[I really wanted to ride the decked out carriage… but we didn't get to…]
It was a great start to our time as a family.
Afterwards, we walked around town getting some last pictures of the town before we left early the following morning. We took a picture in front of the cathedral.
We took a picture of the park.
And we took a picture at the flag pole and cannon in the square.
As a few of us were fooling around, taking crazy pictures, Michelle Close started talking to a man who had approached our group. He was clearly drunk, stumbling a bit and slurring his words. None of us really took notice at that point. It wasn't until we heard Michelle praying with the man, loudly and with authority that we realized that she needed our support in prayer. So one by one, we joined her. Some of us prayed for strength for Michelle as she fought; some of us joined in the fighting and prayed for the man; some of us became the eyes and ears for the group, keeping watch of our surroundings.
Michelle didn't have to tell us directly that this man was possessed, but we all eventually figured it out. Michelle was the one who was directly fighting, sometimes seeing the demon rise up in him as he tried to grab her hands and talk to her. I have no idea how much time had passed while we prayed for the man. But as we were praying, another man came up next to us on him bike. Christopher was the first to notice that he was casting spells and curses on us as we prayed for this man. Michelle was too focused on the drunkard to care. She addressed him once when he started talking to Cathy.
Christopher was on the battle front, praying over the guy on the bike. We all played a part in that night. None of us were concerned with the time. We only knew that we were in battle and we were the ones to fight it. As we prayed, a few of our squadmates walked by, some police came over a bit weary. But we didn’t care. We just kept on praying and worshiping and reading scripture over that man. At one point, Michelle noticed that he was coughing and spitting up phlegm, but when he spat it on the ground, there was nothing there [coughing and spitting are usually signs of demons leaving a person].
Erin had to be back at our hostel for a leader meeting at 6pm and she just happened to look at her watch, the only time of the evening at 6 o'clock exactly. Seconds later, I felt like I heard the Lord saying that our work was done and it was time to go. As I told her this, Michelle was still praying. We walked up to Michelle to tell her that we were going and right before we left, the drunkard passed out on the base of the flag pole. So we all headed back to the hostel, some still praying in the Spirit.
When we got back to the hostel, Christopher voiced to the team that he needed prayer and that he felt like he couldn’t go into the hostel. He felt that he needed some people inside to pray for him in addition to us. So, Michelle Kwak and I went inside, prayfully looking for people to ask to pray for Christopher. We found Brian, whom Christopher had specifically requested and grabbed a few other people before heading back outside.
It is not my story to share the details of what Christopher was going through, but he was pretty sure that a demon had attached itself to his arm and he needed us to pray for him so that the demon would detach itself from him. I stayed and prayed for a bit, but then went inside to eat dinner. Some of the guys prayed for Christopher for an hour or more. The rest of the squad headed out to guys and girls night.
On the way to girls night, Michelle Close fell and scraped her hand and knee not even a block from the hostel. Michelle Close said that she felt that it was more of a push than a trip that caused her to fall, but no one had pushed her. One of the other girls who saw Michelle fall, agreed that it looked more like a push than a trip. It was very shortly after the guys finished praying for Christopher. After coming together and sharing all these facts, we pieced together that it was probably the demon that had just left Christopher.
At girls night, the girls of the team debriefed the whole experience with the squad leaders, which ended in praying over each other to release anything that had attached itself to us during the battle.
The whole experience was outside of everyone's comfort zone and we all had to process through our own issues with the experience. It is crazy insane to think about how many encounters our team has had with demons this past month, but it makes me think that this is only the beginning. So far, each and every one of these encounters starts with the person seeking us out in some way, calling attention to themselves.
That shouldn't really be a surprise. Even when Jesus was walking the earth, demons would call out to Him, calling Him the Son of God and the true Messiah. What makes us any different? We have the same Spirit living in us and the demons in this world are just as intimidated by and scared of it as there were back then.
But we can take comfort in this:
Greater is He who lives in us than he that is in the world!
