Last month in Uganda, we spent a week in a place called Paila, a town in the northern part of Uganda. We were part of a team going with our pastor to lead a crusade. This was my first crusade and in Africa, who knows what to expect. Our first day there, I spoke under the tarps that formed the church. I told the story of creation, sacrifices and how Jesus redeemed us through His death.
The next day as I was resting in our hut, trying to keep cool on the hottest day of my three months in Africa, my teammate Ruth walks in to get me. A man named Benjamin was asking for me by name. I assumed that he had heard me talk in church and wanted to talk to me because I was white.
As I began to talk to Benjamin, he told me how he wanted me to pray for him. He wanted to be a preacher and evangelist. He told me he was married and had children and through broken English I learned that he was a witch doctor. I’m sorry a what? A witch doctor. Yes the kind that casts spells to “heal” people and puts curses on people. Basically, a man who worked with demons. He had been a witch doctor for 9 years before hearing about Jesus and he now wanted to become a Christian and to leave his past behind him. Wow! Thank You Jesus for letting me be a part of this. We prayed over him, for him to accept Jesus, to leave behind his past, to learn more and more about the commands of God and to provide ways for him to become an evangelist.
With Benjamin after I prayed for him.
I didn’t think much of Benjamin again until the our last day in Paila, I mean we were seeing so many people come to know Jesus and having demons cast out of them. As we were trying to leave, he came to see us off and talked to Pastor for a while. We then had a small ceremony where we prayed for him and his family.
Pastor praying for Benjamin and his family.
Something I didn’t realize about being a witch doctor is that there are witch doctor leaders that give supplies to the smaller witch doctors. So this man’s “boss” did not know that he was now a Christian, when he finds out the “boss” will most likely come to collect his supplies and cast spells and curses on Benjamin. The only problem with that is Benjamin pulled out all of his supplies and burned them to show his passion for Jesus!!
Burning all his witch doctor stuff.
I also didn’t know that Benjamin’s father had basically disowned him because he disagreed with Benjamin being a witch doctor. So during all of this, they were able to reconcile their relationship.
Oh one other thing, Benjamin never heard me speak at church.
He saw me in a dream where Jesus told him that I would lead him to Christ.
