International Outreach is a Registered Charity. Charity no. 1138123
MIRACLE IN UPSTATE NEW YORK 1981
We travelled in January 1981 to a small village called Cherry Creek in upstate New York. We rented the village hall for evangelistic services, I must confess without a great deal of expectation. The morning after we arrived I received a telephone call asking me if we could help a girl in the village who was seriously mentally ill. Her family had tried everything to help her; including taking her to doctors who first prescribed drugs and then recommended a stay in hospital. Psychiatrists talked with her for hours, but nothing helped. The poor girl was raped by her own father when she was twelve years old, became pregnant as a result, and then suffered the indignity and terrifying ordeal of an abortion. She was married to a local boy when she was seventeen and had a beautiful baby girl. She now suspected her husband of sexually abusing her baby, basically because she couldn't find it in herself to trust any man. The voices in her head constantly accused the man she loved and the strain was now telling on an already tortured relationship. I mentioned the request to my colleague Syro who, with her usual nervous reaction to such pleas for help, agreed to talk to the girl in case she could possibly be of any assistance.
We tramped through deep snow to climb the creaking wooden external stairs to the upper level of a farmhouse on the outskirts of the village. It was so cold that moisture in the atmosphere was freezing into tiny ice particles and drifting like multicoloured confetti in the morning air, sparkling brilliantly in the bright sunshine. The room was small and homely with a wood fire burning welcomingly in the hearth to melt away the winter ice. Two women brought in a pathetic skinny girl of nineteen years of age and sat her in a chair in front of us. She had long straight blond hair which completely veiled her face. Her head was bent low over her chest. It was impossible to see her face. We said hello to her but received no reply. We continued to try and talk to her but couldn't even extract an acknowledgement.
Syro was amazing, displaying a godly and motherly patience. She gently, softly, coaxed the young woman (her name was Darcy) to try and answer her questions, but there was no reply. It seemed to go on for ever. Only once did Darcy make an attempt to speak but her stammering tongue made it impossible to decipher the words. Her friends explained that she had developed a terrible impediment in her speech and found it difficult to communicate. We were at an impasse. There seemed no way to help by talking. This girl needed a lot more than counselling; she needed a powerful, life changing miracle. In an atmosphere of utter hopelessness we bowed our heads and asked our Heavenly Father for help for this poor girl. Instantly Syro had some words come to her mind to pray, as though the One we were praying to was telling us what to pray, just like the day in the storm on the English Channel. It was not a complicated long prayer (In my experience the Lord isn't too impressed with lots of words) but we prayed it in simple obedience, and we prayed it with believing hearts. The result was instantaneous and miraculous. Within seconds Darcy sat back in her chair, brushed the hair back from her face, and began to talk to us with no stammer of any kind. Her blue eyes were crystal clear, her face fresh and radiant, her mouth dressed with smiles. How we rejoiced together and gave thanks to the One who not only calms the anger of the elements and commands the stormy wind to cease, but speaks peace into the troubled minds of the tormented. Truly He heals the broken hearted and sets the prisoner free from spiritual bondage. The little farmhouse reverberated to the song of praise that we engaged to the glory of His Name!
That night was the opening service in the Village Hall. We had absolutely no idea how many people, if any, would attend. Ten minutes before we were due to start there were about twenty people gathered. I was sitting on the stage area waiting to begin the service when Darcy appeared in the doorway at the back. She was shining, bouncy, light on her feet, and on her arm, with something of a bewildered look on his face, a young man who I assumed to be her husband. They came and sat on the third row from the front on my right hand side and the service began. I can't remember what text I used that night, but I remember at the end of the sermon Darcy's husband walking to the front and kneeling quietly before God. I went to him and asked him if I could help. He replied, "Whatever Darcy got today, I want!" That was all he said, but he said it with passion and heart felt desire. Suddenly the presence of God enveloped him and he began to tremble with the purity and power of the Holy Spirit. He began to speak in languages he had never learned as he bathed in an atmosphere he never knew was available to mankind. It was wonderful. He knelt in spiritual ecstasy. He wanted it to go on for ever and ever. What a joy it was to watch that blessed couple walk hand in hand from the Village Hall that night to begin a new life together.
The following night the young couple returned with both sets of parents, uncles and aunts. Two full rows of family and friends came to hear the Gospel, and at the end of the sermon every one of them came forward, all saying the same thing. "Whatever happened to Darcy and Neil yesterday, we want." They were all baptised with the same Holy Spirit that came upon Neil the night before (the first time I had ever seen people born again and filled with the Holy Spirit at the same time). Up to twenty people were transformed and added to His church that night, and all because God found a simple, humble woman, with the aptitude to hear his voice, and brave enough to pass it back to Him in a prayer of faith before the Throne of Grace.
