Monday, February 28, 2011

The Autobiography of Dora Van Assen - Chap 13 & 14

CHAPTER 13 - HOME TO HOLLAND
FINDING PETE


A wonderful sense of joy and anticipation flooded my heart as I arrived in Holland.  At last I would get to see my native land and the relatives I had left behind.


I made my way to a phone booth to get in touch with my cousin, Pete.  However, applying the Dutch I knew was of little help in coping with the phone system.


Noticing I was having trouble, a very nice man and his wife volunteered to assist me.  The gentleman made the call to my cousin for me, telling Pete to meet me by the phone booth in the airport terminal.


I fell into conversaton with this couple and we stood talking until, at last, I heard my name called over the intercom.  I said, "Oh, they are calling my name."


The air seemed to hold its breath as I headed for the information center.  Just as I hear my name again, I caught a glimpse of my cousin, Pete, in the distance.  I blinked in astonishment, for he looked exactly like my brother, Pete!  Tears exploded as I rushed toward him.


Pete took one look at me and began to cry himself, for he said that I looked very much like his sister, Dora.  We threw out arms around each in the kind of embrace used for found loved ones and wept uncontrollably.


There is not only something in knowing one another in the Spirit, but there is also something in knowing each other in the genes.  Those genes just go from one to the other, and they carry a similarity.  We are actually connected one to the other, even in a physical way.  I see all creation as one; we are all united.  And God loves His whole creation exactly alike.  That there is no difference was proven at the cross where all men were represented there in Jesus Christ, our Savior.  Hallelujah!!


MEETING THE FAMILY


When I arrived at Pete's home, I met his dear wife Corey.  She couldn't speak English very well, and I tried to explain to her that I had to use the bathroom and she didn't understand me.  Then I remembered the word for it as children, so I told her that I had to go to the "play".


Well, Corey started to laugh and so did Pete.  I didn't understand what they were having such a good time about until they explained that "play" was an old fashioned word for an outhouse.  Of course, things had changed greatly over the years, and they didn't have those any longer, especially in the cities.  So, we all got a good laugh out of that!


We had such a glorious time visiting together and seeing the country, especially visiting all my cousins.  I didn't know I had so many cousins!  While I was in America I didn't have any cousins; I only had one aunt and uncle who had come to America.  There had been so much malnutrition through the war that all my aunts and uncles had died; we couldn''t find any of them now.  Only their children, my cousins remained.


DELIVERING GOD'S PLAN TO MY PEOPLE


One day I had the opportunity to put up  my chart of God's Plan of Salvation through the ages, and I was able to minister the Plan of Redemption in the Dutch language!  The Lord anointed me so that I could speak Dutch quite fluently by that time.


It was so new and different that my cousin was not able to receive it in his mind.  That old human mind had given trouble to more than one man.  However, his grandchildren rejoiced and said, "That just looks right to me.  I can buy that!"  Praise the Lord.!


You see, the Lord was in it all.  It wasn't just a pleasure trip.


My time in Holland was wonderful, and I will always treasure fond memories of it but I had to get back to America.


CHAPTER 14 - CRISSCROSSING THE GLOBE


UNDERSTANDING THE ANOINTING


After I returned home, I continued my travelling ministry in the United States, going from one place of service to another as the Lord directed me and as different groups invited me.  I just thank God for this ministry He has given me in America.


I thought after I came home from Africa that the wonderful miracles would continue, but they all seemed to leave.  So, as I began to meditate upon that, I came to realize that God had given me a special anointing for Africa, because I had been specifically sent there to manifest Christ as the Living Word.


It was the same way among the apostles and disciples; they had a special anointing.  We read Jesus first called His twelve disciples; then later on He called the seventy to go out two-by-two.  Then He gave them a special anointing, and He said, "You are to go heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out demons."  (I believe these were unclean thoughts, unclean words that were cast out of the people)


When these disciples came back to Jesus, they were rejoicing at all the wonderful things that had taken place, However, Jesus told them not to rejoice over those gifts that they had but to rejoice that their names were written in the Book of Life.


Later on, these same disciples tried to deliver a boy who was falling in the water and falling in the fire, because he had epilepsy, and the disciples were not able to do it.  So when they came to Jesus and asked Him why they couldn't heal this boy, He said, "This kind only comes out by prayer and fasting."  You see, Jesus had fasted and prayed for forty days and forty nights, and God had highly anointed Him with the Holy Spirit with power above His brethren.


It was an imparted anointing that He had given to His disciples and that was a special anointing that comes waiting on God, through a life of faith and sacrifice.  So God sometimes gives these special anointings to us on special occasions to magnify His name and to fulfill His plan and purpose in the lives of the people


I just continued to walk by faith and believe that God would open the doors, which he did, as I grew in  my conviction that Christ in me was the hope of glory.


BACK TO AFRICA


Eventually, God gave me another call to go to Africa, so I might return and see the growth of the work among the people I had taught.  I asked the Lord what I was to give them at this time, and He gave me 2 Timothy 2:2, "And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also."  In other words, I was to go and teach the African people the things that I had learned and had taught here in America.  I was to impart these teaching to certaian people, so they might, in turn, give them to other faithful men.  It say, "...the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also."  The very anointing that God was giving here in America would be the anointing He would place upon these special, chosen ones who would bring forth the word to their own people.


I rejoice that I was able to go back to Ghana in 1975 and see the growth of the work there.  Unfortunately, I was not able to go to the Congo, because the Congo had had an overthrow of government, and now it was called Zaire, and I could not get a visa.


I was, however, permitted to go to Nigeria.  The Concordant Publishing House, located in California, had asked me to extend my travel to Nigeria to investigate the work being done there, since many missionaries had been sent home because of a civil war which had raged there.


I had landed in Calabar where Brother Obong met me and arranged for me to travel to various villages.  Brother Obong was in charge of the work there, but he no longer had a building to use for meetings because of differences in interpreting the Word of God.  However, he arranged special evening meetings for me out in an open area, and I ministered from village to village.  As word of my visit spread, the crowds increased.


As we began to get close to Port Harcourt, news traveled that there was a woman missionary named Dora Van Assen who was ministering in the villages.  My picture was even in the paper.  Brother Sonny Udoh of Port Harcourt heard the news and read the account in the paper, and he was curious about a woman ministering, because women were not permitted to minister in Nigeria at that time.  So, he came all the way to where I was holding meetings to hear me speak.  And he pushed his way through the crowd and said, "I saw Christ in you; I saw Christ in you."  He was saying that he saw the glow that you see on faces when the special anointing comes upon the person.  Christ is that Light that lighteth every man that comes into the world.  I was amazed, but I really wasn't surprised, because I knew that God had anointed me in a very special way.  Sonny begged me to come to Port Harcourt, because he had two churches there.


The problem with that was I had to return to Calabar to get the plane to Lagos.  That was how my ticket was made out.


But Sonny said, "Oh, we can change that, so you can leave from Port Harcourt."


Although it was getting close to the time for me to leave Nigeria, I felt in my spirit that I was to go with Sonny.


It was wonderful!  We had meetings from six o'clock in the morning until twelve o'clock at night.  They would have one congregation come in, and when they left, another congregation would come in.  These people were so hungry, and their hospitality was outstanding.  They gave me the very best that they had.


When Sonny Udoh was taking me to the airport, he said, "If I come to the United States, will you take care of me."


I said, Sonny, if you'll get your round-trip ticket from Port Harcourt to Denver, Colorado I'll pick you up, and I'll take care of you.  But, you'll have to get your own ticket."  I kept emphasizing to him that he had to get his own ticket.  That was the way I came (with my return ticket already paid for), and they had taken car of me after I arrived.  So, I would do the same thing for him.  And, just as they arranged for me to have meetings, I would arrange for him to have meetings.  So, I said to him, "Do you understand that?"


And he kept saying to me, "I hear you, I hear you."


Well, I left Port Harcourt and headed for Lagos in order to get back to the United States, but while in Lagos, I began to get sick; the dysentery bug hit me.  Well, Praise God; I had some medicine which helped me, and I made it home without too much difficulty.

No comments: