Wendy Virgo: ‘God is still taking me on new adventures’

I’ve had the chance to see the recently published Building God’s House: The Life of Terry Virgo, which tells the story of your husband’s life. You come into the story when you meet Terry at London Bible College, but I don’t know much about your life before that. Can you share a little about your upbringing?

When I was seven, I distinctly remember being in a Crusaders class. It was like a girls’ Bible club. I don’t remember very much of what she said, but at the end of her talk she read a poem about a boy who was challenged to give his life to Jesus. The Lord patiently kept trying to break into his life, but he hardened his heart more and more, until the last verse was: “And turning over on his pillow, he died.” There was a collective gasp from all these little children crammed onto their benches! We all knew that he hadn’t made that vital decision.

Then she said: “It doesn’t have to be like that for you. You can ask Jesus into your life now.” My hand was the first to go up! She said, “Pray this prayer with me.” I prayed it and I meant it, and I felt something shift in my heart. I knew Jesus had come to be in me, and that has never gone away. It was a very real experience.

You met Terry years later at Bible College, when did love blossom?

In my second year, Terry turned up. I immediately thought what a nice guy he was. He always seemed very happy and very easy. He obviously really loved Jesus, but he wasn’t hyper-spiritual about it. At the time, I had really been seeking God about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It was a very hot potato, and the debates raged at college. But I was beginning to think, “This is what I need. There’s something more that’s eluding me.”

Terry said, “I know you want to know about the baptism in the Spirit. Why don’t we go inside and talk about it?” For the next hour or so, he went through the scriptures and gave me a coherent doctrine that was intellectually satisfying and biblically ordered. It all made sense to me and fell into place. Later that evening, the other lady on the team was my roommate. I said to Catherine, “Please lay hands on me.” She did, and immediately the Holy Spirit fell on me and I began speaking in tongues. It really transformed my Christian experience.

But I was still trying to find the will of God for my life. I was trying to find out which country he wanted me to go to. Then, in January of my third year, I was sitting in the library cramming for my exams and looking out of the window, as you do. I felt God speak to me very clearly. He said, “My will for your life is Terry Virgo.” And I thought, “Well, that’s a new idea. It’s not a place; it’s a person.” I was absolutely thrilled because I really liked him!

Terry prayed a lot about it, and he felt the Lord say to him, “This child will be a great joy to you.” And he really is.

As all this was happening, you were also having children. You have five – four boys and one girl.

It was a couple of years before I had Ben, and then they came roughly every two years – quite thick and fast! Then I suddenly discovered I was expecting number five, which I was not thrilled about. In fact, I was devastated at the time because I was pretty exhausted. Terry prayed a lot about it, and he felt the Lord say to him, “This child will be a great joy to you.” And he really is. I remember on his first birthday being so moved and thinking, “Wow. A year ago, this boy was born and I didn’t think I wanted another child – but the family wasn’t complete.”

I read in Terry’s book that Paul Cain gave a prophetic word that you had an equal anointing to Terry, did you ever feel resentment that he was out at exciting church meetings, and you had to be home with the kids?

I did for quite a while. There were times when I thought exactly that: Terry’s off doing all sorts of exciting things, and here I am wiping bottoms, changing nappies, making beds and so on. But one of the things that kept coming back to me was what God had spoken to me at the beginning: “My call on your life is Terry Virgo.”

That helped me greatly at various points. It reminded me that my job was to facilitate what Terry was doing and to be there for him. I enjoyed speaking very much, and I enjoyed leading meetings. I found that very fulfilling. But after a while I realised: I’m not entitled to this. It’s not an entitlement; it’s a bonus. It’s a privilege. If I am there to facilitate Terry’s ministry, then everything is important – and raising the children is perhaps the most important thing. God gave me grace when I began to feel irritated, annoyed or bored, to say, “No, wait a minute. Let’s regroup here. I have five children who are potentially arrows in God’s hand. It’s my job to pray them out.”

But your son Simon was far away from God at the time. How did you keep hope alive when you had a child who had walked away?

This was when we were living in America for two years. Simon found it very difficult. Fourteen is not an easy age to be wrenched away from your friendships, and he suffered. I think Terry and I took a while to realise how much he was suffering, and he really did go far away from God. After about two years of this, around 1996, I was praying for him one day. I’ve only twice had an actual vision, but as I was praying, it was almost as though I saw a movie.

I could see a cage with a very scrawny lion in it, a bit like Scar in The Lion King. We had received prophetic words about Simon that he would be a lion. I saw this emaciated, tatty lion sitting disconsolately in a cage. Suddenly, a great big lion’s paw came out of nowhere and smashed the cage. The lion looked shocked. Then he tentatively reached out one paw, then another, and began to walk away from the ruins of the cage. Then he began to run, and his mane grew. I was so excited. I thought it was going to happen tomorrow! But it was another two or two-and-a-half years before he came back to God. God kept that vision alive in me. Then, in December 1998, Terry was going back to America for a week. I was supposed to go with him, but I suddenly felt very clearly from God that I was not to go. I was to spend the week fasting and praying.

“You will not have my son. He belongs to the King. He’s the King’s property. You have got to release him.”

It was the most extraordinary week. I had amazing fellowship with God, and he showed me, day by day, how to pray. I got out all the promises God had given me. It was like laying my weapons out on the grass, walking around them and contemplating them. Then I began to use those promises in prayer. I would say, “You will not have my son. He belongs to the King. He’s the King’s property. You have got to release him.”

One day, as I was praying for Simon, I felt God say, “Pray about that.”

So I prayed, “Lord, take the veil off his mind that the enemy has thrown over him.” The next day, Simon phoned me and asked me to pick him up. As I was driving him home, he suddenly said, “Mum, what have you been doing while Dad’s away?”

I wondered whether to tell him, but I said, “Simon, I’ve been fighting to get you back.” To my amazement, he said, “Mum, I think you’re winning.” When we got home, I asked him what he meant. He said, “I was in a pub last night, and all of a sudden it was like something came off my mind. I thought, ‘What am I doing here? I don’t belong here.’”

That night, before he came home, I anointed his door with oil and said, “Lord, when he walks through this door, this is your space. It’s your room. It doesn’t belong to the enemy anymore.” I anointed his pillow with oil and said, “Lord, when his head hits the pillow, you speak to him.” The next morning, he came stumbling out of his room and said, “Mum, God’s been talking to me all night.”

He went off to work, and halfway through the morning he phoned me in floods of tears and said, “Mum, the love of God is all over me.” He just came back running. It was astonishing. Like the lion, he came back running and his mane grew.

You said earlier that you felt God had called you to Terry, but in God’s goodness you haven’t missed out on using your own gifts. You’ve written so many books and done so many things. Where did the writing begin?

I’d always wanted to write. I loved writing when I was a child and used to write lots of stories. So I wrote Leading Ladies. I only had two hours a week while Tim was at playgroup, so I wrote furiously! That was the first one.

Is that around the time Newfrontiers really began to grow into a movement of churches?

We never planned on it becoming a movement. When we were leading the church in Seaford, in this tiny little town at the end of the railway line, people began to get filled with the Spirit as Terry preached. We all began to discover the grace of God and the gifts of the Spirit. We thought, “This is a whole new deal,” and the only book we had was the Bible!

We kept going back to the drawing board, and our only authority was the Bible. Worship in particular was absolutely transformed. People began phoning Terry and saying, “Will you come to our house?” Little groups grew until they became major churches. It happened organically. It wasn’t planned.

Terry had a routine blood test. To his surprise, the doctor called him back and said, “I’m very worried about what I see.” 

I remember hearing Terry speak at a Newfrontiers church in Cape Town, where he shared the extraordinary story of being told in 2023 that he might have incurable cancer. Can you tell us what happened?

Terry had a routine blood test. To his surprise, the doctor called him back and said, “I’m very worried about what I see.” The doctor went through all the possible explanations and said he was pretty sure the only thing it could be was myeloma, a type of blood cancer. Terry’s sister had died from myeloma only a few years previously. She died within a week. So this looked really serious.

That Wednesday morning, we went to our friend Steve Brading’s house. Suddenly, Steve said, “I have a picture of the Lord pouring oil all over us. Let’s stand, hold hands and worship God.” Then we were hit by the Holy Spirit. We hadn’t experienced anything like it since the Toronto days. Terry had never really experienced the laughter before, but suddenly he laughed and laughed and couldn’t stop. The Holy Spirit was all over him. Then the doctor phoned and said, “Mr Virgo, this is very strange. I have no way to understand what has happened. Our blood analysts don’t make mistakes, but I’m going to have to complain because there is absolutely nothing wrong with your blood. The blood I took on Wednesday is completely clear.”

We don’t believe the original result was a mistake. We believe God healed him during that powerful encounter with the Holy Spirit.

The world often presents ageing negatively – you’re now 80 and have walked with God through all these different decades. What are your thoughts on aging?

I think you mellow. Looking back, sometimes I’m quite ashamed of how sharp I could be with people. I regret some of the things I’ve said and done. There was a time when I spent quite a long period feeling very sad about one or two things I wished I hadn’t said or done. But I found the grace of God to forgive myself, which I think can be one of the hardest things to do. But God still loves me. I think it’s the grace of God that carries you through. There isn’t another answer.

Looking back over your life, what has God taught you?

I think several things. Don’t assume that you always know. I think I could have been thought quite arrogant at times because I was very definite about things being black or white, right or wrong, absolute. I hope I’ve learned to be milder and gentler. I know I still often open my mouth too quickly, and I’m still trying to learn that one! I think we should always be open to new ways of God teaching and speaking to us. The “one anothering” is something we want to major on: love one another, pray for one another, encourage one another, pray for healing for one another. There are so many “one anothers” in the Bible.

I’m in a wonderful small group in Winchester, where we now live. It is such a “one anothering” place. We build one another up. So one of my life lessons would be: be part of a church that “one anothers”. Terry and I are grateful that, at every stage, we’ve known the Lord’s leading. We moved about ten months ago from Burgess Hill to Winchester simply because the leader at the church there invited Terry to come – to preach regularly and to be involved in bringing young men through into ministry. We thought, “Okay, another adventure.