I literally saw hell on earth a few days ago. There is little other way to accurately describe it. The community we have been ministering in seems peaceful from the outside, but the Lord has revealed to my team many ways the people are oppressed and held captive by the evil one. The climax came last Sunday when we were in church worshipping and began to hear bone-chilling shrieks coming from the block next to us. Marisa and I left the worship service to go find the person who was in obvious pain; it wasn’t until we began walking that we realized we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into. We didn’t know what we would do if the person was being beaten, we aren’t especially strong in and of ourselves and aren’t trained for emergency situations, but we continued on because we could feel the pull of the Holy Spirit to go and help the person in need. Once we had identified a few houses it could have been coming from we heard another loud shriek and Marisa knew it was a demon.
We realized the shrieking was not coming from a house but from a building where a meeting was taking place. We tried to communicate with a few people who had gathered outside of the building to find out if it was a church; I was afraid we were about to walk into a worship service of another religion. They said it was a church so we tried to walk inside without causing too much commotion, but that never works for a white person in Africa. We shook a few hands, and before we knew it we were at the front with a pastor who had been trying for some time to cast a demon out of a girl on the ground.
When I think about what she looked like, it pains me. She was sprawled out on the ground, rolling around, reaching for something, and shrieking. Her eyes were either rolled into the back of her head or steady and lifeless without blinking. Sometimes she looked like she was being kicked, and there was a puddle on the floor where she had been drooling. To be honest, I was fearful. Even though He who is in me is so much greater than he who is in the world, I know the power of the enemy and was not about to touch a demon-possessed person unless the Lord clearly told me to. So I stood above her praying with my hands out while Marisa got down with the pastor.
Marisa talked, and the pastor translated to the demon in the sweet little girl whose name is Beatrice. The demon growled that his name is not Beatrice, and was not quick in leaving. It continued to fight and to claim the home that it had found in Beatrice’s body, but eventually came out. Then we looked to another older girl lying on the ground who we found out is Beatrice’s sister. Her eyes were rolled in the back of her head and she also had a demon. As soon as she said, “Jesus is my Lord” the demon released her and she came to. The pastor brought up their mother and brother, and the brother also had a demon who was cast out.
I realize that many of you may not even believe in hell, and many more of you are skeptical that what I actually saw was a demon, but I am not hesitant in telling you about it because you need to know. She was not acting out for attention. This was not a mental disease. There was something inside her that hated her and was literally tormenting her. Her shrieks were much louder and her strength much greater than what a small girl her age is capable of. After the torment that I have seen being inflicted by a demon on earth, I cannot imagine and do not want to imagine what hell must be like. There is a devil who wants to steal from, kill, and destroy us; sometimes he manifests himself very clearly, but more commonly he is sneaky and deceives us with lies that seem good to us but contradict the truth in Jesus. There are so many reasons that I know Jesus is the truth, the way, and the life, but even an unbelieving person would believe after seeing the power in Jesus’ name as the wretched, convulsing girl was brought again to the peace and sweetness her Creator made her to be.
