I wasn’t sure if I was going to write this, I especially wasn’t sure if I would even post it. But something I’ve learned is to be unashamed of my faith in Christ. With that said, I will tell you about the demon possessed boy.
A few nights ago, Russell, our contact here in Pretoria, decided to take us (my team and team P31) to a hospital to visit the children’s ward. I didn’t think much of it except that we would have the opportunity to play with some sick kids. I understand even more why the World Race calls it’s participants to not have expectations because what I expected to do was immediately thrown under the bus and ran over about 36 times.
It’s a sad reality, watching these children cough, wheeze, and cry for their mama’s. Their medical gowns have blood on them oozing from the surgeries their little bodies have undergone. A majority of them have kidney failure and one boy we met had cerebral palsy. We walked around the ward asking simple questions like “What’s your name?” and “How old are you?”
I stuck by Russell, as he seemed to so naturally strike up conversation with the children and their parents, if they were present. What caught me off guard was how easily Russell spoke to the kids about Jesus, asking questions like, “Have you heard of Jesus?” “Do you know who He is?” Often time their little eyes would just stare and a simple head nod would answer his question. We prayed over them, over their bodies, and their families.
However, the reality that what these children were facing became even clearer to me, as we joined over them in prayer. Not only were they physically ill, but for some their illness was spiritual too.
[Now, I understand some of the controversies behind speaking in tongues, but I have this spiritual gift. I’ve poured over 1 Corinthians chapters 12, 13, and 14 to better understand what speaking in tongues is for. The word says, “ For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with is spirit…” Now this is the part where I could go into detail about interpreting tongues for the edification of the church but I will digress and just tell you what happened.]
I started praying over the children in my tongue. I don’t exactly know what I am saying but I can discern the gist of it. Several others from our teams and myself prayed over the boy with cerebral palsy and I knew in my spirit that He was overcome by the presence of God. We sang over him, prayed over him, declared freedom over him. From there I moved onto the child in the bed next to him, I prayed over this child too. [Now here is when it gets crazy] I heard a very still voice say, “You’re done here.” The second after I heard a tapping on the glass window from the room adjacent, it was Russell. He gave me a little “come here” gesture. What happened next still shakes me…
I left the room and met Russell. His words, “Now see this little boy behind me…” I looked at the hospital bed at the child and I felt as though I walked into a ton of bricks; my heart sank and I knew something was terribly wrong. “He was completely fine, standing up, talking to me, I asked his name and a few other things and then I asked him if he knew Jesus. When I did that he body went back into a convulsion. ” I don’t know what overcame me, perhaps it was righteous anger, I just knew this wasn’t right.
I walked over to his bedside and my tongue began to speak with great authority, the moment those heavenly words were spoken, the little boy started screaming, his chest protruded outward, his neck bent backwards, almost to were his head was touching his back, and his arms crippled. His face I could not see and I didn’t want to out of fear, but I distinctly felt that I needed to look into the face of this child and pray.
As I moved closer to his bedside, what I saw next was not the face of a child, but a face contorted by something heinously evil and I was stunned. There was foam at his mouth, his eyes were rolled back, and he grinded his teeth. I stood firm and continued to pray over him, the shrieking continued, the convulsing continued and I couldn’t believe, even though it was happening before my very eyes, what I was seeing. More people gathered at his bedside and began to profess the name of Jesus. I eventually gained the courage to place my hands on the child, on the back of his back and near his chest, when I did he screamed and moaned even more. As I continued to pray over the little boy, I watched tears fall from his eyes…
My friends, there is indeed power in the name of Jesus and as the saints gathered around that child’s bed, the evil spirit lost power over him, it was amazing but for some reason it would not leave…
The nurse came in and told us that she needed to give him some medication. So we respectfully left to wait only to come back and pray more. Myself and another squad mate, Emily K., from P31 kept praying hoping that the evil spirit would leave his body. Russell showed up with another squad mate, April, and said the Lord led them to read Mark 9: 14-29. (Google search and read, if you please.)
So we continued to pray, this time speaking directly to the evil spirit, as some of us addressed it as “Deaf and dumb,” it moaned. Then I heard Russell say, in a voice that was really upset, “Here’s our problem,” and then I saw them. The green strings, they were tied around his waist, each ankle and each wrist. We asked Russell what it meant, his answer, “It’s apart of the Zulu religion here in Africa. These green strings mean they offered him up as some sort of sacrifice, more than likely to “spirits” so that this little boy would rise up and be a great leader in their Zulu religion.” I could not believe it.
[It is a common practice here in Africa for people in different cult religions to offer their children, their babies as a sacrifice to appease the demons or to ask spirits to come and inhabit the bodies of their children. The atmosphere of this place is much different than that of our Westernized “seeing is believing” mindset. The majority of the people here are very spiritual and it is more common for them to believe in some sort of higher power than not.]
As we stood around the bedside seeing this green yarn around him, Emily began to pray, placing her hands over the strings saying, “I declare that these strings have no more power, we break them by the power of Jesus.”
I wanted to so badly, as I’m sure everyone else did, cut the strings off but Russell advised against it saying, “If we were to do that and his parents were to come back, they would place a complaint against the nurses and it could stir up a lot of trouble.” And finally Emily came with this discernment said “I understand now, if the spirit were to leave his body while he was still tied up with these strings, his parents would not say his healing was from Jesus but came because of their Zulu religion.”
I don’t recall how much time we spent at that little boy’s bedside but as we finished praying, I knew, without a shadow of doubt, that one day he would be set free. I understood, that though it may not be today or tomorrow, their will come a time when that evil spirit will leave and that little boy will be fully restored.
We declared freedom over his life, we declared that one day he would be a man of God with a mighty story to share, and that he would know the true Messiah, Jesus.
God in His sovereignty will see fit to answer our prayer when He wills it; I trust and believe that of Him.
“The spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor…”
Isaiah 63:1-3
