Saving Souls

SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS I accept your challenge to begin work on it. Hallelujah.  Praise the Lord.  Give the Lord a great handclap. Hallelujah. Ann, you were at the Women I understand you were at the Women in Leadership Conference this past week. There’s lots going on while I was in Korea.  Lindsay went off and preached.  Lindsay went up to Washington, D. C. for one day.  She couldn’t go to Korea with me because of the little baby, our baby, but she could go for one day to Washington.  And she went and she preached on the subject of “Crisis.” And my mother was there and Lindsay’s mother was there and they told me she did a terrific job.  I’ll put you on the spot.  Were you there?

 

SPKM ANN PRETORIUS Oh, yes, I was there.  I certainly was.  And Lindsay was such a great blessing.

 

SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS Did she do O.K.”

 

SPKM ANN PRETORIUS You know, I don’t think people realize just what people in ministry can go through at times.  And it was so encouraging to me. You know, sometimes we’re right out in the field, we feel as if we’re cut off from everything and we feel as if we’re going through a crisis that nobody else would ever understand.  And you just blessed me so much and encouraged me to see the things I’ve gone through, I wasn’t alone.  Other people have been through those things and God gets the glory because He brings us through every time. 

 

SPLR LINDSAY ROBERTS Well, you know, God showed me two things before I went to minister up there.  I remember a man many years ago told me the saying, “It hurts to get hurt.”  Your hurt may be in one area and my hurt may be in another area and Richard’s hurt may be in another area, but it hurts to get hurt.  Our hurt is all the same.  The subject may be different, but inside it feels all the same.

 

SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS Pain is pain is what you’re saying.

 

SPLR LINDSAY ROBERTS That’s right, no matter how it comes, it still hurts.  And the other thing that the Lord showed me was, God wants to heal our scars.  And Cheryl Prewitt Salem who was Miss America in 1980, was up there with us as well, and she was sitting in the audience.  And the Lord directed me to look at her face and she had several stitches, I mean over 100.  They stopped counting at 100.  And when you look at her, she’s had no plastic surgery, and how God healed her scars.  And when I saw her face, the Lord gave me this saying, “I can even heal the scars.” 

 

Even though the exterior looks O.K. and you think that, you know, you’ve gotten over the crisis, that’s not good enough for God. He can heal the scars on the inside.  And that’s what He led me to share with them. 

 

SPKM ANN PRETORIUS There was something else that you said, Lindsay, that really ministered to me and that is, you said when you squeeze a lemon what’s inside must come out.  And I realized that you cannot bury those things in your heart.  You cannot get rid of those scars by burying them.  They must come out. Otherwise, when you hit the crisis they’re going to come out and it’s going to make it harder for you.

 

SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS When they come up they can be healed.

 

SPKM ANN PRETORIUS Oh, yes.

 

SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS Well, I’m grateful.  Lindsay is–can I just tell you the truth?

 

SPLR LINDSAY ROBERTS No.

 

SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS Lindsay has been a little frightened to be a speaker.

 

SPLR LINDSAY ROBERTS A little?

 

SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS But she has, she has come in demand.  Many people, many groups are now asking her to come and to speak out of her experience of losing a child, of miscarriage, of what she’s been through in her life, losing her father, and learning now about the healing power of God.  And, Lindsay, I’m very grateful that you went.  I heard from so many different people that you were a blessing and I thank God.  I thank God for your life and for what you’re doing on this program.

 

SPLR LINDSAY ROBERTS Thank you.

Richard, we had 8,000 packed into that hall.  And by the third night we had as many outside.  But what I want to bring out in that is, every single night we had more than 1,000 people who were blind or crippled or, you know, sick, deaf, I mean you get lepers.  There are thousands of lepers.  You know, I’ve prayed for the sick wherever we’ve preached the gospel.  We’ve seen God do wonderful miracles.  I’ve never been confronted with the suffering that’s in that country. And then on the Thursday night of that crusade we saw God do the most tremendous thing.  He healed a woman who was 18 years totally paralyzed.  And when she got up and just began to run across the front of this hall shouting that Jesus had healed her, I mean faith came to the people that I’ve not witnessed before.  And cripples just got up and threw their crutches down and tried to walk without anybody praying for them. Hallelujah.

 

And we saw 12 people who were completely paralyzed healed that night.  Well, they had it in their national newspaper and it just went across the country.  It opened the way for another crusade for us.  And, you know, from that time 60,000 people have come into the Assemblies of God movement alone.  We’ve established 25 new churches in Bircao.  I mean, that place is so ripe for Jesus.  But you have to have a way to open the door.  Now we’ve continued doing that. We’re working with the health department.  We’re establishing orphanage for 300 children.  We have been helping in whatever way we can medically, and that’s why I wanted to come right now.  The situation in that country is, they have about 80,000 people to every qualified medical doctor.

 

SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS 80,000 people to one qualified doctor.

 

SPKM PETER PRETORIUS That is correct.  And then on top of that, those doctors are all in the cities where the one or two major hospitals are.  Outside of the city there are hardly any qualified doctors in the rest of the country.  Now what they do is, they bring people in, train them for four months as medical orderlies and then they send them to these little outposts.  And they have a book

 

SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS So they’re medical orderlies, they’re not medical doctors.

 

SPKM PETER PRETORIUS Oh no, they only train four months.  You know, they’re given a little book that says, “If the man has this, give him this medicine.” But I mean they are really not trained at all.  And although they’re trying their best, they’re almost, you know, doing nothing to solve this real desperate need for medical work in the nation of Mozambique. So I’ve been praying about that for two years.  And, you know, when you came out to South Africa and came to Johannesburg, I just knew God was going to give us the opportunity to meet.  And I spoke to you briefly then and explained the situation to you.  But, you know, I want to as it were be bold enough this morning to issue a challenge to you.  You know, there is more of a need in that country right now for doctors to come in and to help a nation that is in such desperate need.

 

But I want to say more than that, it would help our ministry and it would open the way for your ministry to be able to get the gospel into areas of that country where it’s not possible in any other way.  You know, and it’s like a two-edged sword.  And I want to put that challenge very powerfully to you this morning, I believe that God wants your ministry to do something about the situation.

 

SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS Well, I want to go to immediately prayer about it.  And then the second thing I want to do is, I want you to meet as soon as possible and while you’re here in Tulsa I want you to meet with Dr. Jim Winslow, who is our Dr. Luke, if you will, who is responsible for our world medical missions program. He’s responsible for the program that’s being prepared in Kenya, for the program being prepared in Jamaica and Guatemala and several other nations.  And I want you to speak with him while you’re in Tulsa and see how God leads toward Mozambique.  You understand our mission is to send our doctors to the nations of the earth.  So let’s begin work on it.

 

SPKM PETER PRETORIUS Praise God.

SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS Barbara, I understand that you started out having a desire to be an actress and going to Hollywood and getting into films which you did. Can you give us a little bit of your background?  This was before you got into the makeup industry.

 

SPKM BARBARA WALDEN Oh, yes.  Well, I played the part of a fabric woman in “Ten Commandments.”  I worked with the late Nat King Cole in “Night of the Quarter Moon” as a dancer, and I also worked with Bob Hope.

 

I went back after I started the cosmetics company to do my last film at Disney.  I was under contract at Walt Disney Studio and I played the part of Jody Foster’s teacher in “Freaky Friday” and that is the last time I worked in film.

 

SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS Now there came a point in your life where you thought you were a good person because you didn’t do certain things, but you discovered that you didn’t know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior.

 

SPKM BARBARA WALDEN Oh, I did not.  Well, I came from a very Christian home and my mother was always saying, “Barbara, let’s go to church.  You must have God.” And I would say, “Mother, I’m very successful.  Look at me.  I have a business that’s worldwide.  On my walls there are awards from all over.  What do I need to do to church for?  What do I need God for? God’s here.” And I fought it constantly.  Well, my mother became very ill. She had a heart attack two years ago and I flew back to be by her bedside and I saw her there suffering and I could not do anything for her.  I went back to her home that evening and I said, “Look, God, you know who I am.  I could bring you twenty souls to my mother’s one if you let me take her home from this hospital just once more.”  I said, “You know, God, I do hundreds of television shows around the country, hundreds of newspapers and radio.  I could sit my mother there and say, ‘Look, there is a God because he let me bring her home.’”  And I said, “Let me bring her home and I will do this for you.”  Well, that evening I was at the hospital and mother’s friend came in who was a Christian and I told her and she said, “Barbara, you can’t bargain with God. Say to God, whatever his will is, that whatever his will is, let his will be done and you will still bring Christians to God.”  I went back to my mother’s home and I prayed again and I said, “Whatever your will is, God.  I am your child.  Accept me, and I will bring souls to you. I’m going to go after souls for you.”

 

SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS Was that really a born again experience for you?  BW: Not…. I was going through… I wanted to bring my mother home from the hospital. Well, mother passed away and I went to pay my last respects and everyone was concerned about me. As I walked up, my mother’s legs, which had become a light and I started to shout and I shouted and they said for ten minutes I was just shouting.  I then went over and took her handkerchief and I said, “Mother, I will meet you one day in heaven.”  How do I reach my mother who is a Christian in heaven if I’m not a Christian?  I got on the phone and called my office and said, “I’m coming back.  I’m a new person.  I’m going to walk different, act different, and I’m going to look different because I’ve found the Lord.”  Nobody believed this.  I got back to my office and I called a meeting with my P.R. lady.  I said, “Chris, I want you to get me on every Christian show there is.  I want to go out and talk about the Lord.”  And she said, “Oh, you’ve got to be insane.  You’re not going to get involved with these Christians.  You’re no born again Christian.”  She said, “I’ll drop you.  I won’t handle you.”  I said, “Then, Chris, I’ll find someone else because I’m going to do it.”