Bill Ashpole Ministries

Polio Victim… Overcomes… Called to Ministry

It’s hard to believe that I graduated from Wells High in 1949. While a student, I was the 25^th victim in Wells to come down with the dreaded disease of Polio. I missed an entire year of school, first spending five and one half months at Sister Kinney Institute in Minneapolis and then continuing my recuperation at my home in Wells.

May I tell you the story of what happened?

In the middle of November 1945 while in the 10^th grade science class at Wells High School, I told my friend that I suddenly felt very sick. It seemed like my back was falling into my hips. As soon as school was out, I walked the nine blocks to my home on the east side of town. My legs became so weak that I began to fall down many times before I got home. When I finally arrived, my mother put me to bed. When dad came home, he called the doctor. After the doctor examined me, he told my parents he believed that I had come down with polio. I could hear what he said from the bedroom and I became filled with fear because so many young people from our high school had been stricken with this debilitating disease. I was then taken by ambulance to Albert Lea Hospital and a few days later to Sister Kinney Institute in Minneapolis.

There, I was placed in an isolation ward for two weeks. Every night around 2:00 AM I awakened with excruciating pain. The nurse would come and give me an injection to put me back to sleep. About the middle of the second week at that very hour, I was screaming with pain, but no nurse came. Instead, Jesus appeared at the foot of my bed. I became so afraid; I felt that I was falling from my bed into flames of fire. I screamed and reached out my hand and asked Jesus to save me from this burning Hell. I asked Him to forgive me of my sin and He reached down, took my hand, and pulled me from the fire.

When Jesus touched me, I felt so happy that I cried. Not because of pain, but for joy because He had come into my heart. I knew that I had received Him as my personal Savior. Then Jesus asked me, “Would you preach my Gospel?” I said, “Lord Jesus, how can I do this when I am so crippled, so useless?” I had all kinds of excuses. Jesus did not say anything else but gave me a vision of thousands of ethnic people on a long sandy beach. They were moving toward the ocean and, swept out by the undercurrent, were drowning. I knew then He had called me to tell people around the world that Jesus is God and that He loves them so much that He gave His life on the cross for them so they could be forgiven and have a relationship with Him. I was to preach His Gospel and tell everyone that all they have to do is to ask Jesus to forgive them and invite Him to become the Lord of their life and He will. In addition, He will give them peace and joy and make them whole. “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.” (John 3:16 The Message Bible)

As I had grown up in Minnesota, I had never seen a sandy beach or the ocean before. I had never seen the multitude of island people dressed in their native attire. I somehow knew, however, that these ethnic groups were all part of the United States. When I experienced this vision in 1945, this did not make sense. However, when Hawaii became the 50^th state in 1959, I knew the Lord wanted me there. I moved with my family in 1967 from Minnesota to Hawaii to pastor and have lived there since. From Hawaii, I have traveled throughout the world, especially the South Pacific, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Since 2003, I have had the opportunity to spend my summers in Alden and to travel to other parts of Minnesota and throughout the Midwest.

Billy

International Missionary Evangelist

Bill Ashpole Ministries

57 Ilima St.

Wahiawa, HI. 96786

ashpolebam@gmail.com

www.ashpolebam.org

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