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I will never forget the night when I met Bob and Ruby Anne Smallwood, for it was a snowy night, and I was heading to my home terminal in Kingsport, Tennessee, with a load from one of the northern states.
I was coming down Interstate 77 through Virginia. I decided to take the back roads, which would take me through Bluefield, Virginia, down through Lebanon, Virginia, and into Abingdon, Virginia, where I could catch Interstate 81 and follow it into Tennessee to my home terminal.
I was a skilled driver of the big rigs and was okay with the snow, especially if I was loaded heavy, which would help give me traction unless I encountered some ice. However, that night, I was driving in one of the worst snowstorms that came out of nowhere.
If I had known that the weather would have been this bad, I would not have ventured off on the back roads, but there were wrecks everywhere!
I had talked earlier with northbound drivers and was told the southbound lanes of Interstate 77 were closed, and I needed to reroute from US 460 to US 19 to reach Interstate 81.
US 460 to US 19 was a regular trucker’s route, so l felt confident in rerouting. I was navigating through those Virginia hills when my C.B. radio scratched with a man’s shaken voice. The masculine voice said, “Big truck, can I make it down seventy-seven to Wytheville, Virginia?
The man in the car was heading north to catch Interstate 77 and follow it back down to Interstate 81 in Wytheville, Virginia, to take it south to his radio station, which is located in Rural Retreat, Virginia.
I remember keying the mike on my radio and replying, “No, you can’t. The road is closed. There has been an accident on Interstate 77, and you will need to follow me and cut back north in Abingdon on Interstate 81.”
The man’s name was Bob Smallwood. It turned out that Bob was a very famous personality in country and gospel music. Bob had his wife, Ruby Anne, and their son, little Bobby, in the car with him driving in that terrible storm.
During our conversation on the C.B. radio, I remember that while driving down US 460, my gearshift broke off near the floorboard with only a nub left to shift.
I honestly believe that Satan was trying to discourage me from meeting Bob that snowy night because he knew that God had plans to bring one of the most extraordinary moves of God in Virginia since the days of the pioneer circuit-riding preacher "Robert Sayers Sheffey."
Bob owned a radio station in Rural Retreat, Virginia, and the state police had called to tell him that the roof of the radio station had caved in due to the weight of snow on it.
Bob, with his wonderful family, was able to follow my big truck safely through the storm to Interstate 81, then north 60 miles to his radio station.
While conversing back and forth on our C.B. radios as we drove through the snow, Bob invited me to preach at his station.
After several weeks, my route for the load I was dispatched on would take me through the area of his radio station.
I parked at a nearby truck stop and called the number Bob had given me, and he answered the phone. I told him who I was and that I was parked at a nearby truck stop. It was only a short time till he came to get me and had one of his supporters with him.
Bob, with his friend, took me to his radio station and gave me some air time, asking me to introduce myself and bring a message to his listening audience.
I had preached on several radio stations before, so it did not bother me to allow the lord to use me in my gift of preaching.
To my surprise, the phones started ringing with people excited, asking Bob to give me a program, saying that when I was preaching, the Holy Spirit was saturating their homes; some even sent letters to Bob saying that while I was preaching, they had to pull their cars off the road because they could not see to drive because of the tears blurring their eyes.
One of these people, Brenda Viars, had a weekly TV program and invited me to record two programs with her to be aired later.
I still remember preaching that day for Bob on his radio station WCRR in Rural Retreat, Virginia, and I remember the message taken from Song of Solomon, “He Still Loves Me.”
Bob recorded the program and used my preaching in the background mixed in with his advertisements.
The response to these excerpts was also very good, and people responded over the phone and mailed several letters of encouragement and gratitude to Bob, telling him that they wanted him to make way for me to do more preaching on his radio station.
Bob and his wife, Ruby Anne, finally talked me into sending them tapes of my preaching to be played on the air at their radio station.
My program succeeded as the Lord used it to positively influence people's lives through the station's coverage area.
The trucker evangelist, “The Guardian Angel,” became known everywhere, even with the state highway patrol informing Bob that they loved the preacher, “The Guardian Angel.”
It was only a short time till the highway patrol would watch for my truck so they could converse with me through their C.B. radios, with some going so far as to pull me over with their blue lights asking for payer and preaching tapes I might have with me.
Bob later opened up another radio station in Tazewell, Virginia, where he played my programs three times a week, including morning devotionals that he would have me send in.
I remember doing a live program at the station and was back on Interstate 81 heading south when some drivers noticed my truck with the tree crosses on the grill and asked me to preach them a sermon on the C.B. radio.
I did not want to, but I had just got through preaching live over the air, and it did not take much for the preacher in me to kick in. The speed limit for trucks back in the middle 1990s was 55 miles per hour.
I was not thinking about speed as the anointing was saturating all the people’s cars and trucks who were listing, and before long, the fenders on my vehicle were flopping in the wind.
It took a little while for the highway patrol cars to start cutting in the middle to cross to our side of the road.
I said I guess I have got a ticket now, for I did not have my mind on how fast I was going, only to hear the officers come on laughing, saying, “Oh no, Guardian angel, we are not crossing over to stop you for speeding, we are crossing over asking you to pray for our family and us.”
Beloved, God began doing creative miracles while my programs were airing, which caused a local pastor, Brother Hubert Meadows, to partner with me, calling our program “The Standing with Jesus Broadcast.”
I also received a call from the Raymond Cooke family stating that they would drive one hundred miles to hear me preach, for God had healed Brother Raymond's wife, Sadie Cooke, from heart trouble. He also healed their daughter with eye problems, and later, he healed brother Raymond from cancer.
For many years, Brother Raymond had been a “Hells Angels Motorcycle Club member.” Nobody could believe it when he got saved, and a local news network was there to film him being baptized.
Beloved, it was not long till news got out that if someone needed prayer, get hold of The Trucker Guardian Angel.
People started calling Sadie Cook and Brother Hubert Meadows's wife, Eula Meadows, so much so that they started a prayer list of people needing prayer.
The Lord would honor their faithfulness, and if someone needed prayer or were in the hospital intensive care unit, they would call Sadie to get hold of "The Guardian Angel." Sister Sadie loved to call me the Guarding Angel.
They did not know that their faith saw all those people healed and delivered, not just mine but theirs.
The Holy Spirit spoke softly in my spirit that there would be a great move of God and for me to start preparing for a revival that would be a miracle meeting to remember.
The Holy Spirit supercharged me as I began preparing for this miracle meeting. It was during this time that Bob asked me to meet him as soon as possible because his wife, Ruby Anne, had been diagnosed with hardening of the arteries in her neck.
Something had blocked the arteries going out of her neck to her brain, leaving her with only 10% blood flow, which meant his wife had 95% blockage of the blood flow to her brain.
The doctors told Bob that several surgeries would be needed to remove the blockages, and they had plans to remove some of the arteries in her legs and use them to replace the clogged ones entering her brain.
I remember taking time off from work and meeting Bob at the hospital on the day of her surgery. Before they were to take her to surgery, Bob asked me to pray for her and would not let them move her until I had finished my prayer.
They placed Bob in a room while his wife was in surgery, and he was surprised when several doctors entered the room so shaken up that he thought his wife had passed away.
To Bob’s surprise, the doctors informed him that they had called in several more specialists to check his wife, informing him that all of their tests confirmed that his wife had 95% blockage in the arteries entering her brain. Still, her surgical prescreen showed no blockage, as if something or someone had replaced her arteries with new ones.
The surgeons were so baffled they made it a case study for the medical journals. Their typed report was nearly three pages full. Bob testified of this event on his television broadcast, and as a gesture of gratitude for taking time off of work to pray for his wife, Bob, and Ruby Anne Smallwood gave me lifelong free lifetime broadcasts on both of their radio stations.
Dear readers, this was only the beginning of “The Transformative Power of the Virginia Awakening,” which resulted in powerful revivals.
God was honoring his evangelist and visiting his people with robust outbreaks of revival as the local fire department knocked on the church door, stating that they could see a fire near the church.
Outbreaks such as a whirlwind showed up in front of my pulpit in a tent revival, and a dead woman whose body was rejecting her life support came back to life in Marion, Virginia hospital, pulling out the tubes that were giving her life.
I found out later that the people from the local morgue were there to get her body because the doctors were sure she would not survive after she was unplugged from her life support, but they said that by that evening, she was hungry and wanted something to eat.
Beloved, by looking up my YouTube Channel, you can watch Bob speak about the miracle God performed on his wife, including hearing him talk about my life and ministry.
I testify before God that everything in this article about how God used me in 1995 to revive Rural Retreat, Virginia, is accurate and factual. “Jerry & TinTin Hulse” https://youtu.be/W20D6lfKZfU?si=vix5myiJpLj5JLVe
International Evangelist
Jerry W. Hulse, Ph.D.
Miracle Life Church International
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