SIGNS, WONDERS, & MIRACLES

During the past 46 years we have seen the hand of God move in very powerful ways. In this letter there is only space for six of the stories that have touched the lives of so many people.

Story # 1, The Witch Doctor:

My father- in-law, Pastor George Clerie, who spent his entire life in Haiti, saw hundreds of signs and wonders during his lifetime. These powerful stories that he told drew me very close to him as I was just beginning my own ministry in the 1960s. I only knew him for a couple of years because he died suddenly of a heart attack just after Lisa, our first daughter, was born.

I will never forget hearing Pastor George tell of the time when a Witch Doctor had sent several of his men to kill him and rob him as he was walking home after one of his powerful meetings. Of course, he did not know anything about the enemy's plans.

But God knew!

Several days later, after the intended assault, the Witch Doctor and his men came to Pastor George's home and sat on the porch talking.

“What did you do to us the other night?” the Witch Doctor asked.

“What do you mean?” Pastor George said. “I don't know anything about the other night.”

“When you were returning from your meeting Sunday evening, we planned to rob you and kill you.”

“Well, what stopped you?” Pastor George asked.

“We were hiding in the bushes waiting for you. As you approached us we were getting ready to jump out and attack you. Suddenly a terrible smell caused us to fall down on the ground and begin vomiting. So we were not able to approach you.”

“Oh,” Pastor George responded. “I know what happened to you. In the Bible (2 Cor. 2:14-16) it says that believers in Jesus Christ are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. This is what you smelled the other night.”

“Yes, this is exactly what we smelled. Your power is much greater than ours. How can we get what you have?

Because of this supernatural miracle Pastor George was able to teach the Witch Doctor and his thugs about Jesus. Every one of them accepted Christ as Savior, repented of their sins, and were saved. The converted Witch Doctor eventually became one of the pastors at the mission. I have had the privilege of meeting him and preaching in his church near Jeremie.

Story #2, Miracle in the Jungle:

We had traveled for several hours on a very dusty road near Mt. Kenya. The dust was so fine that it came up through the floorboards of the old beat-up vehicle that our host referred to as a “car”. The dust was inside the pages of my Bible, in my nose, in my ears, hair, and eyes. Seriously, I don’t remember ever being as dirty as I was on that trip. And, of course, when we arrived at our destination there wasn’t a shower. We were almost dead-center on the Equator in Kenya, Africa.

The next afternoon we had our first meeting. Not only was the entire village there, but people had walked for days from other areas to attend. In spite of the hardships, heat, and dirt, I felt a very powerful anointing as I preached.

Our second meeting was scheduled for that evening. I barely had time to take a short nap. We could hardly believe the number of people pressing in and almost fighting for a place so they could hear the Word of God.

“Why are so many people here tonight?” I asked.

“Word got around, Wes.” my Kenyan host answered, with a huge smile on his face.

“Word got around about what?” I responded.

“Oh, I guess I forgot to tell you. This afternoon while you were preaching a 12-year-old girl who had never spoken or heard was instantly healed. She was deaf and dumb from birth. She not only had the two miracles of healing, but she is speaking Swahili perfectly. Her family and neighbors have been telling everyone about it.”

The amazing thing is that no one had prayed for this girl. God merely sent his Word and healed her!


Story # 3, God Speaks English:

In China we heard so many stories of God's powerful miracles that I believe that I could fill a book with the events. Of course, the first trip to the PRC will remain in my memory forever. Twenty-three of us carried in more than one ton of Bibles---right past the watchful eyes of the communist border guards. On every one of my sixty trips to China there were always miracles, signs, and wonders.

Of course, the biggest miracle for the Chinese people was that on each of these trips our team delivered a huge payload of Bibles. It was not uncommon to see a Chinese pastor on his knees weeping for joy as he received God’s Word for his congregation.

Can you imagine what it would do for you to have a man on his knees holding your ankles, tears streaming down his face, thanking you for bringing him a Bible?

As I was riding in a taxi cab one morning on my way to preach at a meeting, the usual blaring of the cab's radio filled the taxi. Of course, since we were in China, it was all in Mandarin, China's main language.

Then, suddenly, in perfect English I heard: “God's Word is good for the Chinese people!”

I almost could not believe my ears. It made me so excited, because at times on the mission field I have wondered if I was making any eternal impact. I suppose that God knew I needed encouragement.

A few minutes later, again in perfect English I heard: “It is good to bring Bibles to the Chinese people!”

My taxi driver did not know English, but when I arrived at my destination I gave him some Chinese literature and, by making signs with my hands, encouraged him to pray to God. Believe me, that morning when I preached I felt a very special anointing.

Story #4, Helpless in Haiti:

In March, when I was at the point of death in Haiti with a temperature of 105.7 degrees, and blood pressure reading of 60 over 40, we saw the hand of God in several clear ways. Dr. David Marks, who was using his skills as a doctor to do relief work in Haiti after the 7.2 earthquake, spent 13 hours with me that eventually saved my life. And . . . he had just put in a 12-hour shift just before that.

Heidi, my daughter, saw him on his way out of the hospital and asked him if he would look at her Dad.
She had already asked another doctor, but he said that he was too busy. Dr. Marks came to me as I lay helplessly on the floor in one of the hallways.

Later he told us that I was minutes from death. He was also amazed that with my blood pressure being so low I never passed out or went into a coma. Another amazing thing is that the little Haitian hospital was very, very short on supplies. Of course, I needed a lot of saline solution. Dr. Marks knew right where to get it. A few days earlier he had brought a supply to the hospital from an orphanage because he knew that if the solution had been given to one of the orphans it would have killed him. The solution that had been donated was only for adult use. He gave me two and a half gallons (9 liters) of fluid that night.

The next morning a Marine helicopter air-lifted me to the USNS Comfort, a navy hospital ship. A team of six more doctors worked on me there. The pilot of the helicopter had another assignment, but chose to rescue me instead. If I had not been taken to The Comfort I would have died because I had a terrible relapse two days later.

Story #5, The Greg Anthony show:

After my terrible illness in Haiti and my near-death experience there, I was so weak when I returned home that I could barely walk across a room. So how do you help anyone else when you are this feeble? In spite of what I had gone through, the fire burning in my heart to share the gospel was stronger than ever. I was so thankful to God to be alive; and I was so thankful for the miracles he performed to keep me alive.

It was very, very frustrating to be so weak. And I felt slightly depressed.

So I did what I have done for most of my life---I prayed and studied the Bible.

And then one morning when I checked my email messages there was a short note from someone I had never heard from before, right out of the blue. The writer asked me if I would be on his secular radio show in California---via telephone. It would be a one-hour interview!

Wow! Just perfect for me!

So I emailed Greg back and said I would be delighted for him to interview me. Little did I realize what a great open door God had provided.

Almost every person in the United States west of the Mississippi River would be able to listen. The full potential could reach 100 million people!

When God opens doors he really opens doors!

Here I was sitting in my living room with my Bible praying to the Lord, seemingly pretty hopeless and weak. But the Bible says that his strength is made perfect in our weakness.

To make a long story short, Greg told me after the interview that more people responded to my testimony than any program he had ever aired!

Well . . . isn’t that just like God? When he does something he does it well.

So, to make the long story even shorter . . . Greg interviewed me a second time about a month later.

Enclosed is a CD of the first interview. If you want to hear the second one, just call or write me and I’ll send it free.

Story # 6, Preaching to Thousands:

Our first missionary trip to the Philippines was a surprise to all of us on the team. Originally we had been invited by Mariano Yu to teach a few home Bible studies. But by the time we actually arrived in Manila, it was as though the entire city knew we were coming. In all of my trips abroad our team never had such a royal reception. We spoke at business men’s clubs, schools, prisons, churches, and lastly in the huge La Loma soccer field. Each event was headlined in the city’s newspaper.

The Philippine government even rolled out the red carpet for us by giving us the government-owned soccer field---free of charge!

I will never forget the first night of the crusade!

Next to the soccer field was a hospital. Unbeknown to any of us at the meeting, a woman had just checked out of the hospital. The last words she heard from her doctor were: “There is nothing more we can do for you. We are sending you home to die!”

She was in very great pain as her friends helped her descend the hospital steps. But before she got into the taxi she heard the voice of my preaching blaring out from the huge PA system. Her unbearable pain was instantly gone! And she knew she had been supernaturally healed.

Somehow she knew that there was a connection to her healing with the sound coming from the soccer field. So she pushed her way through the vast crowd and eventually ended up on the platform where I was speaking. She wanted to tell her story.

As she held the microphone she trembled and sobbed her heart out for joy. Then I took the mike and told her about the Jesus who had healed her through the power of the Holy Spirit. When I asked her if she wanted to accept him as her Savior, she just screamed out, “Yes, I do. Yes, I do. All my pain is gone. I have been instantly healed!”

There was just absolute pandemonium in that place. I did not need to say another word. We simply extended the invitation to everyone who wanted to meet Jesus.

More people came forward than I had ever preached to in my life. They did not just walk forward . . . they ran toward the platform. Very seldom, in all of my trips abroad have I seen such an amazing response to the gospel of Jesus Christ. What a witness to the resurrected Son of God!

So we serve a God who is alive and very active in the affairs of those who believe. Several times over the years I've had someone come up to me after I had spoken somewhere to declare, “I don't believe that God does miracles anymore.”

I have a standard answer for people who think like this. “The Bible says these signs follow THEM THAT BELIEVE. If you don't believe, then you have nothing to worry about.”

As for me and my house, we have chosen to believe!.

“These miraculous signs will accompany those who believe” (Mark 16:17). These words are from the very lips of our Lord Jesus Christ after he was raised from the dead and was teaching the disciples.

Haiti:

The U.S. government said that it will take approximately 10 years for the nation to recover from the January 12 earthquake. Tens of thousands of people are still sleeping in the streets. Many of them do not have food or medical care. Most do not have clean water to drink.

The five Hydro-Wells that we shipped to Haiti are supplying about 1,000 people each day with clean water. But this is just a drop in the bucket compared to the vast need.

Many of the bodies of those who died were picked up by a garbage truck and dumped in a field outside Port-au-Prince. A pastor told us that around 300,000 corpses were bull-dozed into a huge hole. Had I died in Haiti I would have probably been the only white man dumped there.

Why are there so many people sleeping in the streets? Many of them sleep in the streets because their homes have been leveled by the massive earthquake. Others, whose homes were only slightly damaged, sit empty because the people are afraid to go back into their houses for fear they will collapse on them.

One of our goals is to help provide temporary housing for the homeless, even if it is just a tent which will protect them from the rain and scorching sun.

One young man told us how his mother died. A soon as the quake hit she jumped on top of him to try to protect him. Her head completely crushed his arm, but she was killed in the process. She literally died to save his life.

During my time in Haiti God led me to some Haitian young people and we started having a Bible study each day. We met for two or three hours every day. I knew that I’d only be in Haiti for about three weeks, so I started looking around for someone to take my place. A white guy by the name of Clint started attending after about two weeks. It was as though the Lord was saying, “Here is your replacement.”

God works in very strange and unusual ways. Clint will be getting married to Wendell Martin’s daughter this month in Ohio. Wendell is the man I trained to lead the Bible courier teams to China.

My prayer for you is that God will give you his signs and wonders and bring great encouragement into your life. He is a mighty God and He is able to do anything. With God nothing is impossible!

Thank you once again for your generous gift to the outreaches of Full Life Crusade. May God bless you for helping those who are suffering in Third-World countries, and for helping us take the gospel (the good news) to those who have never heard.

In His Service,

Wesley Smith
Full Life Crusade, P.O. Box 398, Winona Lake, IN 46590
Telephone: (574) 267-7546 Website: www.FLC7.com


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