The remarkable true life story of Peter Newman (Part 8)

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A Flock of Sheep to Preach To

I walked wearily upstairs to my room. That day at the foundry had seemed particularly hard and all I wanted to do was go to bed and sleep. My usual nightly routine was to pray and read my Bible; but that night, for the first time since getting saved, I just went straight off to sleep.

I awoke with a start just before four o'clock in the morning. The alarm hadn't gone off so I couldn't understand why I was awake. The rest of the house was silent. I looked around the room, wondering what had woken me from such a deep sleep. As I turned my head to the left, I saw the face of Jesus. My heart started to beat so loudly that I was sure everyone in the house would hear it. I was captivated by His eyes: they were so beautiful yet they seemed so sad. I immediately felt sorry for not praying and talking to Him before going off to sleep. My eyes moved slowly from His and I started to look at the rest of His face. There were some long thorns sticking into His forehead and some blood was slowly trickling down His cheekbone.

When I saw His blood, I was completely overtaken by a feeling of awe. I knew that that blood had been shed for me and the realization of His love and His majesty drove me from my bed and onto the floor where I lay face down, hardly daring to move. The presence of God was almost overpowering. I felt so small, so worthless, so insignificant. I looked up to see if His face was still there. It wasn't, but the power of God's presence was as real as ever.

Then I heard His voice. "Peter," he said, "I have called you to be an evangelist." Then the consciousness of His presence went.

I can't remember how long I lay on the floor before climbing, dazed, back into bed. As soon as my head touched the pillow, I fell into the deep sleep I'd wakened from.
As soon as I woke up, memories of the visitation flooded back to me. I knew I hadn't dreamt the whole thing. The word evangelist seemed to be burning in my heart. But there was a problem - I hadn't a clue what an evangelist was or what he did. My knowledge of the Bible was still very limited; big words always flummoxed me. I looked the word up in my concordance and I soon discovered that Philip had been an evangelist. So the matter was settled. I was going to be like Philip.

It was several days before I told anyone about what had happened to me that night. The first person to know was an officer at the Salvation Army, He decided that I might be officer material and that I ought to start the candidates' course. One of the main problems was my lack of basic education. I could just about read and write but that was all. A kind Salvation Army couple volunteered to teach me the basics of English and I was thrilled to discover the difference between nouns, verbs and adjectives and the like. I worked hard to acquire these new skills, and when the big day of the interview arrived, I felt that I stood a fairly good chance of being accepted.

There were quite a few candidates waiting to be interviewed by the selection panel. When it was my turn, I was taken into a room where the members of the panel were sitting, and I remember thinking that they all looked like saints. As I stood before them, all I could hear was a voice ringing in my ears: "Peter, I have called you to be an evangelist."

"Excuse me," I said, before they had a chance to start questioning me. "Can you guarantee that I'll be an evangelist?" They all looked a bit startled at my uninvited question, but after a few seconds an elderly gentleman, who had just finished reading my report, muttered something about my past experiences being invaluable in the social work side of the Army.

"Sirs," I insisted, hardly hearing what the gentleman had said, "you must guarantee that I'm to be an evangelist."

The panel asked me what I meant and I explained as best I could. "So you see," I said, "I've got to be like him in the Bible."

"Like who in the Bible?" said the old gentleman.

"Like Philip," I said, exasperated by their lack of understanding. They all looked at each other, thanked me very much for attending the interview, then told me I could go. That was the last I heard from them. I wasn't too upset about not being accepted. After all, if they couldn't guarantee that I would be working as an evangelist, then that settled the matter as far as I was concerned. I may have been a bit thick academically, but at least I knew that I had to be obedient to what God had shown me.

Before the interview I'd been so sure that I would be an officer that I'd handed in my notice at the foundry. So with no job to keep me in Manchester, I decided to spend Christmas with my sister. I tried to get a job in the area but everyone remembered me as the pre-converted Peter. I bought a bike, a bucket and some ladders and set myself up in business as a window cleaner. I used to go from house to house, singing at the top of my voice and giving my testimony whenever I could.

Most of my spare time was spent up in the hills. I loved the countryside and spent most evenings and weekends stalking across the fields preaching to the turnips. On a really good day I would have a flock of sheep to preach to. They might not have been a responsive congregation, but they looked as if they were listening to me and at least I was practising at being an evangelist.