Beltway Testimonies
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Testimony unfolded: May 2009

God showing his interest in the every day life:

All,

At the men’s retreat boot-camp I realized that I haven’t been listening to God or his Word very well. I may have read it or “heard” it, but never took the time to realize it was God speaking to me. That all changed. I have heard our Lord speak in several different ways. The two most prominent is through the Bible (his Word) and through a vision/picture/whisper in my mind. Here are two stories out of many in recent weeks.

The Monday after boot-camp I needed to get a tire fixed on my wife’s car. As I looked up Sears Automotive on the Internet, the Lord reminded me of a little place on Buffalo Gap called Abilene Tire and Service. I thought it was just me remembering since I had gone there a couple years ago. So I went there and got the tire fixed. As I was in the lobby waiting the Lord popped in my mind very strongly. I heard, “tell that man checking you out on the computer that I sent you here instead of any other shop in Abilene”. Well I just couldn’t do that could I?

So I didn’t. I chickened out. The best I could come up with was a “Thanks, God bless you” as I walked out the door. Well I’ll be darned if the Lord didn’t harass me on that ride home. I felt so convicted that by the time I came in the house I picked up the phone and called the tire shop. I asked to speak to the man who checked me out. He happened to be the owner of the shop. I told him what God told me to tell him and that I was supposed to tell him in person, but was nervous. Guess what? I was an answer to his prayers. The day before, him and a group of guys were praying for his store and for new customers. When I obeyed the Lord, the store owner knew the Lord heard his prayer and was answering it. The Lord also showed me that it wasn’t all in my head and to continue listening and obeying him.

The other prominent way I have been hearing the Lord is through the Bible. Just this morning I was reading the devotional, Our Daily Bread. Before I opened that up and read the Bible passage I had been praying to God to help me fight the battle. You know, the unseen war. My boot-camp high has deflated and I’m on the battle ground daily. I was asking forgiveness for speaking without thinking yesterday and possibly hurting folks with my rude or snide remarks. The thing is, I don’t even feel like how I spoke. I’m convinced I let my guard down and Satan took a jab. Anyway, after praying that I opened the passage. I was to read Psalm 119:161-168. The whole passage spoke to me, but namely the first verse, 161. “Powerful people harass me without cause, but my heart trembles only at your word.” I know that was the power of God telling me to continue turning to Him and His Word when I get frustrated at work.

I hope God is able to use my testimony to help lift you up. I share not to lift me up, but because the Lord told me to.
- Steven Cooper

Testimony unfolded: April 2009

A story of generosity:

My wife and I finally gave away that envelope today here is what happened.

It started as a simple matter as finding out where we wanted to eat.  My wife asked me and I didn’t know where we wanted to go and then I asked her and she didn’t know where to go either.  Then I said “You know if God wants to lead us in everything why not this as well lets ask God where to eat.”  My wife laughed but I was serious and so I asked out loud “God where would you like us to eat”  A loud resonant COTTON PATCH came from nowhere.  My wife and I thought…COTTON PATCH?!  WE DON’T EAT THERE EVER!  IT IS SO UNHEALTHY ARE YOU SURE?  And sure enough God reaffirmed that Cotton Patch was the place to go and that we would know the purpose when we got there.  So we went into cotton patch and sat at our table.  Desaree was still saying “LETS EAT AS HEALTHY AS WE CAN HERE”

Then I asked God.  “Ok God we are here what do you want to do here?”

Then God said: “There is a woman to your left go and give her the envelope.”

I had to be doubly sure that it was God telling me this and when I got the same thing my wife looked at me and said.  “Old woman?  To our left?  Yeah I see her too and I think God wants us to give it to her.”

So I went over to her and said that the envelope was for her and that God said that she wanted her to have it after which she asked me where I would be and I pointed out our seat.

She then came over to us and told us her story about how God has always blessed her life and how God has always taken care of her and stressed the importance of PAYING IT FORWARD.  Saying that everything in this life is a blessing and that when God blesses us it is important to share these blessings with those around us and not squander those blessings to ourselves.

It was the most joyful time in my life since I was saved and my wife and I was nearly brought to tears about how happy this made us.  Our souls were literally alive.  It was like God was saying to us “Good Job I am proud of you”  It was just the best feeling anyone could ever feel in the world.

I see now how something as simple as asking God for a lunch idea could end up so joyful and blessed.

I hope God has more in store for us!

Testimony unfolded: May 2009

He knows even when a sparrow falls:

My name is Robert Wheeler.  I have never been in the right frame of mind or been open to or even tried to listen to God before the boot camp….God gave me a message!  I ask Him what He wants me to know, from Him about me.  Then I was just silent….He gave me this message through some dove there.  It was raining and He takes care of everything, even in the rain, and what are those birds supposed to do?  Survive in Him.  This was the message God sent to me.  It’s not flashy or even a new revelation, but it is a confirmation in what I am supposed to be doing.  I know that many folk believe God talks to us, but I have always been a little skeptical, He had never talked to me before that I knew of, after all.  So I asked if this message was from Him or if it was me trying to hard or imagining things.  I asked God that if it was a message from Him then let me hear a dog bark because I hadn’t heard any dogs all weekend….and within two minutes a dog sounded off!  This was by far the best moment of the whole boot camp for me. That is not to say that there were not any other great things going on.  The group of men that I found myself in had to have God’s hand sticking us together!  Those men are true sons of God!  I am looking forward to a long lasting relationship with these warriors for the kingdom!
Robert Wheeler, A man of God, walking a little taller, kicking satan’s butt!

Testimony unfolded: May 2009

God speaking personally:

God impressed several fresh words to me during the bootcamp and revealed the importance of a “band of brothers” to walk through life with to hold each other up.  God is so good to communicate to me and He is all-sufficient for every need.

John Byington
Blessed from Bootcamp

Testimony unfolded: May 2009

God using everyday people in today’s world to do the miraculous:

Hi my name is Michael B. Rister. I have an interesting story of prayer and healing that I feel like I need to tell the church. For the longest time I lived my Christian life with the idea in my head that for whatever reason GOD did not do supernatural things in our present society like he did in the Bible. I reckoned, like many, that those occurrences mentioned in the Bible were rare things that were reserved for special occasions in special circumstances. Recently GOD began (and still is in the process of) challenging me in this arena. I began to realize than 1. unchristian people tend to respond more to stories of the supernatural than the dry reasoning I had fallen back on before and 2. to deny the supernatural aspects of GOD is to deny the very nature of GOD himself.

To make a long story short, I believed that GOD was able to do the things he claimed to do in the Bible, but for whatever reason he wouldn’t do them. And I definitely didn’t dare believe that someone such as myself could ever perform the kinds of miracles that Peter and the other apostles did (which is kinda dumb because it isn’t me doing it anyway it is GOD) But the challenge ensued, and for sometime this girl I knew had been having severe pains in her side so much so that it completely incapacitated her and no one she went to could find anything wrong with her, yet the pain continued day after day. Finally I gave in and told GOD that if he really would do the things the Bible talks about then I would step out for her and try to invoke a similar healing reaction. I prayed, I laid hands on her, we prayed together and did all the stuff that normally is done, and absolutely nothing happened. Later the girl and I went separate ways and still her pain continued as it had before. Needless to say this left me kinda jaded as to the whole supernatural healing of faith and all that stuff and I walked away with the belief that for whatever reason GOD just didn’t want to do those kinds of things anymore. Sometime later I met another girl with what appeared to be the exact same symptoms as the first girl, the only difference was this girl had not only been to hospitals here in Abilene but had been checked out by hospitals literally all over the country, and still no one could find anything wrong with her. Her story ended with us both in the waiting room at Hendrick hospital at 3:00 in the morning and I decided once again to give the whole ‘miracle of GOD’ thing a try. we prayed together, out loud, in front of everybody and I told GOD I knew he could do it and I would believe and give him all the praise I could if he would just step out and help this girl or at least let the doctors find whats wrong and give us a way to fix it.  I believed and she believed and that night a new doctor fresh out of school with relatively little experience found what had alluded doctors all across the country for years. He prescribed a relatively simple cure, we did it and it worked. She currently experiences no pain, and as for the first girl I ran into her again sometime later and as it turns out the same doctor found the same problem in her at around the same time frame and the same cure healed her and she too currently experiences no more pain. It was kind of a round-a-bout way to do it but I truly believe that doctor was only able to spot that problem because I prayed for them and GOD revealed it to him. So really three healings took place, the two women obviously but maybe also my jaded brain which was full of doubt and skepticism. Jesus Christ really is alive and really is GOD.

thanks,

Michael B. Rister

Testimony unfolded: May 2009

Many salvations:

The Peru medical mission trip saw 842 patients and 171 salvations!  Praise the Lord!

Testimony Unfolded: May 2008

God brings energy:

I suffered from a chronic disease, which left me tired after activities. I had the healing team pray over me. I recently went on an overseas trip and was full of energy, more than I have ever had. THANK YOU LORD!

Testimony Unfolded: April 2007

A man gets prayed for at SHAPE retreat and is healed:

A few weeks back I attended the Men’s SHAPE retreat to learn more about my spiritual gifts.  We broke into our small groups at the end of Friday and went back to a room to pray. We didn’t want to “bother” the group with it and really felt like it was too little a thing.  The group prayed over me and during the prayer, my knee lit up with heat.  It felt like it was on fire on the inside.  I heard God say,”I have healed you; this is where Satan will attack.”  I was still skeptical and processing what had happened, so I didn’t say anything to anyone at that time.  I came home Saturday and told my wife.  She thought it was awesome also, but I said that I needed to “test it out” to prove to myself that it was true.  I went running the next day and there is no still no pain.  Praise God!.  We prayed for different needs of different individuals in the group.  When it was my turn, I mentioned some things I was struggling with and that I thought God was pushing me in new directions.  I had been experiencing some knee pain when I ran, but it didn’t.

In May of 2007, Laura Frankenfeld shared this story with us about her trip around the world:

Stories of healing on the Mexico mission trip from Thomas Wilson, one of our highschool students:

This week we (high school group) went to Mexico with a small team to help out at the Big Heart Orphanage in Reynosa, Mexico. The jobs we did required a lot of long, hard work. During one of these days, Jose Muniz (the Jesus Crew guy…known as a scary looking mexican to many) was cutting rebar with a table saw and accidentally moved his right forearm into the blade. His arm was cut deeply about 3 or 4 inches long. D’Linda Benham, our team’s nurse, immediately treated his wound and wrapped it. Jose was obviously in severe pain and couldn’t do much with his arm. Later that day, before our nightly devotional, D’Linda approached me and asked me to make an announcement after my devo to pray for the injuries that people had from the first 3 days of work. As she said this, I quickly suggested further that we should pray over people because I believed God wanted to do some supernatural work. As I said this, an intern that was there, Kendall, quickly agreed with me and we decided we would do this after the devo. So at the end of our discussion, I made the announcement that if anyone had any kind of injury we were going to stay afterwards to pray over them. About 8 people stayed, so we circled up around the first patient, Jose. And we prayed. After 10 to 20 minutes of praying, I felt confident that God had healed his arm. We were praying that the wound would be completely gone, and I believed it would be. So when we finished, Jose was pressing on the bandage and telling us how amazing it was that there was no pain. I eagerly prompted him to remove the bandage. When he did, we didn’t find just skin, but we also didn’t find a deep cut. On his arm where the deep cut had been earlier was a surface level scab that looked as if it had been drawn on his arm. He showed us that it had truly been healed by pressing on it and hitting it and twisting the skin around it. He could barely touch it without wincing before we prayed, and now he was laughing and poking it liberally.

But that was just the beginning. Next up was Jessie Davis, who had a huge burn on the inside of his leg from the searing hot exhaust pipe of a motorcycle. It had been plaguing him the whole trip and it was not pretty. So after we prayed over it for another 10 to 20 minutes, we were all sure God had healed him. And sure enough, we removed his bandage and found a greatly reduced burn scab that he said had no pain. In fact, that day, D’Linda had traced the area of the red mark from the burn with a purple sharpie, and she showed us that that initial area was at least an inch or two bigger in diameter than the burn mark that was left. Also there was no heat to accompany the wound, something that was a bad sign when D’Linda was checking it out previously.

Then we prayed over Stephanie Maybee who had severe stomach pains. For her though the healing was more spiritual than physical, and God truly did move inside of her. It was an amazing experience and she left changed.

All this to say, Jesus is ALIVE!!! And He is STILL continuing to inpress me and show off his Glory, in new and increasingly powerful ways. Jose’s cut was a ridiculous healing! He cut his arm the morning of the same day it was healed on, and it was TOTALLY healed!

If you have read this, take some time to praise God for the works he is doing! He deserves it!