Healed! Part 2

Emily Spencer was scheduled for surgery to remove the part of her colon that was leaking into her abdomen.
With peace in her heart, she entered the operating room the next morning. The doctors were looking at her X-rays, and she could see where the colon showed the barium leaking into her abdomen. She prepared herself to awaken to find she'd had a colostomy.

Her husband was prepared for a lengthy wait, so he was surprised to see the surgeon come into the waiting room so soon. "Mr. Spencer," he said, "another Surgeon was there ahead of me. I could see where the colon had been diseased, but it is completely healed. All I did was remove a cluster of adhesions and make a few minor repairs elsewhere, but her colon is healthy."

Emily wasn't out of surgery but a short time, though, when she began having an allergic reaction to the anesthesia. At one point, she lost all blood pressure and other vital signs. If she had been having the lengthier surgery as planned, she probably would have died.

Her husband called us. Immediately, I activated the ladies prayer chain. By 5 o'clock, Emily's condition had stabilized, although she was kept in intensive care for observation for a couple of days.

From then on, her recovery was rapid. In 4 weeks, she was back in church. She said, "I know the Lord spared my life because He has something more for me to do for Him."

This ministry of our local congregation to one of our members greatly strengthened the bonds of love and fellowship within our church. Since Emily was so well known in the community, and she boldly witnessed to everyone about her healing, our new church was also elevated in its standing in the eyes of the community.

Praise God that even in hard trials He is working and wants to use them to build His Church and our faith!

Healed!

In mid-October 1979, Emily Spencer, whose story I told in the previous three blogs, began having severe abdominal pain. The doctor put her in the hospital for tests. She had had diverticulosis for over 6 years and had had 6 inches of her colon removed 5 years previously.

The tests revealed a flare up of the condition and an abscess in one of the diverticula. The doctor put her on antibiotics to see if that would cure the abscess, but he warned that surgery would probably be necessary.

My husband was out of town when Emily went into the hospital, but I took two men from our church into her hospital room to anoint her with oil according to James  5:14-16. That was on Thursday. By Sunday, Emily felt so good she wanted to go home.

On Monday, when the doctor examined her, he was amazed. . He had said it was unlikely that the antibiotic treatment would be successful, but the abscess had already cleared up so quickly he called it miraculous.

The doctor told her that she still needed surgery since the X-rays showed that her bowel was leaking into her abdomen. He was afraid that peritonitis would set in, and that could be fatal. This diagnosis was confirmed by three doctors.

The doctor planned to remove the diseased portion of her colon. Due to the previous surgery, a temporary colostomy would probably be necessary.

Emily was released from the hospital and told to build up her strength for the surgery scheduled in 2 weeks. It had to be postponed for 2 more weeks due to some difficult circumstances at home.

All during this time, the people of Glove Cities Assembly of God continually prayed for Emily's healing. At first, she still had pain and couldn't seem to regain her strength. Then one Tuesday at Ladies Bible Study, everyone remarked on how much better she looked. That's when Emily realized that she was feeling better and had gained back the weight she had lost.

But the doctor still felt she needed surgery. The day before the surgery, Pastor Conti anointed her with oil and prayed for God's will to be done in the entire situation.

What would the doctors find? To be continued...

Daughter Missing! Part 3

After consulting a psychic to try to find answers to their daughter's disappearance, the awful words of the psychic repeated over and over in Emily Spencer's mind. She couldn't sleep, and each waking hour was torture. After a year, she could take it no longer.

Emily determined to end it all by taking her own life. She planned exactly how she would do it, but she couldn't carry out her plans. Something wouldn't let her. "I know now it was the Lord," she told me.

One day she met a friend she hadn't seen in a long time. The friend seemed different somehow. In the course of the conversation, the friend asked, "Emily, how are you?"

Emily told her the truth, and her friend began to tell her about her new relationship with Jesus Christ. "And He can help you too, Emily," she concluded. Before they parted, her friend gave her a devotional book to read.

As Emily read that book, she turned her life and her problems over to Jesus. "My friend was right," she said. "Jesus took away the nightmares, the horror, the words of the psychic that repeated themselves over and over in my mind. Jesus saved my soul and gave me a sound mind. I could once again function as a wife and mother without tranquilizers."

Eight months later, Jim came to know the Lord too because of the change he saw in Emily's life. In time, Emily's brother and his wife received Jesus too. They all became faithful members and workers in the new church we pastored, Glove Cities Assembly of God. Because of the deep waters she has been through, Emily was able to minister to many people who were going through tragedies.

Emily told us that one day she was reading in Psalm 116: "I was brought low, and he helped me." She felt like those words were written just for her, and it brought her great comfort. "I can honestly say if it took this anguish to bring me to the Lord, it has been worth it all."

"Not knowing what happened, not knowing whether Pam is dead or alive, is the hardest part," Emily said. The Spencers believed she was probably dead, but they continued to pray for her. Emily even prayed that if foul play caused Pam's disappearance, the person or persons involved would come to know the Lord and confess the crime.


"When I feel overwhelmed by it all, I've learned to lean harder on Jesus. He has brought me this far. I know He will see me through, come what may."

The last time I saw Emily, she had just turned 80. She told me that every year on Pam's birthday, she wrote a poem to her and had accumulated quite a collection. Both Jim and Emily Spencer are with the Lord now. They never did learn what happened to Pam, but they entrusted their lives to the One who knows all things. And He carried them through.

God Saved Our Marriage Part 2

Betty had thought she was doing the Lord's will when she left Dave. Then Dave gave his life to the Lord, and the new church in Gloversville that he had begun attending was praying that they would reconcile. Her brother, who had led her to the Lord, was encouraging her to come back to Dave.

In Florida, Betty had been going to a women's Bible study, so she shared her thoughts and her brother's letter with them. To her surprise, they backed up what he had written. But, Betty was still not sure she could forgive Dave.

Two months after Betty had left Dave, her pastor's sermon one Sunday morning seemed to be directed to her. At that same time back in Gloversville, Dave told Pastor Conti, "Betty is going to call today. The Lord told me a week ago I'm going to be leaving for Florida today to bring Betty and Cheryl home." Dave was so sure of it that he went home and packed and was all ready to leave at a moment's notice.

That afternoon, Betty attended a Joy Fellowship meeting. The guest speaker that day spoke on resentment, rejection, and forgiveness. Betty said, "That message had my name all over it. As soon as I got home, I went right to prayer."

Later, Betty called Dave but couldn't bring herself to assure him they could get back together. Dave, however, decided to drive to Florida anyway and was on the road by 6 p.m. He drove straight through, stopping only for gas. When Betty came home at 1:30 a.m., Dave was there. They talked for hours about what the Lord had done for them. They shared from the Bible all the things the Lord had been teaching them. In all that time, they didn't talk about the past--only the future.

The following Sunday morning, just a week before Christmas, Dave, Betty, and Cheryl walked into church together at the Glove Cities Assembly of God in the YMCA in Gloversville, New York.

Betty said, "That Christmas was the best we had ever had because we knew the Christ of Christmas personally."

Dave and Betty became some of the most faithful members of the new church. Pastor Conti counseled with them to help them understand what had caused their problems and how to overcome them in the future.

"And God gave us a son to remind us of what He has done in our lives and in our marriage," Betty said.

Dave served as church treasurer and Betty taught Sunday school until God moved them to a new job out of state. We were heartbroken to see them go, but we still hear from them at Christmas, and they are happy serving the Lord.

From Tragedy to Rejoicing

When we were moving into our apartment in Gloversville in April 1977, the news was full of a sad story of a 12-year-old boy who was missing on the nearby Great Sacandaga Lake. He had taken a boat out on the lake, and a strong wind had blown up suddenly. After twelve days, his body was found.

At one of the first sectional ministers' fellowship meetings we attended, we met a sweet Italian-American grandmother, who told us that the boy who had drowned on the lake was her grandson. She asked my husband to visit the boy's father, her eldest son. He had purchased a Revolutionary War era house that overlooked the point on the lake where his son had drowned and had arranged to bury his son in the old North Hampton Cemetery on that point. He was restoring the house.

Bob called him, and they set a date to meet. Over the next few months, as Bob met with him, the sorrowing father gave his life to the Lord. The following Easter Sunday, Bob had the privilege of baptizing him in water at his mother's church in Mechanicville since we did not yet have a building or a baptistry. We drove through a blizzard to get there, but he was determined to be baptized that night.

The man and his brother owned a paving and roofing company they had taken over when their father retired. In time, the  man completed his restoration of the large house and fixed up the smaller guest house on the property. As our church grew, the man began attending regularly. He offered to host Sunday afternoon picnics on his beach in the summertime. These frequently ended with water baptisms in the lake. (In fact, Bob had the privilege of baptizing his own mother in the Great Sacandaga Lake.)

The man's brother and parents often spent the weekends in the guest house, so they were included in our picnics. His father did not go to church and blamed God for the death of his grandson, but he enjoyed the get-togethers and often added homemade pasta dishes to the potluck picnic meals.

In time, the man, who had been divorced when we met him, fell in love with a young lady in our church, and they married. When the couple's first son was born, they named him after the son who had died, but reversed the order of the first and middle names.

Following the example of Mary and Joseph taking Jesus to the Temple to be dedicated to the Lord, the couple asked Bob to dedicate their new son. His parents came to that Sunday morning service. Bob pointed out that this child was not a replacement for the son who had died, who was with the Lord, but that he was a new, unique person. That got the man's father's attention as he realized that his grandson, though gone from this earth, still existed in eternity.

At the last picnic we held at the man's place on the Great Sacandaga Lake just before we left Gloversville, Bob baptized several people. Then, the man's father stepped forward to be baptized too. God had turned a tragedy into rejoicing!

God's Mysterious Ways

When we began holding Sunday services in Gloversville in 1977, Bob tried to get our church listed on the weekly church page of the Leader-Herald. Because we didn't own our own building, the editor refused. Instead, we had to pay for an ad each week.

But God often works in mysterious ways.

Shortly thereafter, we received a phone call from Mickey Clementi, who had learned of our new church through a television ministry. A semi-invalid, she couldn't come to church, so Bob and I visited her often and took her Communion.

We had not met her husband, a local businessman and owner of the Gloversville Holiday Inn. One Saturday, as he was reading the Leader-Herald, he asked his wife, "Why isn't Reverend Conti on the church page?"

"They refused to put him on because he doesn't have his own church building," she said.

"That's not right! I'm one of the businessmen who support that page. If they don't put Reverend Conti on it, I'll take my support away and pay for his ad."

And he called up the editor and threatened to do just that. The next Sunday and from then on, the Glove Cities Assembly of God was listed on the church page of the Leader-Herald.

During our first year of holding services in the banquet room of the YMCA, located on the second floor of the building, we were required to keep the entrance door to the building locked on Sundays. Once the service started, our son, Bobby, six years old when we first began holding services, dressed in his little suit and tie, stood just inside the door as our doorman. Even though he took his job seriously, it was not an ideal situation. We often prayed about it. Once again, God worked behind the scenes.

One Sunday morning after everyone had gone home, I was in the kitchen cleaning the Communion trays, when I heard a thud that sounded like a body falling on the floor just above my head. I went into the main room where Bob and Bobby were rearranging the chairs and told Bob. He decided to investigate.

He climbed the stairs to the rooms rented out to several men who made the YMCA their home and discovered that one older fellow, Charlie, had fallen in the shower. He hadn't been feeling well. When he started to hemorrhage, he had become so weak that he fell. Bob called the ambulance, but Charlie absolutely refused to go.

Bob called the Chief of Police, but he said they couldn't force him to go. So Bob began calling everyone he could think of who might be able to influence Charlie to go to the hospital. Bob stayed with him until finally, after a couple of hours, one old friend of Charlie's convinced him that he needed to go.

When the Director of the YMCA heard what had happened, he thanked Bob over and over for saving Charlie's life. The director's father had been killed in World War II, and Charlie had played a big part in the director's life as he was growing up.

Soon after that incident, Bob was asked to serve on the YMCA board, and the church was able to keep the doors unlocked during our services.

Bob going out of his way to care for another human being did more to literally open doors in that community than all the advertisements in the world.