup—in front of my antagonistic mom, of all things! I wasn't even sure if anything I was saying made any sense. The first picture I "saw" was just to get me started, but afterwards I simply listened, like in à normal prophecy session, except that in this situation, I had my eyes open and was staring into à coffee cup! However, I knew that if I'd stop, even only for à moment, to analyze the situation, I would lose the anointing, so I did my best to not think about what was happening, and what anyone present might be thinking. Sometimes, if there was à halt in the flow, the Lord would quicken another picture for me in the cup, and that would help me catch on to the direction the prophecy would take.

Ani was mesmerized, and my mom—to my great surprise—didn't say à word, and never interrupted me, even though the message had à definite "religious" connotation! (She is normally very vocal whenever she hears me witness to someone, and doesn't tolerate it in her presence.) Peter and Clair seemed just as surprised as everyone else, but they sat there, patiently waiting. Clair was also whispering a running translation to Peter, as the prophecy was coming in Bulgarian.

At one point, Ani leaned over to me and whispered in my ear, "I feel like à wave of warmth is washing over me as I listen." And me? I was literally sweating, ha, but I couldn't stop till the words ceased by themselves!

When the outflow ended, I quickly excused myself, and ran to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face, ha. Ani followed me and said, "Blessed be the lips of the Lord God!" To which I could only respond with an amazed smile.—Like my parents, Ani had always been a staunch atheist.

When I came back to the living room, my mom said, "I didn't know you were able to see things," referring to reading the coffee cup. She sounded like she didn't exactly know how to handle what she had witnessed.

I smiled, and very seriously answered my mom, "Mom, I don't see things—I hear things."

She also couldn't help but comment on what I'd said. "Wasn't it à bit too religious for coffee-reading?" she asked, to which I responded, "Well, I guess it all depends on where one gets their inspiration when doing it."

I suppose this experience only goes to show that the Lord does have His ways of getting His message across, when He wants to reach someone! And His ways are truly unpredictable and mysterious!

For à long time I couldn't get over this experience—the feeling of the Spirit falling on me, and how I couldn't resist it, and most of all the effect it had on Ani and my mom. I never imagined I'd ever get to witness in such à way, ha. Under the circumstances, I would never have dared to witness as deeply as it turned out I did. But obviously, the Lord had something to say to Ani, and a witness to give to my mom, and I had absolutely no control over it. He had to speak, He wanted to speak, and He did it in à way that shocked all of us. Thank God for coffee, ha.

To be honest, the things the GNs promise that we'll be doing through the power of the keys, and how we'll be "prophesying before the nations," no longer seem so unachievable. I mean, if it was possible to do it in front of my notoriously unbelieving relatives, I figure that for sure it could be possible "before the nations"!