The enemy has been defeated…
Again.
It was a dark, hostile, cold, unwelcoming apartment complex. Everything from the barred up entrances of each home and the spirit houses of burning incense and idol worship screamed YOU’RE NOT WELCOME HERE. Yet I continued walking down each hallway praying the Holy Spirit would do something.
Here I am the last week in Malaysia, new church to sleep in, new pastor, and new people to meet. This time the pastor is having us spread the word that there is a Tamil speaking church service here. It’s new and not many know about it. The ultimate goal, as always, spread the love of Jesus Christ.
For the third and final day I was in the dark apartment building with 2 other teammates and a translator. We walked the halls routinely knocking on closed doors waiting for people to answer so we could simply tell them about the church and move on to the next suspect. However, today was different.
I could feel the darkness that lurked in each corner and above every doorstep we came to. Different objects or writings on the doors helped us to indicate the spirit of religion or witchcraft in each of the apartments. With the Indian, Tamil-speaking, community in mind we passed by the Chinese and were careful to leave the Malays alone. The Muslim scripts are fair warnings that advise us to stay away or face prosecution.
We came to a gate with the fresh scent of incense in the air I noticed the Hindu symbol above the door, a green light to go ahead and talk to them. The door was opened so they could see us from inside. This time the cast iron barrier was removed and we were welcomed in to sit down. There was a young woman and an older woman sitting together in the small room inside the apartment where we joined them. I could sense weight and sadness in the room. After we introduced ourselves and told them why we were there I asked them if there was anything they wanted prayer for. The initial response was there were no problems. After pressing a little bit more we found out that they had a little boy in the family who was sick and that the older woman in the room had breast cancer and was about to begin treatments. NO PROBLEMS?! Both of their eyes filled with tears as the older one told us how she felt sad and very burdened in her heart. I can’t fully explain what happened next because the Holy Spirit had complete control of the situation and I just watched as together we all prayed for healing and cast out the spirits that were causing her and her family pain. I prayed against depression and from there the woman began praying a prayer of salvation and deliverance led by my teammate Carl. PRAISE GOD! The Kingdom is rejoicing today over this woman!
The Holy Spirit moves. There are divine appointments everywhere. This woman who accepted Jesus Christ didn’t even live in that apartment. She was just visiting. The younger woman was the one to point out that it was no accident we met.
This was not the only Holy Spirit encounter we had. We prayed for a brother in jail, we prayed for health and wholeness, for reconciliation and peace. The people in this dark dungeon are just crying out for God but we needed to first go there and deliver the message of hope and love. We had to put ourselves in a place that desperately needs light in order to shed light. I am sure of this, today the enemy was defeated, blazing fires of hope burn brightly in that place.
