We have asked for your prayers for Amer and his family who are the most prominent and influential in our community. It seems that nearly everyone in our village is somehow connected to them by blood relation or marriage. If the key leaders in this clan accept the Gospel message it will have a huge impact! It is now this family that is being attacked. Those in the village who are going to the teaching are realizing that they are sinners. They are understanding that God is stronger than the created spirits; they know that they need God.
What will this family do? What will Amer do? Although he is working with Francois on preparing the Bible lessons, we have not seen a huge change in his life yet… until a few weeks ago. He started to participate more, where he would sleep through most of the teaching before! He had a new spring in his step. Now he would have to make a choice: will he go the traditional way? The way his family is pressuring him to go? The way generations of Mwinika have done in fear of the ancestral spirits? Or will he take a stand against them…
When I got home after visiting my friend Ziria, completely possessed and in the fears grip of a demon spirit, I shared my deep concern with the men working and teaching with Francois. Not only Ziria is being attacked, but her uncle, a very important man in our village, died a few days ago, her grandmother is very sick, her uncle is sick, her brother’s son is sick… All with obvious attacks from spirits. The spirits are mad and they are forcing people to choose who they will trust and follow…
As the Lord had it, we were visited last week by our friends and colleagues from Tanzania and South Africa. They were there to pray with us and to give us good counsel. Francois and the Mwinika men with him talked the issue through. Francois would pose questions, and they responded in a beautiful testimony of what they believe is true. They agreed that we cannot go and pray for Ziria, unless we have her mother and father’s permission (according to this culture).
Then Amer did it. He went out and talked to his family. He made a stand. And he got their permission to pray for Ziria!
As the men, went into the house to pray, Ziria convulsed without ceasing for the first few minutes. However, as each one continue to take a turn to pray and trust in God to bring relief to Ziria, she became quiet… she opened her eyes and looked on as the last of the men finished entrusting her to the Lord and His protection. The next day she was up and joking in her usual fashion. She could speak! She recognized people again… Ziria was back!
We rejoice in the Lord as Ziria today is up and ready to go back to the teaching. Just before coming to the city for the homeschoolers’ week, I visited Ziria one last time:
“My friend, I beg you to go back to the teaching so that you can learn God’s Way. The way of the spirits leads to the eternal fire, but the way of God leads to Life. I love you and I don’t want to see you suffer because of bad spirits. Please choose Him that gives Life!”
Ziria was at the teaching today.
Praise God who is showing himself stronger than the feared ancestral spirits of the Mwinika! Praise God who is strengthening the faith of a handful of believers and showing himself faithful when they confronted their spiritual world for the first time. Pray for the Mwinika in our village who are on the brink of a new and historical event; may they be ready to listen, to seek their salvation not through ancestral spirits, but through the only One who can really free them.
Pray that they will be ready to meet Jesus through the teaching over these next weeks.
Post Script: Ziria just visited me (Nadia), and confirmed in her own words:
“If it was not for God’s power, I would not have escaped the power of the bad spirits. Because of Him alone, I am well!” She smiles often and I sense a new softness in hear. May she open her heart completely to accept her Saviour… for “nothing is impossible for God”!
PostPostScript: Amer has been tested HIV+ a few years ago. He has been sick with a flu for weeks that has suddenly (after the events I describe above) worsened. Pray for his healing and especially for his faith to be strengthened even in the face of his bad health. He will be under pressure to seek a witchdoctor’s help.