Called to Be a Doctor: The Voice That Changed Everything
Len: Welcome to A Willing Heart to Please the Fa ther! This is Len Lacroix, and I'm here tonight, joined by my guest, Dr. Andrew Stenhouse. And tonight we're going to be talking about his call to become a doctor. Welcome to the program, Andrew.
Dr. Stenhouse: Thank you, Len. It is so lovely to be back with you again this evening.
Len: I wanted to ask you, Andrew, if you could please tell me that part about when you first received your call. You had been a geology student, but then a female friend invited you to church, and while you were sitting there in church with her, you told me one time that you heard God speak to you in an audible voice and called you to be a doctor. So pick it up with the friend inviting you and go from there with that piece where you were in the church and how you heard from God.
Dr. Stenhouse: Well, this was a worship service. And I loved that and loved to go. And then during the preaching part, I heard the audible voice of God speak to me on the right side of my body. And I said to the young lady Ruth, “Did you hear somebody talk?”
She said, “Shush, Andrew. You don’t talk in church.” I said, “I know.”
And then the next thing that happened was it was the audible voice of God telling me I was going to be a doctor. And then nothing happened for a few minutes, and then suddenly, my whole body started to shake like a rag doll and it interfered with the service.
And I suddenly said, “This is my Creator doing this.” And I started talking to God and telling Him how I hated the war in London during World War II and the bombs and blood and guts and people not coming back to school. And the one thing I didn’t want to do was be a doctor.
So I kept on talking and the shaking got worse and worse. So I had to stop, thinking I might physically die. And so the next thing that happened was that I stopped talking, the shaking stopped, and then the voice spoke to me, not from my right side, but from the lower left side of my body.
And it’s as though the Holy Spirit or God was surrounding me, and said, “You will be a doctor.” It was a command.
And I said, “Yes, Lord, I will be a doctor.”
And that was how I got in, and from then on nothing else mattered in my life. I immediately resigned from geology courses and also the geological survey where I was working. I was about seventeen at that time.
Len: Wow!
Dr. Stenhouse: And I changed islands, went to the South Island, and took up pre-med at that time. None of the courses had I taken in the past. I had taken languages and geology mainly, and mathematics. And here I was doing courses that people have been trained for all their lives.
Len: Wow! Now you said the South Island…what country was that?
Dr. Stenhouse: That’s New Zealand.
Len: Okay, so this all happened in New Zealand. And it was a sister in Christ named Ruth that invited you to church.
Dr. Stenhouse: Yes.
Len: Now when you were in that service—two things I want to know about it, if you can tell me. Do you remember when God first told you to be a doctor, how He said it to you? Not that it really matters, but do you remember what words He used when He said it the first time on your right side?
Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, as far as I remember, “You are to be a doctor.” “You are going to be a doctor,” or something like that.
Len: Yeah. Now the other thing I wanted to know was, when you say it disrupted the service, did you have pretty much a lot of people now with their attention focused on you?
Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, and everybody was moving away, as far as I know. And I left the service at that point after the whole thing was over. I didn’t stay in the service, because I couldn’t focus on anything else.
Len: Yeah, so people probably thought you were kind of strange.
Dr. Stenhouse: Yes, very strange. And I had actually been brought up very strictly and didn’t realize that God would do that.
Len: Yeah, I mean, you would never have done anything like that on your own.
Dr. Stenhouse: Oh, no! Absolutely not! And everybody that I would tell it to thought I was nuts, you know.
Len: No doubt they did. Well, Andrew, I want to thank you very much for sharing that today and for being on the program, and I look forward to our next visit together.
Dr. Stenhouse: Thank you, Len!
Len: You're welcome.