Life story by Julius Stadsklev: Difference between revisions

The following is an excerpt from Julius Stadsklev's book, [[A Prophet Visits South Africa, by Julius Stadsklev|A Prophet Visits South Africa]]

'''[[William Branham]]''' was born on a farm near Berksville, Kentucky, not far from the place where Abraham Lincoln was born approximately a hundred years before. No one is sure of the exact date because no birth records were kept in Kentucky in those days. However, it is believed he was born the sixth day of April 1909 and weighed only 5 pounds. His mother was 15 years of age and his father was 18.

The first day of his life something very unusual happened. After the midwife had washed him and placed him by his mother she went to a window to open the shutter.

There was no glass in the windows in the Branham house in those days and the air and light was regulated by the opening and closing of the wooden shutters. Dawn was just breaking over the fields, sending a few rays of light into the room. With this light came a small circular halo about a foot in diameter which shown with brightness above the bed where the mother and baby lay.

The next few years were fruitful, during which time God's blessing rested upon him. He received visions of things which would come to pass. He could not understand them at that time but as they came to pass, he was able to see that God had given him an accurate picture.

      

During the early years of his ministry he met Hope Brumback, the girl he later married. After about five months of courtship, William Branham decided that he would have to ask her if she wanted to marry him. After all, she was a nice girl and if he was never going to marry her, he shouldn't be wasting her time. I shall narrate to you the story of his bashfulness, the proposal by letter, his marriage and other events which followed their happy marriage, as is was told by Brother Branham in his simple, yet dramatic style.

It wasn't much, but friends, it was home; and I would rather live in a shack and have favor with God than live in the best house there is without His favor. We did not have very much of this world's goods. I remember once I told my wife that I would have to ask the church to give me an offering to help enable us to pay our debts. Before this time I had never taken an offering in my church. That Sunday evening I asked one of the elders to get his hat and take up a collection. But after I had announced what I was going to do, I saw a little old mother open her purse and take out some of her pension money. Oh, my! I didn't have the heart to take her money. So I got up and told them I was just fooling and wondering if they would do it. Later a member of the church gave me an old bicycle which I painted and sold.

      

After two years a little boy came into our home. When he was born that just tied us together better. When I first heard him cry in the hospital something told me he was a boy. I said, "Lord, there is your boy. I will call him Billy for his father and Paul from the Bible. His name shall be Billy Paul."

{{Portal Navigation}}