Greetings in the Beautiful Name of Jesus,

I’m writing to you today from home as I gain strength and weight after being in the hospital for far too long.  I am grateful to be recovering at home, but my thoughts are on those in Japan.  Saints, please pray for Japan!

Debris from heavy flooding in Western Japan Kurashiki Okayama Prefecture (image from Reuters)

I have wept much for the areas of Japan that I have prayer walked for years in all of the Prefectures we call States.  There are thousands of precious saints there.  Torrential rain and mudslides have killed 76 people and 92 are missing.  At one point, evacuation orders were issued for 4.72 million people, and about 48,000 members of self-defense forces, police, and firefighters are still searching for trapped or injured people.  To make matters worse, a huge heat wave over the weekend killed at least six more people and 1,500 others have been hospitalized.   I groan for the families there and pray for their continual safety and comfort.  Please join me in intercession for our brothers and sisters in Japan.

As many of you know, this has been a challenging season for my family and I personally.  From my wife Judith’s heart attack and subsequent kidney issues to my own health crisis, I would like to let you know about the very core of what held me together through this whole ordeal of several months, consummating in the last 12 days before I got relief.  Here are the Scriptures that were the backbone of comfort and strength for me, bringing the hope that would make me unashamed:

Romans 5:5-9
“…And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.  For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.  For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.  But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.”

Joel 3:16
“The Lord will be the hope of His people.”

Zechariah 9:12
“You prisoners of hope in the most agonizing times.”  (These words came back to me time and again.  I realized that I was a prisoner of hope.)

1 Thessalonians 5:8
“…But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.  (In extreme trying times, we MUST keep that helmet of hope and salvation on.  Our minds MUST keep it on!  When people kept trying to get me into the hospital, I did not want to comply.  I wanted to see the glory of God.  I wanted to see the victory through God!)

Hebrews 6:11
“…full assurance of hope unto the end”  (I must maintain the full assurance of Hope)

Psalms 33:18
“…for I did hope in His mercy”  (During this ordeal, I would push my back against the wall as hard as I could for relief from the pain shooting up my back and into my kidneys, so this verse meant much to me.  I was crying for mercy!)

These verses were the backbone of the Scriptures that He gave me, and I had to cling to them day and night. 

In the first 4 days, I passed kidney stones from my left kidney without pain medication.  When the last big one passed, I was laying on the floor in a fetal position, and all of a sudden, NO PAIN!  My eyes were shut, and I literally thought I had passed into Heaven.  People were on their faces around me, crying for mercy.  I sat up and said, “I’m healed!”  They went from deep sobbing to rejoicing.  For one half of an hour, we were rejoicing, but then the right kidney began passing its stones.  For five days and nights, I went through the agony of those stones passing.  On the third day of this, I got hiccups!  The hiccups hit me in my lower abdomen.  The hiccups were like spears going through my body and into my heart.  The stones were nothing compared to the constant hiccups.  For three days and nights, I battled the stones and hiccups.

Hank, my son, flew into Canada to pick me up.  Everyone thought I was dying.  I was scheduled to fly home the next day at 2:00 pm.  By 5:30 am, Hank said “I’ve got to get you to the hospital!  Forgive me, but I am calling the paramedics.”  At this time, I had a vision.  I was surrounded by people I had known for years, all dressed in colonial clothes.  I wondered why they were dressed in colonial apparel, and noted that these people were all people who had already passed away.  I told my son what I saw.  I asked, “Why aren’t they dressed in white?  Didn’t they make it to heaven?”  Then another vision came.  I saw one of the most giant trees I’ve ever seen in my life.  A beautiful tree, like a maple or something.  I wondered why I was seeing a tree.  Then, all of a sudden, at the base of the trunk of this massive tree, a golden, giant cross appeared.  It lit up the entire tree.  I told Hank, and the paramedics arrived.  They listened to my heart, and got me into the ambulance right away.  They were telling the hospital, “We have a 75-year-old man arriving.  Prepare to resuscitate!”

When they unloaded me into the ER, they asked who Hank was, and he told them he was my son.  The ER was packed with people, and I was left there for an hour and a half while they helped others.  My son heard them say that I was an old drug addict with no insurance.  My son started to cry out to God, and then said to the staff.  “My dad is not a junkie!  He’s never drank, never smoked, nor ever taken drugs.  He doesn’t even take anything stronger than an aspirin!  He is not a junkie!”  My son told them that he had a good credit card and said that he would pay.  He said “My dad doesn’t need insurance.  I’m a businessman and can pay for what treatment he needs!”  At that time, the head doctor was walking by, and heard my son pleading with them, “Don’t let my father die!”  She walked right towards me, put her scope to my heart, and as she listened, she began firing orders immediately.  They brought me down the hallway and inserted a long needle into my stomach/bladder area.  Then I felt them put things into my arms.  She said, “Hold on, Sir!  We’re going to help you, but you must hold on!”  That’s the last I remember.

When I came to, they had put a catheter in me, and the nurse said that they had drained three liters of fluid  in less than one hour and were still draining.  She asked, “How could you stand the pain of all that in your bladder?”  I remember looking at her and saying “It wasn’t easy.”  They worked with me for three days, putting me through many tests.

By the end of the third day, they had performed many tests.  They knew the condition of my kidneys and my liver, which had shut down.  They worked on both.  On the fourth morning, I had a good breakfast in front of me and I ate it.  The head doctor came in and said to me, “Mr. Gruver, I’m preparing your release to fly home today.  I must tell you that if your son had not persisted and I hadn’t heard him when I walked into the ER, you would have been shipped to the morgue.”  She told Hank, “You saved his life!”

I was crying and I said, “Doctor, can I tell you something very precious?”  She sat down and said yes.  She reached over and took my hand.  I said, “I am a Christian.”  She said, “I am a Muslim.”  I said,  “I want to tell you something that I believe will bless you tremendously.”  “Go ahead,” she replied.  I began to tell her about my Heaven experience.  She started crying, gripping my hands with both of hers, tears running down her face.  When I finished, she said “This is most wonderful thing I have ever heard in my whole life.  I don’t know how to thank you.”  Then she said that she had to get to a meeting, and was late, but said I was a wonderful man.  “Please,” she said, “When you get home, go to a Urologist.  I want you to live.  Will you do that?”  I said “Yes”.  She went into my bathroom and closed the door.  I heard the deepest sobs coming from her through the door.  She sobbed for quite awhile.  I heard her blow her nose, and she came out.  She said, “I will be okay” and left.

I left the hospital in a wheelchair, and the hospital sent a message to customs and the airport, “Put this man up front where he can get in and out very easily.  He is extremely weak.  Get him back to Omaha.”

When I got to Omaha, I was very hungry.  They did not have food on the plane, and I wanted to eat!  I said to my son.  “There’s a Taco Bell here, and I want a Burrito Supreme with everything on it!”  We quickly went to Taco Bell, and as Hank ordered, I saw that there was a Kentucky Fried Chicken next door.  My appetite was back, so I decided that I wanted a chicken breast with coleslaw too!  He said, “Dad!  They told me that you haven’t eaten anything in 10 days.  Can you eat all that?”  I told him, “I’m going to try!”  He brought chicken tenders to me from Kentucky Fried Chicken, along with coleslaw because they were out of chicken breasts.  Hank told me that the man at Taco Bell who made the burrito knew I had been wheeled into there, and started adding more and more to the burrito when he made it.  It was like three burritos in one!  I thanked God for the food, and ate every bite!  I ate the whole Burrito Supreme and all of the coleslaw!

At home, my family had moved my bed into the living room near the rest room from upstairs, knowing that I couldn’t climb them.  As I sat on the bed, I began to weep.  It felt so good to be home.  I think four of my five children who were home were around the bed.  As I cried, I said, “Children, I don’t have anything more to give.  Absolutely nothing.  I have no strength.  I can’t fight anymore.  I put myself into your hands for care.  Whatever you do, I will not come against it.  I am so tired.”  Then I laid down and fell asleep.  I thought it was the next morning when I woke up, but it was really four days later.  I sat up in bed, looked at the clock.  It said 10 o’clock!  I looked out of the bay window, and it was pitch black.  My daughter, Ellen was there, watching me.  I said to her, “I thought I slept, but it’s still 10 o’clock at night.”  She said, “No, it’s 10 o’clock in the morning, and a storm is overhead.  All of the city street lights are on as if it is night.  It covers four counties.  Tornado, hail, and wind shear warnings are everywhere.”  I started rebuking the storm and doing warfare in the name of Jesus.

I said, “No tornado!  No hail!  No destroying wind!  As I was rebuking it, Jesus came to me and spoke to me.  He said to me, “Son, your test is over.  I am giving you a rod of authority.  I put it in your hand.  I want you to aim that rod at the Angel of Death that has been asking me to let him take you out.  I want you to drive him away.  Fight!  Use that rod of authority!”  I immediately began to speak it forth.  Then after some time, He spoke to me again.  He said these words:  “Son, this is your resurrection day.  I am making a new covenant of life for you.  There will still be some battles to fight, but use that rod and My authority, for I will raise you up and you will go again across the earth to those that have fought for you, and stood with you through this.  And you will impart to them an impartation of the portion of the anointing that I am going to download on you and through you.”  These were His words.  I sat there in my bed, weeping.  The next morning, about the same time, my phone rang.  It was an Amish brother from Libbey, Montana.  He said, “Henry.  This is brother Abe.  I just had a vision.  In the vision, I began to see you hold a lightning rod, throwing lightning bolts at the enemy.  You were wielding it back and forth.  Then the vision changed into the face of  black, terrifying storm, full of lightning.  Then the face of Donald Trump appeared in the storm.  He was upset and bringing on the storm.  His face was angry and very focused.  At that instant, I had a strong impression that you would be working with him.  God wants you using that rod to chase the enemy.”

From that time, I began to claim restoration and my new covenant.  I could walk in those early days about 30 steps with a walker, and I’d have to lay back down and rest.  Now, about a week later, I walk without the walker unless I’m going far.  I put on a little weight, for in Toronto, when I went into the hospital, I weighed 111 pounds.  I had literally lost 52 pounds.  Now I’m up to 119.2 pounds, and can eat about anything, praise God!

I want to thank you for your prayers.  The specialist told me that my prostate is bad, my bladder is too enlarged to contract to urinate, so I will need a catheter.  My heart has been extremely stressed and is weak, so I must use caution in exercising too much or I could go into cardiac arrest.  So after the report of that specialist, I came out of that office rejoicing, saying “Thank you, Jesus!  Now I know exactly what I need to believe for!  You gave me two brand new hips five years ago, and now I need a brand new prostate, bladder, and an undamaged heart, in Jesus’ name!”

So this is my challenge, and I will see you all again!  Amen!

Sincerely in Jesus,

Brother Henry