Introduction
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6
Episode 7
Episode 8

Precious Memories

After we came home from the state of Nebraska, in our early life, George opened a service station and tried to settle down, like other families, to a normal life, but we were soon to learn that when God has the reins of your life, you are not your own, but you are bought with a price. I remember George's dad used to tell him that he believed he was a jinx, because everything he tried seemed to fail, but I realize now that the Lord would not allow us to prosper because He wanted George in full time work for Him. He had a plan for his life and didn't want him entangled with the things of this world.

He was restless and we moved from place to place, searching for something we couldn't seem to find. This caused George to turn to the Lord and desire His divine guidance above everything else.

On one occasion, we started to Florida and stopped at a little store to buy bread and sandwich meat for a meal. One of the children asked for a cantaloupe, which was only twenty-five cents at this time, but I quietly explained to him that we couldn't afford it. We got in the car and started down the road again. A few minutes later, George asked me if I felt like driving. He pulled the car over to the side of the road, and I got out and started around the front of the car to get in on the driver's side, and I almost stumbled over the prettiest cantaloupe, laying in the grass. I picked it up, walked around the car, and handed it to the children. This was just another testimony of how God, so many, many times, heard the smallest desires and granted them in our walk from day to day.

I have regretted many times not keeping a diary of our travels and adventures in Christ, but when we were going through them, we didn't realize the greatness of what the Lord was doing in our lives.

Following Christ and going through hardships together and sharing in the joys of the Lord together brought our little family into a unity that not too many people ever experience. My heart longs many times to recapture those years of happiness, but they have gone down on record to be in my heart as precious memories throughout eternity.

We were misunderstood by our families and friends so many times. They didn't see the invisible force that we were being driven by, to cause us to go the way we were going. The hand of God was moving us like a man would move a chess piece on a board. I learned to follow George as he followed Christ.

He sought God through prayer and fasting and, when the Spirit spoke to him, he learned to obey, no matter what the circumstances were. He read his Bible from cover to cover. He read the New Testament on his knees. He would stay in his room for hours at a time, praying so fervently that when he would finally come out, he would be soaked with perspiration so much, that he looked as if he had been dipped in a pool of water.

God began to deal with him in dreams and visions. One time in Macon, Georgia he was working at a bottling company, driving a drink truck. One morning, he got up to go to work and related a dream to me that had troubled him through the night. He had seen one of the men who drove for this company have a terrible wreck, and saw him paralyzed. He tried to get to the man to warn him, but somehow missed him. A few hours later this man wrecked the truck and injured his spine, and is still paralyzed from his waist down today.

He got an invitation one time to go to a little church and preach a revival meeting. About this time, two young preachers came along, saying God wanted them to do certain things, even though George felt he was supposed to go to the little church to preach. They all got down in our living room and prayed, and when they got up, they still felt that he was supposed to go with them. But, knowing that God isn't the author of confusion, George just let them go their way, and we went where God had showed him to go. As a result, God wonderfully blessed us in a great way, while we found out later that, had he gone the other way, we would have really had trouble.

We would rent whatever was available to us when we got to a place. We had rented some furnished rooms in a small town, one time, where George was preaching. On the way to this little town, we had passed by a little twenty-eight foot house trailer that had a "For Sale" sign on it. We had really been going through a terrible financial battle, and didn't have hardly anything, as far as material goods were concerned.

George stopped the car and turned into the big house where the trailer was parked, which we found out later belonged to a lawyer and his wife. I felt like we were wasting our time because, in my greatest dreams, I couldn't imagine owning a nice little home on wheels like that. I knew that we didn't have any money, and, at the same time, I didn't realize that the same simple faith that we had, which caused God to give us our food every day, would also bring the other needs in our lives as well. Besides this, I knew that if those people found out that we didn't have any money, they wouldn't be interested in even showing us the trailer. I hadn't learned that the preparation of man's heart is from God.

George got out of the car and looked the trailer over, as he talked to the lawyer and his wife. When he got back in the car, he told me that he had claimed the trailer by faith and that we would get it. The lawyer had given him the terms he would sell the trailer for, which were more that I felt we could ever get. We had traveled in the car so long, staying with people and renting trailers, furnished rooms, or whatever we could. Sometimes our children were really mistreated by people when we stayed in their homes, but we just swore to our own hurt, as the Bible tells us to, and just went right on doing what we could to help build up the kingdom of God on earth.

After we left the lawyer's house, we went to what was our home at that time, a few furnished rooms. A few days passed, and I didn't think too much about the trailer, even though George had told several people the trailer was ours. I was leaning to my own understanding, trying to figure out where we could get enough money to buy it. One night, George was sitting in a chair, reading his Bible, and I started to tell him our rent was up on the furnished room the next day, and that I knew we didn't have the money to pay for another week, but when I got to the door of the room he was in, I saw tears, streaming down his face, as he talked to God, and I knew by his expression on his face, he was in touch with the great Spirit of God, so I didn't interfere.

A few minutes later, someone knocked at the door, and I answered it to find a well-dressed, dignified man standing there. He introduced himself, and I recognized him as being the lawyer George talked to about the trailer. I asked him in and told him to sit down, and I called George. They talked to each other a few minutes, and lawyer turned to me and asked if I would like to see the trailer. Since it was in another little town, I answered, "Yes, maybe sometime, when we come back through, we can stop by and look at it." He laughed and said, "It's parked out here beside your front porch!" He and his wife, who had on a fur coat, had driven a truck over themselves and brought the trailer with them.

This was their testimony. She said that she was in the house and her husband was in the barn. She said she just couldn't get George off of her mind, and when she went out to talk to her husband about it, he said it was strange, but the same thing had happened to him. He said there was just something that wouldn't let either one of them rest until they finally decided to bring the trailer over to us. They left it sitting in our yard without a penny down, and monthly payments that we could meet. We had a celebration that night, and many people came over to witness what faith can do.

You can't imagine what it meant to have a little place to call your own, and one that we pulled everywhere we went. God surely had opened up the windows of heaven and poured us out a blessing that was hard to believe!

By Sister Betty Pike

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