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Dufresne Ministries Podcast
Memorial Stones | Carolyn Savelle | Ladies Conference 2025 | Tuesday AM
00:48:52
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A
Hi, I'm Nancy Dufresne. Welcome to our podcast channel. We know you'll be blessed by today's message.
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Oh, praise God. Well, you have to do this for me. Do this. That's my hug to each and every one of you. Every one of you. You know that's a feel good hormone that's released in you called oxytocin. And this I just want you to feel. My love to you, each and every one of you today. Well, you may be seated. It is such an honor to be. And Nancy asked me a few months ago if I would tell stories. So today I'm going to tell you some faith stories. Is that okay? Hallelujah. But first, before I get into that, I want to tell you just a little bit about my life. You just know I'm the wife of Jerry Savelle, right? But it starts way back when I was 8 years old and the church I was raised in was a Holy Ghost church. And I'm telling you, I was so honored and so privileged in my lifetime as a young girl to hear some of the greatest of our day that came to our church. I grew up under Jack Coe and A.A. allen and William Branham. And my great uncle traveled with William Branham and with Gordon Lindsay and my pastor, Jack Moore. And I grew up in a church that had missionaries come every month. And because of that influence in my life of them showing the slides and everything, there was a love for me birthed as a little bitty girl to love the mission field and to love the missionaries that were out there in the field. So I was so privileged to hear the greatest. Grew up in Oral Roberts tent crusades. Oh, you guys. I have an old wooden rickety chair in Jerry's office that was from Oral Roberts tent Crusades. And that old chair, you're sitting in a padded comfortable chair here today in air conditioning. But we were under those tents and it was so blazing hot. And I'm telling you, the hunger for God was so great that Happy needs extra cushion on top of his cushion. I mean, you know, there's only Bo back there with Happy. There's not much me. I'm sorry, Happy. The anointing of Jerry's come on me to pick on you. I'm sorry. You know, but there's not much padding back there, so had to have cushions. But I was thinking those Oral Roberts tents, Crusades, those old wooden rickety chairs did not have cushions. But we were so hungry for God, so hungry for the things of God that it didn't matter. You would sit there all day and all night long, just drawing on the anointing of God. And that's what brother Oral Roberts was believing for that the people. So you wonder why the anointing of God and miracles happen. Because there were hungry people. Hungry people. It's the hunger of God that pulls the anointing of God out of the people. The hunger. The hunger. So I'm telling you. One day I was 8 years old, wanting God raised in a church that taught us to love God and to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I went to church camp filled with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. At the age of eight on a Friday night, church camp. I spoke in tongues all night long as my family was driving me home from church camp. And my parents told me that I talked about, look at this angel, look at that angel. And I would describe what the angels look like. And I talked in tongues, Mother said, for almost 20 something hours. And that night I was called to the ministry. That night I gave my heart to the Lord for the ministry. Well, at the age of nine, my sister and I were outside our bedroom under this big old beautiful tree on the side of the house. And I saw. And we were playing church. And we had all of our baby dolls lined up. I was the preacher, my sister was the song leader. And all of a sudden I saw this new little boy driving, driving, riding his bicycle down the street. And I turned to my little sister and I said, there goes the boy I'll marry one day. I went in the house and I said, mom, I just saw the boy I'm going to marry. And I found out on Monday morning the Savelles had moved in two houses down from us. And I found out Monday morning when he got on the school bus and I got on the school bus. His name was Jerry savelle. I was 9 years old, he was 11. Make a long story short, he went off to college. At graduation, he was gone for two years into his second year, he came home and we happened to meet up at a car wash. And he asked me how I was doing, what I was going to do after graduation. I told him and we just greeted each other and left. He went home to same house on the street. I went to my home. And so then that night I was going to a friend's house where the kids in the church were having a prayer meeting and a Bible study. And then we would eat and play games and stuff. We pulled up on Hearn Avenue, side by side at the red light. And when I went the block and Turned left. Well, he followed me and turned left. He got out of his car and he said, well, what are you doing here at this house? I said, going in to have a Bible study and prayer meeting. He said, well, do you think it would be okay if you go in and ask him if you can go with me and have a root beer float? I said, sure, I'll go in and ask them. So I went in and asked them or told them that I was going with Jerry to get a root beer float. So he said to me, that night, we're sitting there having a root beer float. Well, Carolyn, what are you going to do when you graduate from high school? I said, well, Jerry, I'm going to International Bible College in San Antonio, Texas, and I'm preparing for the ministry, and I'm going to be a missionary in Africa. He said, my Lord. He said, I've never heard of anybody like this that already knows what they want to do. They want to be a missionary in Africa. I said, yes. And so that was it. We said our goodbyes. I went back to the house, you know, was with my friends. Well, then that Friday, I got out of school, and there was Jerry Savelle leaning up against my car like this, waiting for me. When I got out of class on Friday, I said, what are you doing here? He said, well, I wanted to ask you if you could go out on a date with me tonight. I said, no, I'm sorry, I can't. I said, I'm going to a camp for kids tonight, you know. And he said, well, do you mind if I go with you? It was like a. What do you call it? Pressing up like a revival for kids. And he said, well, do you mind if I go with you? And I said, well, sure. So we drove from Shreveport to Wascom, Texas, to this youth rally is one of the words I'm looking for, a youth rally. And he said, these are the craziest people I think I've ever been around in my life. I've never seen anybody get out in the middle of the aisle and dance and shout and hoop and holler because he was raised in a Baptist church. And so anyway, he just. He didn't know too much about that. So, you know, we said our goodbyes. So the next Friday, I got out of school, and there he was, leaning up against my car again like this. And he said, well, I've never been to a youth rally. But he said. And he said, can we go out tonight? I said, no, I'm going to another youth rally in another Town. He said, well, do you mind if I go with you? And I said, no, sure. Well, that night, you guys, this is the funniest story. There was this beautiful girl. She was cheerleader. She was the most popular girl. And so they said, she came up to the front and she said, I want prayer, and I want to be popular because of Jesus in me, not because of the way I look. And Jerry said, my Lord, after they got through praying for that girl, she wouldn't be popular for being pretty anymore. She didn't have a hair left on her head and no makeup left on. She didn't have to worry about being popular anymore. So to make a long story short, through the course of that couple of months, we went and see each other. And in November, this was September, October, November, he asked me. He said, carolyn, I think I'm in love with you, and. You do? And I said, well, I said, I've been in love with you since I was nine. No, I didn't tell him.
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I didn't tell him that.
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But anyway, you guys, it was just the neatest, neatest story. I had my youth group at my church pray and believe God that one weekend when he came home from college, he'd get filled with a baptism of the Holy Spirit. And he did. We fasted. We prayed that whole week. Teenagers fasted and prayed. That weekend when he came in, because we were having a guest speaker, he got filled with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And then when we decided we were going to get married, I told him the night before that the Lord had told me that the man I marry will preach the gospel and go around the world and will go to Africa as a missionary. He said, you're marrying the wrong man. I said, no, I'm not marrying the wrong man. I said, because God showed you to me when I was nine that you would be the man I would marry. He says, well, Carolyn, you've picked the wrong man. I said, no, God picked you for me and me for you. And I said, we will preach the gospel around the world. And he says, no, I'm going to spend my life on a racetrack. So he tried to prove to me the next three years that he would spend his life on a racetrack. But I told him that night before the wedding, I said, I know the power of intercessory prayer. I know how to believe God. And so that's what I did. I just prayed and took it to God, you know, and the rest is history, you know. So all these years, 55 years in ministry, 55 years in ministry. So today I want to share with you some of the things that have set my feet, established me, put my feet on solid ground. So I want to start with Psalm 78, verses 1 through 8, and I'm going to be reading out of the Passion. Translation Beloved ones, listen to this instruction. Open your heart to the revelation of this mystery that I share with you. We've heard true stories from our fathers about our rich heritage. We will continue to tell our children and not hide from the rising generation the great marvels of our God, his miracles and power that have brought us this far. The story of Israel is a lesson in God's ways. He established decrees for Jacob and established the law in Israel. And he commanded our forefathers to teach them to their children for perpetuity. God's ways will be passed down from one generation to the next, to those yet not born in this way. Every generation will set its hope in God and not forget his wonderful works, but keep his commandments by following his ways. They will break the past bondage of their fickle fathers who were a stubborn, rebellious generation whose spirits strayed from the eternal God. They refused to love God with all of their heart. Now, Deuteronomy, the fourth chapter, verse nine, says, only be careful and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things that your eyes have seen or let slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. So in many ways, the life of faith is one big act of remembering, remembering what God has done. You live each day mindful of who God is and what God has done and what he can do and what his gallop on your life can do through you. So his promises of the future. You look at the past to see what is promises are for the future. You need to remember, and remembering is difficult. Remembering requires effort. And effort requires an increasing and no distraction from the society and the world that's going on around us. So remembering requires effort. The church is called to remember. If we don't remember who God is and what God has done and his call upon our lives and his promises for the future. If you're not living mindful of this, then there is a true possibility that the church can die. So you have to remember first. Remember what you have seen. God's people were preparing to enter the promised land. The men and the women who were listening to Moses were only children at the time of the Exodus. Moses told them to remember what they had seen. Moses warned them not to act like their Feeble and fickle parents. Deuteronomy 4. 9. Only be careful and watch yourself closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen nor let slip from your heart as long as you live. So the parents of the men and women listening to Moses and didn't lose access to the memories of the plague, of the parting of the Red Sea, or the fear of the glory on Mount Sinai. They didn't lose access to these memories, but they did forget. They did forget. They forgot in the same way that you can forget to implement God's Word in your life on a daily basis, and you can forget what he's done for you. Moses told their children, and the spirit is telling to act differently. Only be careful and watch yourself closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let slip from your heart as long as you live. The men and women listening to Moses had seen remarkable wonders and signs, but they needed to remember. Even the food they ate on a daily basis was a miracle. So let's just take manna for an example so you consider how you remember the things that God has done for you in your generation. He fed them manna from heaven. He protected them when it was so hot during the day. He put a cloud over them so they were cool. He gave them a fire by night so they were warm. He did everything to provide for them. So when Israel was afraid that the Lord couldn't save them, and he didn't say, well, I'm all powerful, he told them to remember what he had done. And he said, lift up your eyes on high and see the stars. Who created those? He who brings out their hosts by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might not. One of them is missing. So he was trying to give them a picture of how great God was, how great he was. So he said, have you not known, have you not heard that the Lord is an everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth? And who could summarize all of this in one word was to remember. Remember what God has done. In Deuteronomy 6:12, Moses issues warnings to Israel just before they entered the Promised land. Be careful you do not forget the Lord who brought you out of Egypt and out of the land of slavery. And the Hebrew word for memorial is to remember. Given man's ability to forget, it's no wonder that memorials have always played an important role in biblical history. At the foot of Mount Sinai, Moses built an altar of stones to commemorate God's covenant with Israel. Exodus 12:14. In Exodus 12:1, when the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, that the Lord gave more specific instructions. In verse 2 and 5, choose 12 men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up 12 stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the prince priests stood and carried them over and put them down at a place where you stay tonight. So Joshua called together 12 men and appointed the Israelites from every tribe and told them to go and to pick up a stone that was to be a memorial for their tribe. So these memories are memorials or experiences of God's answering prayer and God's marvelous hand of provision. In Deuteronomy 6:21, 23. And he said to the Israelites, in the future, when your descendants ask their fathers, what do these stones mean? Tell them Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground. For the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you, before you crossed it. And the Lord your God did to the Jordan just what he had done to the Red Sea when it dried up until everyone had crossed over. And in Deuteronomy 6:6, in the future, when your children ask you, what do these stones mean? Tell them that the flow of Jordan was cut off before the Ark of the Covenant. And these stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever. So memorial St. Are signposts to a lost world. In verse 24, he did this so that all the people of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear your Lord. It's always been God's plan that the whole world should know that he is a living God. So I have memorial. I have memorial stones in my life, and I want to talk about some of those memorial stones today. Memorial stones. I want to begin with the first thing that happened in our life, which is so monumental to me. Brother Kenneth Copeland had been coming to our church, and Jerry and I were like big old sponges. We were sitting, like, on the third row right there. And I'm telling you, we were so hungry for the Word of God. One of these particular services, we heard a child screaming, and we saw a side door open, and the nursery attendant came running in with our baby in her arms. And blood was just flowing everywhere, coming down her uniform. And she come running up to Jerry and I with our baby. And what had happened? She had rocked over Terri's fingers in the nursery, and it cut her fingers off behind the nail. And so here was Brother Copeland up on the platform preaching. And so as she rushed in there and gave the baby to Jerry. And she was screaming and crying. Brother Copeland stepped off that platform and walked up to Jerry and said, what's happening? He said, my baby's fingers have been cut off. Brother Copeland said, give her to me. And he gave. Jerry gave the baby to brother Copeland. Brother Copeland had that baby right here on his chest. And he said, in the name of Jesus, I command the pain to cease and the bleeding to stop. And instantly. Our daughter fell asleep on brother Copeland's shoulder, who had been screaming at the top of her lungs. She fell asleep. Well, then Jerry went out. Brother Copeland said, take her out into the restroom and clean yourself up. So brother Copeland continued preaching. And so I went out, and Jerry, the nursery attendant, knocked on the bathroom door and said, brother Savelle, I think you might want these. And handed him our baby's fingers. And Jerry put them in his shirt pocket. Well, after that service, Brother Copeland said, I advise you, please take her to the hospital and get them properly dressed. So we went to the clinic. The clinic wouldn't touch it. Her center clothes to the hospital. Well, you guys, I watched that doctor took X rays at her fingers, and he said, it got the nail root. He said, see, on the X ray, it got the nail root. She can never have normal fingers. She'll have two little stubs. The only thing I can do is take a skin graft from her hip, cover over those two little fingers, and she'll have little short stubs the rest of her life. Well, I watch my. Is Jerry Rose's age. I watch those little fingers go down in this jar and sink to the bottom of that jar. Jerry and I had just heard that week that we had a covenant with almighty God. We didn't even know there was A Deuteronomy the 28th chapter. Even though I was raised in the word of God, raised in church, but when I found out in Deuteronomy the 28th chapter, that there was a covenant of blessing and a covenant of cursing, and I realized that blessed shall be the fruit of my body. And her fingers cut off was not the fruit of my body being blessed. We stood right there in that hospital room, and we looked at that doctor and we said, doctor, you do what you can do in the natural, but our God will take care of the rest of it. Our God will restore our baby's fingers. And right there in that hospital emergency room, we declared what we believed our baby would restore. Our God would restore our baby's fingers. So, long story short, I was having to take her back Every other day to the clinic where they would unwrap the bandages, wrap them up, look at them to see, okay? So one day I go in and he said, Mrs. Savelle, one skin graft is taken, the other skin graft has not taken. And he said, we're going to have to go back in again and take a little spot piece of skin and do the surgery over. I'm going to have to clean that up, cut it off, you know, put the skin grafts on again, start all over with that one finger, you guys. That day, we had received a card in the mail that a man by the name of Kenneth Hagin was going to be in Tyler, Texas, the next day. And it was 100 miles from Shreveport, Louisiana. Well, that week, our engine had blown up in our car, and we didn't even have a way to get to Tyler, Texas, to go hear brother Kenneth Hagin. And when Jerry and I, we'd learned the prayer of agreement, we joined hands and said, some way, somehow, God's going to get us to Tyler, Texas, because brother Copeland said, we need to hear this man, Kenneth Hagin. And so we agreed in prayer that God would get us a ride to Tyler, Texas, to hear brother Hagin. Well, just about that time, I joined hands in our living room and agreed. We get a phone call, and it was Sharon Seward. She said, brother Jerry, I just got a little card in the mail that said that brother Kenneth Hagin is going to be in Tyler, Texas. And she said, I was just at the car dealership, and she said, I want to go here. Brother Hagin, would you and Carolyn like to go with me and the man from the car dealership? I'm looking at this car, said I can drive it to Tyler, Texas and back. Would you drive the car and take us over to Tyler, Texas? That was our ride to Tyler, Texas, to hear brother Kenneth Hagin. That night, God provided us a way to go hear the man of God. Well, glory to God. We had just heard Mark 11:23. For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall see unto this mountain, be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe those things which he saith shall come to pass. He shall have whatsoever he saith. Guys, we just gotten ahold of that. We were newbies, we were babies. But I'm telling you, it became so real on the inside of us. So the three of us driving over to Tyler, Texas, came into agreement that we would have a front row seat when we got to that meeting. Well, we got to that meeting and little old tiny ballroom, it didn't hold over 75 or 100 people. We got there and the usher said, we're sorry, folks, there are no more seats, no more chairs in this entire room. We don't know where we can put you. I mean, we guess you can stand up against the wall in the back. Well, we'd agreed going over there that we would have a front row seat. Just about that time, an usher came up to the head usher and said, I just found three folding chairs in a closet in the back. Where do you want these three chairs? They said, in the front of the front row.
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We got to sit in the front.
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Of the front row. And that night, Brother Hagin preached out of Mark 11, 23 and 24. And I'm telling you, as Jerry says it, our faith was as high as a Georgia pine tree. When we came out of that meeting. I believe my God had restored my baby's fingers. The next morning, I take her back to the clinic, the doctors unwrapping the bandages, and he screamed, my God. My God. Not only had my God restored my baby's skin grafts, but he grew her face fingers back overnight. He grew both of her fingers back overnight. My baby had her full fingers. And when he screamed, my God. My God. I said, no, sir, not your God. My God.
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My God.
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Because he had a big old fat Buddha in his lobby. Big old fat Buddha sitting in his lobby. But it was my God who restored my baby's fingers.
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My God, this is my memorial stone.
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My God restored my baby's fingers. My God gave us a ride to Tyler, Texas, when our car was blown up.
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It's my God.
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This is my memorial stone. And I want my children and my grandchildren to know what my God has done. When we didn't have food to put on the table and we had just moved to Fort Worth, and Jerry comes up to me with tears streaming down his cheeks, happy. He said, carol, I'm going to be gone three weeks. I have $3 for you. He said, that's all I can leave you, honey. That's all I've got for you. I said, jerry, my God will supply all of my need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus. I said, for the first time, we know we're in the will of God over here in Fort Worth, Texas. Don't you worry about me and the girls. God will take care of me. He'll take care of us. I went to church that night. Guess what I did. I put my $3 in the offering. What was that $3 going to do me? It was greater as a seed. It was greater as a seed. And I got home that night and I'm undressing the girls and it was cold and I had my coat on. I put my hand down in my coat pocket. I felt something. I pulled it out. It was a $20 bill. Someone in the lobby of the church that night when you're visiting, had rubbed up next to me, bumped up next to me, and put that unknowing to me down in my pocket. A $20 bill. My God. Shelly took care of me.
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My God.
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He supplied the food my girls than I needed for the next three weeks. My God.
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That's my God. That's my God. He can be yours, too. That's my memorial stone. That's my memorial stone.
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Glory to God. That old car we had that I was just telling you about, it was beautiful. On the outside, it looked like Big Bird. You know, the color Big Bird yellow. Big Olds 98, you know, beautiful car. But it was shot. I mean, it was. And we moved to Fort Worth with that car and preaching with brother Copeland and going. And Jerry would get invitations, and that car had hundreds of thousands of miles on it. So one day he got an invitation to speak in Oklahoma City. And that's about 200 miles from Fort Worth. And he said, carolyn, he said, honey, the tires on this car are shot. I don't even know if we can make it from Fort Worth to Oklahoma City. He said, we've got to pray and believe God. So he and I joined hands and prayed again. The prayer of agreement. Mark 11, 23, 24. You guys, what I'm going to tell you is the honest truth. We get up on i35, we're headed from Fort Worth, Texas, to Oklahoma City. And all of a sudden, we look and Jerry said, carolyn, are my eyes deceiving me? Do I see what I see happening? Is that a tire rolling down the interstate?
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I said, it is. It's a tire rolling down the interstate.
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And it was coming right towards us. When it got right towards us, it rolled right over in the ditch. Jerry pulled the car right up out to the ditch. He gets out, he opens the trunk on our car. He picks that tire up out of the ditch, puts it that tire in the trunk of our car. We drive onto Oklahoma City. And that was the days before cell phones. The hotel room had yellow pages, you know. So he looked down through there for all the tire companies, called every tire company. Happy, have you lost A tire. One fell off of a truck, and we found it, picked it up off the side of the road. No, sir, we have. There's no report of a tire missing. Well, it looks like you have a tire, sir. The last place he called, said, it's your tire. Jerry went out, raised the trunk of the car. Guess what? It was the very size of the tire we needed for our car. He took it down to a place and got that tire fixed and put on our car. Well, guess what? We needed three more tires because we'd come into agreement for four. Well, we got that tire. Fort Worth, and the car needed some maintenance, so we put it in the shop and Jerry went to pick it up. When he got to the place, there were three more new tires put on. We don't know to this day who it was that came by there and put three new tires on our car. So we had four new tires on that car. Four new tires. What we had prayed and asked God for. My God, that's my memorial stone. That's my memorial stone. My God. My God. One of the stories I want to tell our daughter, the one that had the fingers cut off when she grew up married, she and her husband had tried and tried and tried for like four or five years to get pretty, and she couldn't. Then they spent thousands and thousands and thousands on the fertility and trying to. Just couldn't get pregnant. So one day, Jerry gets a phone call from John Hagee, and he says, brother Jerry, will you come and minister at my church? Such and such? Jerry said, yes, I'll be there. So Terry and Rodney went with Jerry to San Antonio to preach in John Hagee's church. But right prior to that trip, this friend of ours, minister, friend, out in West Texas, called and said, brother Jerry, you have a partner out here in West Texas, and she has cancer. But the Lord told me, if you'll come lay hands on her, she'll be healed. And he said, I'll do it. I'm going to be out at John Hagee's, and we'll fly straight from there to you and we'll pray for this lady. He said, now, don't tell her that. Don't tell her that we're coming. Just. I mean, I don't want a lot of. Of people there, just her and her immediate family. So when the man picked Jerry up, his name was oop. When OOP picked them all up at the airport, you've heard the OOP stories, picked him up at the airport, and they went out to her house. Out in the country. There were all kinds of cars out there when they got there. So Jerry went in and laid hands on her and prayed for her. And sure enough, she was totally and completely healed. I mean, years later, she healed of the cancer. But Terri and Rodney and Jerry were in the car on the truck with u on their way to the airport. OOP looks at Jerry and he says, well, he looks at Terri and he says, little lady, he said, the lord told me that you've been believing for a child and you've not been able to have a child. He said, one year from now, you'll have a little girl and she'll look just like you. Well, that little girl's 28 years old now, and she looks just like her mother, only about a foot taller because she has her daddy's high. But that's my memorial stone. My granddaughter being here is my memorial stone. That's my memorial stone. That's the God I serve. That's the God you serve. He's bigger than anything. He's bigger than any person problem. He's bigger than any need.
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He's bigger than anything.
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B
That circumstances coming against you. Our God can meet that need. He can take care of you. He can heal you. You know, with Jerry passing away a year and goodness, I forget. I lose track of the time. How long has it been now? Press? A year and six months. A year and six months. When Jerry passed away, everything became tied up in probate court. Everything's tied up. I couldn't get my hands on anything, any of the monies, any of the. Everything's tied up in probate court. You know what I had to do? Just like I told you about believing for that food. When I had $3 left, what did I begin to do? Sow what I had, give what I had. And you know what? My God, once again, 55 years later, was my memorial stone. He saw me through every up and down he threw me, saw me through everything I had need of. I mean, it was just like I'd have a motorcycle. And the person said, I know it's in probate, but let me pay you for it now. And you just keep it until it's out of probate. I'd have a car, a Corvette I wanted to sell. That was the money I had to live on. Well, let me go ahead and pay you for the Corvette, and you live on that. When it's through the probate, then, you know, I'll take the car. God took care of me every step of the way. I didn't lack for anything ever because my God took care of me. What a God we serve. That's my memorial stone. That's my memorial stone. Glory to God. What a God we serve. One time we had a financial accountant who had gotten behind on the withholding taxes for all the employees. And one day he calls Jerry. He said, sir, can I please come over to your office? He said, I have something I need to tell you. Jerry said, sure. So our accountant walks in. He said, I've been paying the bills. We. We were lacking this and lacking that, and I've been taking the withholding taxes from the employees and paying the bills with it. And Jerry said, you did what? He said, yes, we're behind. And he said, I've had this letter for a few months, but I can't keep it hidden from you anymore. But the IRS on Monday is coming to padlock the doors of your ministry and close the whole ministry down. Jerry said, what? And he said, yes, sir. He said, here's the paper from the Internal Revenue. And he said. So Jerry came home and he said, carolyn. And he showed me the paper and I read it, and I didn't know, what in the world. What in the world are we going to do? Right there in our family room is where we decided. And this is important for somebody in here. So important for somebody. Your ministry is not external building. It's not sound equipment, it's not vans, it's not any of this. All of this. Your ministry's in here. It's in here. This is where your ministry is. They can take all of this away, but you still got your ministry down on the inside of you. And Jerry. And I said, right there. Take it all. Take it all. We'll start all over. Start all over. Our ministry is what we know. Our ministry is what's down on the inside of us. So just about that time, he and I, we prayed. We came into agreement. God would work a miracle. We get a phone call from a couple and they say, would you please meet us for dinner tonight at 5 o'? Clock? We say, yes, we'd love to meet you for dinner tonight. Normally in the natural, you don't want to go have dinner with somebody. You just want to go to your bedroom, get in your bed and pull the COVID over your head and hide. You don't want to see anybody, talk to anybody, do anything. We said, yes, we'd love to have dinner with you. So driving over there, Jerry and I said, we're not going to talk about this problem. We're not going to tell them anything about this. They will not know. We will have a wonderful, delightful meal with them and they will not know what we are experiencing on Monday morning. This was on a Thursday or Friday. They won't even know that. We may not even have a ministry building come Monday morning. We did not say a word. We had a lovely meal with them. We didn't say a word. At the end of that meal, they said, well, the reason we ask you for dinner, Momma and I have been saving our tithe money for a long, long time. And we felt like we wanted to give it to the both of you for your ministry tonight. Guess how much it was to the penny of what it was we needed to pay the IRS the next day.
- [40:14]
C
To the penny of what we needed. That's my memorial stone. My memorial stone. That's what my God did.
- [40:33]
B
My God did it. My God. And he's your God. He's your God. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Glory to God. One time, I don't even know what time it is. Is my time up? One time we were with Fred and Betty Price in Omaha, Nebraska, in a convention. And the meeting was over and the, the people had taken us to the airport. And Fred and Betty are going to one terminal, we're going to another terminal. We said our goodbyes and hugged our necks. And Jerry had gotten so many steps away and he turns back around and said, fred, Fred, Fred turned around and said, yes, brother. He said, I want you to know I'm not moved by this. I'm not moved that I'm having to fly commercial. I believe I have my own airplane. And Fred yells back, I agree with you, brother.
- [41:33]
C
So be it.
- [41:35]
B
Well, we fly to dfw, they fly to lax, we get to dfw. You have to realize it's before the days of cell phones. We get to DFW and our office manager picks us up and he said, brother Jerry, he said, there was a couple that called and asked if you and Carolyn could meet them tonight in Dallas. We live in Fort Worth, so it's like an hour, hour and a half drive whichever way. Could you meet them for dinner tonight at Southern Kitchen? And so we had to pull off the side of the road to a payphone to call this number and say, yes, we'd love to have you meet you for dinner tonight. So at five o' clock, we get to Dallas. We're at Southern Kitchen, and these two couples are sitting there waiting for us. And they, after we ordered our food and all the food, Jerry tells its story. This Way he was dipping into the crab meat to eat. And he said, the couple said, the reason we ask you to come tonight is because we want to give you our airplane. The first airplane we believe for there with Fred and Betty Price. We want to give you our airplane, but we couldn't give it to you debt free because we still owe debt on it. And this couple, we're telling them we're in their home visiting, that we wanted to give this airplane to you, but we couldn't give it to you because it had debt. They said, well, how much do you owe the debt? And they told them how much they owe. Well, we happen to have that much money in our tithe account to pay the debt off so you can give the airplane to Jerry. That was our first. Our very first airplane. And I'm going to tell you today who it was. Vicki and Wes Jamison and Charles and Peggy Capps. Charles and Peggy Capps paid the debt off. And the airplane was Vicki and Wes Jamison's airplane. And together, the four of them blessed us with our very first airplane. That was our memorial.
- [43:39]
C
If it can happen for Brother Copeland, it can happen for Jerry Savelle. It can happen for Nancy Dufresne. It can happen for you. It can happen for any of you.
- [43:51]
B
Our God. Our God. Do you not think Jerry had so much fun calling Fred and telling him one day later that my airplane was manifest? The goodness of God. The goodness of our God. Oh, what a great God we serve. Lord, we just praise you right now. We just praise you. We just thank you. Whatever the needs are that the ladies and the men have in this place, Lord, I know you're the God of more than enough. You're the God who meets all of our needs. You're the God who can do it. I just praise you and thank you for it. In Jesus. Precious and precious, precious name. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Father. One more story I'll tell you. I have a hundred more. But Jerry was in a church service one night. And there was this couple that came in, and they had a little girl. She was about 8 years old or 9 years old. And she had no control over her arms, her limbs, her head. And she was just like a little limp noodle. Her little head would just lay to the side, and she would drool. And her odor, you know, her body odor, her breath odor, just all the odor. You could just smell it all around her. And she'd moan and groan. And so as Jerry's preaching, the anointing of God came on Me, he asked the couple, do you mind if I carry your daughter and hold her while I preach? And they said, no, no, sir, go ahead. So Jerry picked up this little girl who you have to realize how long they look when you're holding a child. They look so much longer. So she looked like a full grown adult with him carrying her. And he would carry her while he spoke and she'd get so heavy, he would move her to this side and then he'd move her to this side and this side. And he told the people not to be moved by what they saw, that he was believing God, that the anointing and the power of God was going into her as he was speaking, and that she would be healed in the name of Jesus. So he would. She drooled all over him. She went to the bathroom on his suit. I mean, but he didn't care. He was under the anointing of God. He was carrying that baby girl, just loving on her and loving on her. Well, Jerry told the people at the end of the service, it didn't look like one thing, one thing had changed, nothing had happened. And Jerry told the people, don't you dare be moved by what you see. You hook your faith with this and God will work a miracle, and we will see our God work miracle. Well, the next day there was this couple that come walking down the aisle with this little girl holding her hand, walking just like this. They walked straight up to him and said, brother Jerry, we're the couple last night and this is the daughter, our daughter that you prayed for. Totally, completely healed, Totally and completely healed. But let me tell you the story. They had a baby crib that she. And that night after that service, they took her home and put her in the baby crib, which was usual to keep her from getting out. And she couldn't walk, she couldn't talk. She's never said a word in her life. She'd never walked a step in her life. Well, during the night, it was about 2 o', clock, they heard a noise coming from the kitchen. Happy. And they got up and they went and flipped the light on the kitchen. The little girl was in the refrigerator and she was looking for something to eat. And she turned and she said, mommy, I'm hungry. Those were her first words. Mommy, I'm hungry. Totally, completely healed. That's my memorial stone. So you've come too late to tell me it won't work.
- [48:01]
C
I don't care what it is.
- [48:05]
B
I don't care what is it? What it is you're facing it's not too late. It's not hopeless. We serve a God of hope. We serve a God of miracles. Let's stand to our feet, oh, Lord, we love you. We bless you. We praise you. We magnify you. For you are the God of hope. You're the God of miracles. You're the God of the impossible.
- [48:35]
A
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