I want to share with you about some very significant things happening in the last week. I especially want to ask you to pray. Francois is still in the village while our children and I are in the city for a homeschoolers week at the international school. We are thankful that our friend and colleague Tony from NTM South Africa has joined Francois in the village for this week!
The Chronological Bible teaching in our village just past the teaching of the Law and everyone who are attending is convinced of their sin and need of God. We are so excited to see our friends understanding for the first time that they can do NOTHING to save themselves! This week the teaching will start in the New Testament and soon our Mwinika friends will meet their Redeemer for the first time!
However, things have been challenging. As Francois said: Almost everything seems to go wrong… except the really important things, like the teaching! 🙂
In a blog last week, I shared with you about Ziria, my friend and language helper, who has started to come to the teaching. However, after preparing and reading the one verse from Scripture for the teaching, she has not been able to return to the teaching… she started to get sick.
We had a knock on our door at 2 am. This is very unusual! People have died without our neighbours asking for help during the night… what could this be about? It was my friend, Ziria’s husband (see last week’s blog!). Ziria is very sick and they need medicine for pain, but do not want us to come the their house. Early next morning, I went there and found her a zombie, completely possessed by bad spirits. She did not recognise me or anyone else, could not speak and convulsed at intervals as the spirits griped her. Her face was distorted and although her eyes were open, she was clearly no longer conscious. My poor friend! That it had to come to this…
In the dark house, on the dirt floor, sat her uncle, one of the strongest witchdoctors in our village. No one slept that night as they kept vigil around Ziria. We could all see that the spirits intended to kill her.
As she convulsed, her husband held her with tears running down his face. Could it be that they are ready to look to God and not to a stronger demon spirit for healing?
Outside in the bright sunshine again, I prayed in my heart for the right words… No-one in that house, except Ziria, has ever been to the teaching. Do you understand that there are good and bad? I asked her husband. That God who is good is much stronger than the created bad spirits? He nodded. Yes, and he does understand that it is bad spirits that are attacking and possessing Ziria.
“Who do you want to trust?” I asked.
In a roundabout way, he explained that they do not need any other help from us, except money to pay the witchdoctor. You see, Ziria is troubled by a spirit that wants her to do a series of 3 ceremonies, each more elaborate and lasting more days than the previous. She has done two of these – one of the photo’s in last week’s blog about Ziria, has been taken the morning after the last ceremony. They believed that this spirit will kill her if she does not do the next ceremony soon…
I went home crying out to God! God, please give my friend another chance to choose for you!