My name is Ishmael Charles. I’m from the Eastern Caribbean Island of St.Vincent. My mom was a teenage girl who had a very poverty-stricken life. She became pregnant and decided to have an abortion because she had no mother or father. She lived with her grandmother. As she was preparing for the abortion, the Lord revealed Himself to her and said, “Do not touch the boy because I need this child for my glory for the gospel.”
After this experience, she decided not to abort the child. Her grandmother threw her out. She lived in a little 16x9 shack by the roadside. I was born in that little shack. The Lord told my mom, “Name the child Prince Ishmael for he shall come to preach the gospel.” Ishmael was with Hagar in the wilderness because they were kicked out by Sarah, the wife of Abraham. God told Hagar, “Don’t worry. I’m going to take care of the boy.” God told my mom, “Grandmother kicked you out. Don’t worry. I’m going to take care of the child, and the child is going to be blessed.”
Because of the deplorable condition she lived in something happened. I contracted pneumonia and asthma. At three and half years old, at the very point of death, when the doctors said, “There is no more hope for this little boy. He will not survive more than twenty-four hours.” My mom folded my hands on my chest to die, and as I was breathing my last breath, something strange happened. A bright light, brighter than anything you can ever see shown in the little hut where I was dying, and an audible voice spoke to my mother. “Pick up the dying child. Go down to the river. Dip him in the river three times, and the boy shall live because I need him.” She was so frightened. Right at the point of death, my mom heard the voice again, “Pick up the dying child. Go to the river.” The river was about a mile and a half away. It was 4:00 in the morning. She went down to that cold running river and dipped me in the river three times, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Instantaneously God healed me.
As a young nine-year-old boy I would have dreams. I would run to my mom and say, “Mom, I had this dream. In the dream, I saw the moon coming down, and the whole earth was caving in. I’m walking in the middle of hundreds of people. They are crippled. They are blind and feeble. As I walked through the people I began seeing them stretching their hands out.” I also told the pastor what I had seen in the dream. He kept saying, “God is going to use you.” I began to sense that at the age of eleven and twelve. At the age of thirteen, I made a commitment.
At the age of fifteen, I was praying one night at 10:30, and I felt this unique presence come over me. It was the presence of God. He filled me with the Holy Spirit. I began to speak with tongues. I didn’t know what it was. I thought, “I’ve gone crazy. Something’s wrong with me.” Immediately that little boy out of poverty was elevated. I began to see miracles taking place in the church. I went to the church, and the pastor asked me to preach. People were healed, delivered, and set free. All this happened from the age of sixteen and has continued to this day.
Today I can tell you that God has taken me to almost forty countries around the world preaching the gospel.
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