In Matthew 10, Jesus commands us to, “heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse leopards, [and] cast out demons”. I have heard this verse so many times growing up and always thought to myself how cool it would be to actually perform one of these miracles in the name of Jesus; in the same breath, however, I doubted the possibility of that ever happening because I doubted the actual power of Jesus—not to mention the amount of boldness it would take to go up to a stranger and pray over them with such a grandiose request of God!
One of our many ministries in Malaysia was street outreach every Wednesday night with Aafke, our ministry hosts from the Netherlands. For three weeks, we gathered together in the Kwan center (our homeless shelter ministry) to popcorn pray and prepare our hearts for ministering on the streets of Malaysia. Aafke told us that the ministry she’s been doing for eight years is reaching out and loving on the prostitutes in the Red Light’s district (prostitution is illegal in Malaysia but you can still find lots of people practicing it as a means of survival).
She asked for two people to go with her and my squamate Amanda and I volunteered. The first two weeks were pretty low-key and nothing spectacular happened other than some cool interactions with the prostitutes on various street corners and alleyways. First, we walked down this dark street that was home to a handful of older women stuck in prostitution (these women are especially poor, given their age and lack of “customers”). The younger people down the other alleyways are typically better off, although still struggling to get by. Some women would openly hold a conversation with us and others would ignore us altogether. Much to my surprise, however, these streets weren’t as full of sadness, heaviness, or destitution as I thought they’d be; in fact, it wasn’t until the third week that my boat was rocked (re-phrase: turned upside down).
The same group of people (Amanda and I) went with Aafke the second time because she didn’t want to introduce too many more new folks into the area. The third week my teammate Hannah felt called to go and so she tagged along asking for permission. I almost didn’t go because my heart wasn’t in a very good place to minister to others that night, but I went anyway because I felt the Lord strangely pressing on my heart to say “yes” (you’ll see how cool it was that both of us went at the end). Well little did I know He had THIS in store for me….
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We began our ministry by walking down the dark alleyway with the elderly women. On the right, there sat a group of three women silently staring the same way in which a group of toy dolls would stare: aimlessly, hopelessly, lifelessly. We walked by and reached out our hands to say “Merry Christmas” and they received our greeting with small, forced smiles. We proceeded to chat for a bit, but it was difficult to keep a conversation going due to the language barrier as well as the dead silence surrounding us. Just as we were about to move on to the next group of people, the woman on the right began moaning and aggressively rubbing her arms up and down saying, in her very broken English, “I go to doctor…but he said my antibodies were okee….and no have HIV… but it won’t go away no matter what I do….the man won’t go away and I dunno why…”. Tears started flowing as she said these words and continued ferociously rubbing her arms and legs.
Was she sick? Did she have a fever and chills? Was she simply crazy? These were my initial thoughts. Then Aafke began to question her. As she spoke, the woman began acting crazier and crazier as if a spirit was restlessly tormenting her (which is actually what we suspected once symptoms of demon possession became more evident). Really, Sam? Demon possession? You’ve got to be kidding me. But the thing is I’m not kidding you. Demon possession is a real thing and I witnessed it for the first time ever that night. What about modern science? Could it be schizophrenia? Hallucinations? Other mental issues? Possibly, but here’s the thing: Aafke has known this woman for ten years and not once has she witnessed her in such a mood. And the most peculiar thing about it all is that she appeared to be mentally sane: the uncontrollable behavior seemed to be coming from an inner force that was not of herself.
Despite Aafke staring right at her in the face while speaking, the woman could literally not stare back which is another sign of demon possession (apparently demons tend to avoid looking at someone who has the Holy Spirit inside of him/her). Instead, her eyes wandered as if something was jerking her head away from Aafke’s eyes. Her arms uncontrollably swung about, her legs swayed uneasily about, and on occasion, her neck suddenly jerked back as if being tossed around by an evil spirit trapped inside of her flesh. We wanted to pray over her to cast the spirit out but didn’t want to without her being aware of what was going on (well, duh:). The only problem was that Aafke didn’t speak this woman’s Indian dialect and so could not properly explain to her what was happening. Much to my chagrin, we were just about to leave when one of the other women said she could translate for us! This was such a gift from the Holy Spirit.
We all gathered around this lady and actually shared the gospel with her and explained that she has a demon inside of her who doesn’t want her to know the love of Christ and who rejoices in tormenting her day and night; we told her that there is hope, though, because there is a man name Jesus who is the Prince of Peace and who has the power to remove any anxieties, discomforts, and fears. We told her that if she asks Jesus to be the Lord of her life, then she can call on His mighty name any time she sees or feels the demon and he will replace the demon with an indescribable peace. Guys, she actually accepted Jesus that night and asked her to be the Lord of her life!
After doing so, we all laid hands on her to pray and cast the demon out in the name of Jesus. As excited as I was, I bowed my head in hesitation questioning whether or not this was actually going to work. If not, would my faith be weakened? Or would be strengthened knowing that I obeyed the Holy Spirit and prayed when he prompted me to pray? If the demon was cast out, would I still have doubts of grandeur, such as, “was that actually a demon? maybe she stopped rubbing her skin anymore because she had a temporary relief from fever chills or something….”. Well we prayed anyways but never anticipated the thing that was about to take place right in front of us.
Aafke prayed first and we all prayed silently with her. The woman began to move about more violently than before so we continued to pray hardcore. At the end we asked the woman how she felt. She felt no difference and was becoming frightened; said that she still saw the demon as clear as day. We bowed our heads again to continue praying and this time the Lord told me to confidentially pray out loud. Nervously I did and I kept hearing the words “take it away, take it away” and so that’s what I repeatedly prayed over this woman. Suddenly I felt a sudden jerk and the woman’s head was violently thrust backward nearly to the point of tipping the chair! I freaked out, but Aafke instructed me to continue boldly praying. As later disclosed to us, Hannah was praying in tongues by this point in time. I continued to pray what the Lord placed on my heart to say (half of which I don’t remember now) and all of a sudden the woman shouted, “I see him, I see him!” Thinking she was referring to the demon, I sat in grave disappointment thinking that, at this point, our efforts were in vain. This Aafke inquired of the woman, “who do you see? Is he good or bad?” Much to our surprise, the woman stared straight in front of her (which was directly to my left) and said, “good…..he’s good” and was immediately relieved of her torment. I believe this at this very moment, the woman over whom we prayed saw the face of Jesus shining in all of his glory, beckoning his daughter to run into his open and loving arms.
Okay freeze. Allow me to give a quick backstory….
I had a kinda rough day that day and, as aforementioned, my heart was not in the best place to serve. I had shared some of my struggle with Amy earlier that day, which is my frustration in not being capable of seeing the actual face of Jesus. I am the world’s most visual person (good luck telling/describing something cause I won’t understand until ya place a picture in front of me!) and so I can’t settle with a foggy, blurry, made-up image of Jesus. No. I want an actual, literal picture of him because I feel like that would make him so much more real to me. Amy challenged me and inquired of me if I had ever asked God to show me. Not really….and so I asked that very day. Well, even though I didn’t see his actual face that night, this woman did. And if this poor, dirty, demon-possessed prostitute can see the actual face of Jesus the same day as she accepted him into her heart.….so can I. And, friends, the encouragement I received that night can’t be described in words.
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So there you have it. I hope that this isn’t a once in a lifetime experience and that the Father has so many more miraculous experiences in store for me, but if it was, then I will hold onto to this very memorable night. I think I’ll even go as far to say that my entire Race was worth just that one experience.
Dear reader, never doubt the strength of the power you have within you as a follower of Christ. Do bold things and pray big prayers because nothing is too big for our God. He’s constantly doing great things and it’s up to us to open our eyes to see the things he’s doing. In Matthew 17 Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” I encourage you to give him space to work in your life, whether that means giving up some idols (screen time, your phone, food, or whatever it may be) or simply walking in obedience with the Holy Spirit tells you to do (especially when it’s hard and you don’t feel like doing it). And just you wait to see what our God will do!
I’m literally so excited to hear what miracles the Lord is performing/will perform in your life so so soon!!! Please reach out to me via text, Instagram DM, FB Messenger me, or email to share what the Lord is doing in your life!
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Love you all!
