NEW JERSEY—Herman Barkei was ordained a deacon in 1967 in the Radio Church of God, a local church elder in the Worldwide Church of God on Pentecost in 1969, a local elder in the Philadelphia Church of God in 1997 and a preaching elder in 1998. He died on Atonement in 2009.

He came into the Philadelphia Church of God in July 1992 after God intervened to show where He had moved his lamp. That year, at the Feast of Tabernacles in Oklahoma City, he was assigned to assist with anointing. He was put in charge of anointing at many PCG Feasts after that time. At home in the northeast, he served as a minister and often anointed members and prayed in faith. A number of members, as well as people who were not members, experienced dramatic healing.

One member called my husband to say that his father was in the Jersey City Hospital in a coma from a stroke or heart attack, and asked if he could be anointed. Herman found the hospital’s address and drove there. I was with him, and I remember walking up a number of steep stairs to get to its entrance. My husband asked the people at the desk for the room of the man the member had called about. We found him in bed, totally comatose. Herman anointed and prayed for his healing, with his faith and the faith of the man’s son. We left and later were told by his son that the man had awoken fully a few minutes later after we had left. God had done that.

A man calling from New England telephoned Herman. He had never met, but the man said he had cancer, wanted to be anointed by a true minister of God and obtained the minster’s name and phone number from the church. Herman spoke with him and took his address. Then he prayed and anointed a cloth and mailed it to him. Several days later, the man called back saying that he was healed and no longer had cancer. Herman never heard from him again.

One Sabbath morning at the meeting hall prior to services, a mother carrying her toddler girl in her arms exited the ladies bathroom. The little girl accidentally stuck her finger into the large heavy bathroom door, and it smashed her finger actually flat. The lady quickly ran with the screaming child to Herman. He took them up to the anointing area, and the moment he started praying, the child stopped crying. After anointing the little child, her finger looked perfect again. When the pastor of the church was told what happened, he instructed the lady to go to the hospital immediately with the girl. While in the hospital emergency area, the finger was X-rayed, and it was found to be perfectly normal.

After an afternoon service in Fairfield, New Jersey, Herman anointed a woman with a severe hearing problem. Immediately after the prayer and anointing the woman heard the brethren conversing in the adjacent meeting room. She exclaimed, “I can hear!”

Upon arrival at the Feast of Tabernacles meeting hall in Niagara Falls, New York, in 2002, Mr. Barkei was met by the deacon in charge of setup. He said a back injury from back in high school had grown so painful that he was unable to function at all, and he asked for anointing. Having not yet even checked into the hotel, Herman took him to his car and prayed and anointed the man. The deacon was freed from all pain and was able to serve as he had come to do.

A woman in the church who lived in New Hampshire was preparing to give birth and was told by the doctor that the baby was in the breech position. She telephoned my husband about the situation, and he prayed. We soon heard that the baby had turned and entered the world head-first.

Walter Barkei, Herman’s brother, was driving home late from work one evening and fell asleep at the wheel. His vehicle ran headlong into a tree, and he was knocked unconscious. He was taken to the hospital, where X-rays revealed that his eye socket bone was broken. The doctors feared that his eye was going to fall back into his head. Walter wanted only to get out of there, so he called his brother and asked him to come get him. The doctor made an appointment for him to go see an eye specialist and gave him a copy of the X-ray. Walter was anointed immediately after we arrived home. He asked Herman to take him to the eye doctor appointment the next day. At the eye doctor’s office, Herman and I sat out in the waiting room as Walter was examined. ​The doctor felt around his eye several times, then looked at the X-ray. He exclaimed, “This can’t be your X-ray! There is nothing wrong with your eye socket bone!”

At the Feast in Prince Edward Island, Canada, services were over for the day, and a family had gone across the street to a large mall for lunch. While there, a little girl in the family fell through the second-floor balcony railing quite a distance to the first floor. Her father immediately ran down to get his child, who was unconscious, and quickly ran with her back to our meeting hall to the anointing area just before it was starting to close up for the day. Herman was still there, and he anointed the child. She awoke and was perfectly normal thereafter.

These are some of the instances in one minister’s life when God heard, answered and healed.