I come from a small town with small town ideals on life, love and religion.  I have been taught that speaking in tongues, prophecy and demon possession does not exist anymore and only existed in Bible times.  That those things only took place back when Jesus was alive because He had all power and authority…that is not what I have encountered on the Race.
At training camp I saw a little bit of what I was getting myself into.  I thought the people I was meeting and speaking to were crazy and quite frankly I was scared out of my mind but at the same time strangely drawn to the Race.  People were telling me that if I have the Holy Spirit living inside of me, I have the power and authority that Jesus Christ had on earth; that I can heal the sick, cast out demons and prophecy over the nations.  I didn’t (and most days still don’t) understand what any of that meant, but I knew I wanted it.  I knew I wanted the power of Jesus inside of me so that I could go to the nations and bring His power with me.  I knew that if I didn’t want all that, I wouldn’t last on the Race. 
This past week we have been participating in a Deliverance Seminar held by the church we have been working with.  The first night of the seminar the evangelist called up five people who needed prayer.  He started praying for people and we joined him in laying hands on people.  As we were praying for one woman I heard a ruckus behind me and noticed that there was a woman on the ground growling.  I had no idea what was going on.  Luckily, I have wonderful teammates who explain things to me when I’m a little lost.  I went over to Cindy and asked her if that indeed was a demon like I thought it was…yes indeed, my first real life demon! 
I don’t know what to tell you about the woman who had the demon inside of her.  I have so many questions still myself.  What I can tell you is that Jesus Christ is most certainly still alive!  I saw men and woman who had the authority given to them by the Holy Spirit praying over this woman and commanding the demon in the name of Jesus to get out of her body.  It was a surreal, confusing and exciting night.  Like I said, I still have many questions about what happened and I probably won’t have any answers to questions you have.  I just wanted to let you all know that I know that Jesus rose from the dead and He is still working even today!