Florence Nightingale
The following testimony is an excerpt from the book "William Branham, A Prophet Visits South Africa" by Julius Stadsklev. During the month of January, 1950, Brother Branham and Brother F.F. Bosworth were conducting meetings in Houston, Texas. On the same evening that the photograph was taken of Brother Branham, which registered the halo above his head, Brother Bosworth showed Borther Branham a lady's picture. It had accompanied a letter and airplane ticket from Florence Nightingale of Durban, South Africa, a distant relative of the Florence Nightingale who founded the Red Cross. She was a mere skeleton and reminded then of Georgie Carter, a young lady from Milltown, Indiana, who was in a similar condition before she received her healing. ...This Florence Nightingale of Durban suffered from cancer at the entrance of the stomach which causes one to die of starvation. She weighed only about fifty pounds. She had been fed through the veins on glucose until that was no longer possible. Hearing of Brother Branham, she cried for him to come and pray for her. Thus she wrote for him to come, sending along her picture and plane ticket. That night in Houston they prayed for Florence Nightingale, promising God that if he would heal her and make her completely well, they would take it as an indication for God that they should go to South Africa. Eight weeks later the Branham party landed in England on their way to Finland. The King of England had sent a cable requesting Brother Branham to come and pray for him. When the Branham party stepped off the plane, William Branham's name was called over the loud speaker. Florence Nightingale had arrived at the airport just fifteen minutes before and those with her had put out this call for Brother Branham to come quickly because they thought she was dying. The place was so crowded that they were informed to get in touch with him at the Picadilly Hotel. This was done and arrangements were made for him to come to her hotel. It was one of those foggy days in April when they motored to the hotel where she was staying. No one in the party had ever seen a human being in such a pitiful condition as the woman in that room. She was so thin that the skin stuck to her bones. Their hearts were moved with compassion. Florence Nightingale could hardly speak as tears ran down her cheeks for she was suffering with such pain. They all, including a minister of the Church of England as well as her nurses, knelt and began to pray for her. As they started to pray a dove came and sat on the window sill, looking inside as it started to coo. After prayer, when Brother Branham said, "Amen", the dove flew away. The minister started to speak saying, "Did you see that dove?" Before he finished the question the Spirit Of the Lord moved upon Brother Branham to speak these words- "Thus saith the Lord, you will live, sister." Eight months after Brother Branham had prayed for Florence Nightingale in England he received another picture from her. At this time she was a perfect picture of health and weighed 155 pounds..."
William Branham tells of Florence Nightingale's healing
She was in Durban, South Africa, which South Africa is British controlled, and the woman weighed approximately sixty pounds, with cancer, on the duodenum...cancer of the stomach. And she sent for me to come pray for her. I had two airplane tickets sent. Well, I couldn't go. Brother Bosworth brought me the picture, the telegram, and I laid it on the floor, and we prayed, and I said, "Lord, if You'll heal her, I'll go to Africa." And I just prayed the prayer, went home, forgot about it. When I went in to London, the day that we arrived on the International Airport in London, on our road to the Scandinavian country and to pray for the king... I heard them page me. And Mr. Baxter, Mr. Lindsay, many of these men that you people know, was with me. And they went in, and it was the Anglican minister. They brought Miss Florence Nightingale from South Africa, how she knowed, less it was through the Crown, I couldn't know yet. But she knew we was going to land there that day. And she come in about fifteen minutes before we did, and I couldn't even get the woman... They couldn't get the woman out of the plane, they thought she was dead then. And I said, "Well, there's thousands of people between here and the plane. I couldn't get to it. I'm going down to Buckingham Palace, then to Westminster Abbey, and then I'll--I'll be at the Piccadilly Hotel, you come get me, we'll go have prayer for her." And when we got up to there, of course, the night passed on and I didn't get in till late. Next morning we come, and we went to have prayer for Mrs. Nightingale. They said, "She's just living." Christian friends, if I live to be an old man, I'll never forget the experience that was. In London, it was in April, very damp, fog everywhere. We went upstairs to the place where they packed her stretcher, near the parsonage of a big Anglican church. And in the room set her doctor, two nurses, two or three ministers when the campaign manager--managers and myself walked in. And I walked over; they had a white sheet laying over her. And I said, "How do you do." And they all got up. And I said, "Is--is this the patient?" And I said, "How do you do. Are you Miss Nightingale?" I could see her lips moving, but friends, it looked like a corpse laying there or--or skeleton. Her head... The part where your head goes together there's no flesh on her, just the skin down against the bone. And I said, "How do you do." I reached out my hand to shake hands with her. The nurse said, "Brother Branham, she couldn't raise her hand." Well, she was crying. And she... I... The nurse got down to hear what she was saying, then she told me. She said, "She wants you to ask God to let her die." She couldn't die. And said, "Reverend Branham, she's prayed and said if ever she could get to where you was, that God would heal her." Now, that's faith. How could I ask God to let the woman die? Now, here's her testimony in the book. I--I couldn't do that. So she wanted me to see her body, the nurse said. And when they pulled the sheet down off of her body... Friends, we are a mixed audience; you listen to your doctor; I'm your brother. It was a disgrace to look to see how a woman could be in that... The bosom here, had sunk to her ribs, and the stomach wasn't--was just about that flat. And the rings was almost meeting in the ring of her hip here, the flesh. And her limbs up here wasn't but about that big around. Now, Mrs. Georgie Carter, which will be here tomorrow, next day, one, from over here at Milltown, laid nine years and six months in the bed with TB, which was healed, vision. I didn't even know where the place was, and Lord sent me down there, and she was healed. She was a little bitty woman; she weighed only about thirty-five pounds. But this woman was a woman almost six foot tall. And there she laid, couldn't move her hands or nothing. They picked up her hands, 'cause she wanted to shake my hand. When I took a hold of her hand, it was just like that, hard. I thought, "O God, a mortal being laying in that shape." So I said, "Can we pray?" And all the ministers gathered. I looked at the doctor, and I said... Said, "Not a thing, Brother Branham, can be done. It's a... The malignancy has gone plumb all over her." Said, "She hasn't eaten for," I forget how many months, and they give her glucose in her veins, till they collapsed, and they couldn't even give her veins. Said, "We don't know why--how she's living, how she breathes." And I knelt down, great God of Heaven, Who stands... We stand in His Presence tonight, His Word laying before me. There's a window about that high; it was up, kind of warm in the room. And I knelt to pray and I started the prayer of, "Almighty God, Creator of heavens and earth, and Author of Everlasting Life," I said, "send Thy blessing into this room for this poor mortal." And when I started to pray, a little dove come flying through the bushes and lit on the windowsill about that far from where I was praying. Well, I... Not new thing, when I've only been there about twelve hours or a little more. I thought the little dove was just a pet, you know, that was around the house. And I just continued to pray. And when I got finished praying and asked God to help her (I couldn't ask to let her die,) and that He would be merciful to her... And when I... All the time I praying, this little dove, very restless, of unrest, walking up-and-down going, "Coo, coo, coo, coo, coo, coo." Why, you know how little doves kinda mournfully goes, walking back and forth on the window about as wide as this little table. About ten people were present to watch it. And I noticed all the ministers stopped praying, every one. When I said, "Amen," the little fellow took his flight back out to the bushes. Well, I raised up, and of course, was weeping a little, all of us. And the ministers begin to say, "Did you notice that dove?" And I started to ask if it was just a pet dove. And I had no more that I could say, and knowed no more what I was going to say, but all of a sudden, something burst through and said, "THUS SAITH THE LORD, she'll live and not die." She weighs a hundred and fifty-five pounds now in perfect health. That opened the way to Africa and started a revival."
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