SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS How do people respond when you say, “I’m called of God to go to a certain place.” And people say to you, “Well, that’s crazy,” you know.
SPKM ARLIE WHITLOW Particularly where we are they say it’s crazy. Northern Virginia is a very exciting place to live. In fact, you know, I see empty stores and I see empty houses and that’s so strange to us. Where we are the average median income per household is $45,000. People put houses up for sale and within 3 and 4 hours they have four and five contracts on them. So we’re in a very highly developed area. It’s a place where a lot of successful, a lot of high oriented are there.
SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS A lot of government people live in that area too?
SPKM ARLIE WHITLOW A lot of government people there.
SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS Go across into Washington every day?
SPKM ARLIE WHITLOW Yes. In fact, the people that make Washington work don’t live in Washington. They live in the suburbia areas, either in Maryland or in Virginia where we are. And so I was down praying about our area one time. I said, “Lord, show me the spirit of where we are? What’s happening where we are?” And the Lord showed me that the horse and the rider of our area was that spirit of poverty, the spirit of intellectual pride and also the spirit of materialism. As long as material things are in the hands of God’s people, it’s wonderful. But when material things get in the hands of the wrong people, it produces pride.
So those two spirits are very loose in our area, the spirit of materialism and the spirit of pride. So when we went there and we began to, as it were, knock on doors. I didn’t have any cash
SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS Just started knocking?
SPKM ARLIE WHITLOW Knocking on doors, handing out fliers. We’ve got four kids and we used them. And we started handing these fliers out and started knocking on doors and telling people about the Lord and saying, “The Lord sent me.” And we got a lot of stares, I mean, we had a lot of funny looks, you know. But the Lord did send us and two years later He spoke to me, of all things, to put up a gospel tent. And
SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS A tent?
SPKM ARLIE WHITLOW A tent.
SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS In, outside of Washington?
SPKM ARLIE WHITLOW Route 7, which is the major arterial source going into Washington, D. C., 45,000 cars a day pass that piece of property. And the Lord had miraculously given me the piece of property debt-free. Now I put this tent up. And it was a big one. It was 50X100. Your dad would laugh at that, right? But the Lord filled it up.
SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS But it was a start.
SPKM ARLIE WHITLOW It was a start. It was a start.
SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS SR01 You know, you’ve got to start somewhere, and don’t despise small beginnings. (RR_Zechariah_04:10 )
SPKM ARLIE WHITLOW Amen. That’s one of my favorite Scriptures now. But we put that tent up and the Lord filled that one up. The next year we put it up again and now this year we’ve got a larger tent, seats 2,000 people. It’s a big 80X140. And I am here to horse-collar you and bring you to Northern Virginia for a crusade.
SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS Now I’ve never been horse-collared, at least not lately.
SPKM ARLIE WHITLOW Well, I don’t even know what that is, but I’m after you, you know.
SPRR RICHARD ROBERTS I appreciate that. We’ll be praying over it. Arlie, I know that one of the first contacts that you had with the Oral Roberts Ministry was through the paralysis of your sister when she was 12 years old and the dramatic miracle. Can you share that testimony?
SPKM ARLIE WHITLOW Yeah, really, it’s a powerful thing. You know, we have appreciated the ministry of Brother Roberts for a long, long time. My sister when she was born, she was born with, she was an infantile paralytic. And she did not walk until she was 10 years of age, and this was back in 1948. Your daddy was holding a crusade in Goldsboro, North Carolina in a B-29 hangar. And I remember it because