<TITLE>02. Par 5-9</TITLE>L-5 I was in Arizona some... one... first beginning of my ministry, and there was a... One night coming through the prayer line where I was ministering with the Spanish-speaking people... And there was two Indians, the first two that I ever ministered to. And one of them was an alcoholic, and the other one was a tubercular--on a stretcher case.
And when I seen them come into the line, I stopped a few moments, and I said, "Just a moment." And I said, "Heavenly Father, this is my first time now to pray for--for what I call full-blooded Americans." I said, "If--if You ever want me to minister to them and go to their tribe, if You'll heal them, I promise You I'll go." And I prayed for them. And before I got to the next meeting in California, the alcoholic had lost all taste for alcohol and had became a borned again Christian; and the tubercular, in a week's time, was pronounced by the--the doctor, out on the reservation, that she was sound and well. So I went back to the--to the Apache tribe. I'll never forget it.

L-6 I hope I don't take too much time now. I'm always used to talking too long. Everybody always tells me I talk too long. (That's for white people, not for Indians.) Yes, sir. We... I preached a short sermon the other day down at my tabernacle at home. Just six hours, that's all I preached. So... But we--we Indians are never in a hurry, you know. So we--we got plenty of time to listen.

L-7 And so, this--that night they'd taken me up to the reservation. And oh, my. I never seen so many... It was a beautiful sight. They come in their wagons, and everywhere been announced all across the reservation. And they set down out on the ground. I was standing on a little porch step, a little church, about like this. There were many Indians on the inside, and... But oh, my, the... All, half of the tribe, or more, were setting out there. Oh, I made a guess, four or five thousand, something like that, a gathered on the outside.
And so, I was speaking from the church steps, a little Assembly of God church. And the missionary had been pastoring there for some time. And so, I had one interpreter. They could not understand English. And so, I had one interpreter, which was a lady.

L-8 Well, I tried in the simple way that I could to lay out the Bible to them. And I remember they just set and watched, you know. I'll say this through love. An Indian, when once convinced, he never moves. But he's something like feeding a horse. He don't eat in the wrong stall. You see? He waits till he's sure what he's talking about. So they were waiting. And so he was watching to see what I was going to say.
And I kept telling him; I said, "Now, I'm just one vote, one person here in the country." I said, "I do believe that there was some kind of a deal that should not have been done to the Indian." I said, "I--I believe that. If some other nation had come in and--there'd be a sore feeling with us." But I said, "I'm... That's--that's what man does." I said, "I'm going to tell you there's Somebody Who loves you. That's Jesus Christ, and He will be right there with you to the end of the road."

L-9 They set... Now, they was kind of odd. I asked for a prayer line. Well, in those days when we first started, why, we did not give out prayer cards. That's the only way to keep order. And so, I didn't have prayer cards, and I said, "Does anybody out there want to be prayed for?" The interpreter said the same thing. Nobody moved. Well, I thought, "My, I guess I won't have a prayer line."
So in a few moments, the Indian missionary went back with the white missionary and picked up some people from the inside. The first one come out was a great big, strong, woman. As soon as she--I looked her in the face. Many of you, I guess maybe Brother Eddie's told you about the ministry. She had a social disease, not because that she was immoral, but because the way she had to live. And when I told her that, she looked at me very strange. How did I know that, after I'd explained it in the Scriptures?


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