Sreyneang’s father was broken, hopeless, and desperate. Paralyzed for over a year, sick and stressed out, one night he brought an altar in the house. The next day, Sreyneang asked Kathy Woods and her team from September 2014 L Squad to pray for her family.
Sreyneang is a tiny little spit-fire who taught me Khmer dances. One day, she asked us to go to her house to pray for her family. Of course we said, “Yes.”
Before we left, Yuwat shared with us that Sreyneang’s sister used to go to Mustard Seed and was great at English, but she’s suffered with mental illness for a few years. She mostly stays at home.
On top of that, Sreyneang’s father has been mostly paralyzed for a year because of complications from surgery. He is finally starting to move his extremities but still can’t bear weight. After his accident, Sreyneang and her mother were saddled with the stresses of caring for the younger kids as well as her father’s needs.
A few weeks before our visit, Yuwat (our host “mom”) began hearing laughter and voices at night, jeering about Sreyneang’s father. In fear and panic, Yuwat asked her husband to join her in prayer against this attack.
The next day, Sreyneang came to Yuwat, her face the evidence of a sleepless night and sadness in her spirit. “My father put another altar in the house last night,” Sreyneang lamented. “He invited devil spirits into our house to heal him.”
As the only believer in her home, Sreyneang fights alone against the evil that is brought into her home.
Finally, it was just too much. Yuwat’s testimony to the laughing voices was evidence enough that the enemy had found a stronghold.
So as we entered their home, seeing this ill man lying on a mat on the floor, it was hard not to be overtaken with the same hopelessness and sadness that this man feels every day.
He was crying out to any spirit, any god who could ease his pain, heal him and make him whole again.
Because of his hostility toward the church, we were only allowed to pray silently. We chatted and ate fruit, but in our hearts, we were fiercely in prayer. The air was heavy and the evil was palpable around the altars— but it couldn’t overcome the light we were bringing.
We knew this man wanted to be whole. After awhile, Yuwat suggested, “Maybe one of you can ask to pray for him out loud. Maybe he will let one of you pray.”
So Courtney said, “Can we pray for you?”
And he said, “Yes.
On our knees, we circled around his mat and also around his younger daughter with mental illness who was trembling in the corner. We lifted our voices to the only God who could heal this man, who could bring hope and light and healing. We were calling on the power of the only Spirit who is worth bringing inside, the Light that overcomes any darkness. This man needed more than healing from his physical paralysis, but from the paralysis of his hardened heart.
Our voices quieted as Yuwat began translating. In the middle of her prayer, the man cried out in Khmer,
“Jesus, help me!”
So Yuwat kept praying aloud as he repeated her words. Every word she said, he repeated.
Even in Khmer, we understood what was happening. Goosebumps pimpled my arms; this man was accepting Christ into his heart and home.
He was putting his trust in the One True God, the healer of bodies and of hearts.
He was letting the Light in.
When they were finished, tears lined our eyes and we hugged Sreyneang. After years of praying, the head of her family understood. They would have the overwhelming power of Jesus Christ in their home and hearts.
Even if we never meet again on this earth and even though my heart broke a week later as we drove away, I know these friends will be rejoicing and dancing with us again in Heaven. And now Sreyneang’s father will be there, too.
And rejoice with us in the victory of the King of Heaven! No place, no person, no offering, no sin, no false religious rituals, no illness, no darkness can separate us from Jesus who wants us and loves us so fiercely.
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