Eight years earlier, Cornel’s daughter received a Bible as a birthday
present. Given that his daughter was young and could not read, the
Bible was seemingly useless and tossed aside. However, through a
series of events, Cornel decided to read this odd birthday gift.Cornel
soon became enthralled with the stories. He came alive with each turn of
a page. He loved the characters, the places, the lessons, the
principles. He loved how he felt when he read it. It was his favorite
book.But that’s all it was to him – just a book. A fictional
story, a meaningless collection of words arranged on a page. For eight
years, Cornel read his Bible, day in and day out, and he never knew
its contents were real. He said that he often dreamed of the book’s
reality and had always secretly hoped that it was.Some days he would
feel a force so strong that he was almost certain the Bible was a true
story; but, he still never KNEW. Cornel’s compulsion
toward God was so powerful that he began to mimic the actions of his
favorite character, Jesus. He prayed, just as Jesus did. He prayed for
someone to come confirm that this story was true. Although he had
wishful thinking, he never actually had faith that this confirmation
would ever occur.Flash-forward to the present. Abi [host], Emmie [teammate] and I are standing in Cornel’s living room. We are the first Christians he has ever seen.
Until this moment, people like us were only a myth, mere characters in a
storybook. As Abi spoke about the truth of Christ & His creation,
an undeniable energy flowed through the room…
Jessica and I explained we had come from the U.S. to share the love
that God had shown us. She said that she was a born again Christian and
said she had complete faith in who God is… We were extremely glad to hear of the faith in Christ that she
already had and asked if there was anything that we could pray for her
about.She began to explain that her … son, Thomas, who we had seen
climbing on the tree outside, had gotten sick when he was one year old; since then he had become “deaf and dumb” and also had epilepsy. As
she was telling us this, you could hear him jumping and running around
outside screaming randomly. I think we could all feel the presence of
the enemy and we were ready to see Thomas receive freedom.Steve has
seen demonic possession firsthand numerous times, even within his own
family, and it was no mistake that that’s what was happening
here. Thomas’s mother continued to tell us that his sickness had put a
huge burden on her and she didn’t feel peace at all inside or in her
home…Steve and Thomas’s mom went to bring him inside and as Steve tried,
Thomas punched him in the jaw. Thomas’s mom was eventually able to
bring him in. I quickly prayed for spiritual and physical protection
over Jess, Steve and me.She then closed the front door so that he would
stay in the house with us as we prayed. Steve walked into the porch
area to try to bring him in the living room, but Thomas was
uncontrollable at this point… he
continued to scream and jump on top of the dressers in the porch.
