WHEN GOD SPEAKS

YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND (ANS) -- Farmer Jim Wilkinson is not given to flights of fancy. He's a down-to-earth Yorkshireman who has spent most of his 70-odd years working the soil and tending livestock. He's known tough times, harsh conditions, and learned most of life's lessons the hard way. Yorkshire grit, a level head and a dry sense of humor are qualities for which he is known. So when he tells you that his life was dramatically changed by hearing the audible voice of God, that angels have visited his home, and that he has lost count of the miracles he has witnessed on his farm and in the fellowship meetings which he and his wife Cynthia hold there, you know he is not dreaming. (Pictured: Jim and Cynthia Wilkinson on the back cover of his book).  

His story begins way back when farmer's son Jim was in his teens and heavily involved with a local Mission Band, an outreach group which regularly held services in little village chapels up and down the Yorkshire Dales.

"In those days I used to deliver other people's sermons, based on other people's experiences of the Lord," he told me from his office on the farm. "But one night, on my way home from such a meeting, the Lord challenged me in an audible voice with the words, 'You've been preaching about me tonight, haven't you?' And, after a pause: 'Do you really know me?' That challenge shook me, because in a flash I realized I'd been found out. Those congregations in the Dales might not have seen through the sham, but God had known my heart all along. I raced home, knelt by my bed, and gave my life to Christ."

Several years later, now married to Cynthia, a professionally trained singer whose solos were a high spot in those Mission Band services, Jim heard that life-changing voice a second time.

"It came as we were driving into town for an evening meeting, just as we were passing a spread known as Hollybush Farm. It was a place I had admired from afar, consisting of substantial acreage and a grand, 16-room farmhouse. I knew the owner had been ill and that the house was up for auction, but I could never have guessed who was going to buy it!"

"I want that place for my glory." They were words which caused Jim to swallow hard.

"I was just starting out with my own farm and barely making ends meet, so there was no way I could afford to buy the place. And yet hearing that voice also excited me as I wondered what the Lord might be planning to do in our lives, and in the fellowship meetings we held in our home each week."

The story of how Jim stepped out in faith to purchase Hollybush Farm, and of the mighty blessing of God which followed, is recounted in his book, "Miracle Valley." As Jim explained, the title refers to the name given to the farm through a word of prophecy spoken at one of the first fellowship meetings to be held in their new home. (Pictured: Front cover of book).

"The word was quite direct, and quite breathtaking. It declared that '.this place shall be called a place of miracles -- Miracle Valley -- for here I will perform great and wondrous things, the likes of which you have never seen before.'"

The Wilkinsons were no strangers to supernatural intervention, having witnessed the occasional miraculous healing during the Mission Band years, and miracles of both healing and divine provision during Jim's early years in farming. But those earlier experiences were to prove only a taster.

"The way into God's miracle-working presence was as it had always been, through the doorway of thanksgiving and praise -- and with tears, too, as we sensed God's holiness and our unworthiness. It was in that atmosphere of reverence to God and expectant faith that miracles began to flow. Through prayer and faith in the love and power of Christ we started to see just about every kind of sickness and disease given its marching orders, both in the fellowship meetings and beyond, as members of the group went out to pray with those who couldn't get to the meetings."

A few weeks later, Jim told me, a miracle which the whole group had been anticipating took place.

"That 'Miracle Valley' prophecy had assured us that such would be the presence of God here at Hollybush that as the sick stepped on to the ground surrounding the house they would be healed. On this particular Friday, with the meeting already underway, I learned that there was a lady outside in a wheelchair. Her feet had already touched 'holy ground' as she'd been helped from her car, so we prayed for her right there, in the name of Jesus, and then I told her, 'You can get out of that wheelchair, sister -- you won't be needing that again!' Sure enough, she received the Lord's healing touch, and almost leapt into the meeting room, rejoicing in having been delivered from years of severe arthritis. We nearly lifted the roof with our praise that night!

"In fact, we had the tiles jumping just about every week from then on because by now we'd realized that the miracles we were seeing were not merely isolated demonstrations of God's love and power but evidence of a growing, ongoing work of the Holy Spirit. Barely a Friday passed without some miracle of healing thrilling us all. One week it would be a woman cured of cancer, the next a partially paralyzed boy liberated to full mobility. The following Friday, a man healed of circulation problems and a woman of migraines. And so it went on. Hollybush Farm had indeed become Miracle Valley!"

As Jim explained, the healings they witnessed were not limited to the physical realm.

"Our God is interested in the whole person, and we began to see victims of depression and neurosis rescued and restored, addicts set free, and the possessed delivered from Satan's grip.

"It is a beautiful thing to see a tortured soul set free by the power of God, and we have been privileged to witness this miracle many times over the years, but never more dramatically than in the case of a lady named Barbara.

"When we first met her, back in 1980, Barbara was a manic depressive who'd just come out of mental hospital. In fact, she'd been in and out of institutions over the previous seven years and was in a very sorry state, a broken woman. When we arrived at her home we found her huddled in a corner chair, her face set like stone, eyes staring into space. With her grudging permission we prayed that she would come to know the Lord as her savior, and that he would release her from whatever was tormenting her. Two days later her husband telephoned to tell us that his wife was beginning to live again.

"Over the following months we rejoiced as we watched Barbara come alive beneath the touch of the Holy Spirit. Gone was the sour, cringing wreck of a person we'd first set eyes on. Greeting us on our visits now was a smiling, welcoming face that said it all. Christ had set her free!"

Today, Jim told me, more than 20 years later, Barbara (now known as Grace) is still free and rejoicing in the love of God.

With such wonderful acts of healing taking place, not to mention the occasional visit of an angel -- a phenomenon Jim spells out in the book -- word of what God was doing on this otherwise unremarkable Yorkshire farm soon spread, and numbers grew to the point where the fellowship meetings had to be moved out of Hollybush farmhouse and into the granary. When that became packed they erected a new, purpose-built church on the farm, but within a few short years that too started to burst at the seams. Today, Hollybush Christian Fellowship meets in an 800-seat building which on the outside looks like a barn, but on the inside is a comfortable, warmly furnished church.

"Folk come from miles around for our regular Friday night fellowship meetings and Sunday services, in some cases making a round-trip of 120 miles. Other, less frequent visitors come from much farther afield, sometimes out of curiosity but more often because God has sent them. One such was a young woman who turned up in time for our annual summer camp in the last week of July. She had arrived at Manchester Airport from South Africa, asking at the airline desk if anyone could direct her to Hollybush Farm, England. The airline official was amazed that this was the only address she had and was unable to assist her. But the conversation was overheard by a Christian man who 'just happened' to be in the same line and 'just happened' to know how this young lady could find us. When we asked her why she was here, she just smiled and said, 'God told me to go to Hollybush Farm in England and I'd get blessed, so here I am.'"

Jim told me that he and Cynthia are constantly amazed at how far and wide the impact of what God is doing at Hollybush has spread across the globe. An invitation for a team from Hollybush to conduct services at a church in Vancouver, Canada, underlined this. "But it was what happened at the close of one of the meetings that really surprised us," Jim recalled. "I was approached by a swarthy-faced young man who shook my hand enthusiastically and told me that 'You folks sing just like on the tape,' explaining that someone had given him a tape of Hollybush choruses. I told him I hadn't realized that any of our tapes had reached Vancouver, but he said, 'Oh, I'm not from these parts; I'm just visiting.' It turned out he was an Inuit, an Eskimo, from the frozen north!

"Such encounters cause us to marvel and to rejoice, and over the years we have had a great deal to rejoice about!"

Jim's story, however, is far from one of constant rejoicing and endless victory. He readily admits that he's no stranger to life's trials, disappointments and setbacks. Running a farm and raising a family have seen to that.

"Of course there have been knocks," he told me. "Like the time our herd of a thousand pigs had to be put down because of swine fever and the mainstay of our income was wiped out in a matter of days. Or the year we dispatched our entire wheat crop to a grain company which, weeks later, went to the wall, leaving us to join a line of creditors, eventually receiving only a fraction of the crop's value. Those experiences remind you that you're totally human and living in the real world. Some are particularly painful, such as the time when our daughter's marriage broke up, ending in divorce. That was a time of great sadness for the whole family.

"But when the dust settles, with God's help we are able to recognize such valley experiences as times of growth; times when our faith was tried and strengthened, and when we felt the love of God upholding us."

After more than 60 years working the land, and 40 years as co-pastor of Hollybush fellowship, Jim happily affirms this divine love as the answer to our deepest needs. With typical Yorkshire candor, he declared: "Yes, we rejoice in the miracles, of course we do - they're tokens of the love of our heavenly Father for his children - but we keep them in perspective and acknowledge that even the most amazing miracles will eventually fade because life itself fades. On the other hand, the miracle of a sinner finding forgiveness through the love of God, as demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us, the miracle of a life turned around by the power of the Holy Spirit.that's the greatest miracle of all.