by Bob Fugate, an Alliance international worker serving in Mexico
While a freshman at Penn State, I attended the Jesus ’78 Festival with a broken ankle.
For the first time in my life, I heard the voice of the Holy Spirit, telling me to stand up—with no crutches. Without a cast, my ankle was badly swollen, and I knew it would not support my weight. But thankfully, although with a lot of hesitation, I determined to find out if this really was the voice of God. If so, I did not want to miss out on what He had.
As soon I had put weight on the foot, it was instantly, completely healed. I remember jumping up and down a few times to test it out and then running at full speed to see if it was really healed . . . I took a little convincing. What an awesome joy I felt. It was a blast to walk back to the campsite holding my crutches under my arm!
That was the beginning of my realization of God’s awesome power on behalf of His people—it had now become personal for me. If I would learn to trust Him, He would act.
I had planned on becoming a medical missionary. This had been a sort of crutch for me, since I had confidence in medicine and feared depending solely on God to be a traditional, clergy-based missionary. It took me two years to give up that plan, but I did so because I wanted more and more of the unmistakable presence of God in my life.
I remember the call of God’s voice that day in 1978: “If you want Me to work through you, then I must get all the glory—you can do nothing for me. But if you trust Me, you will see wonders and things you never imagined possible. The choice is yours.”