Helena Jordao, of the January 2012 E Squad, and her teammates served in Kenya at Challenge Farm. One of Helena’s roles was to counsel some of the young girls who had experienced immense pain in their lives. She heard many sad stories and prayed for many children, but this day was different. This day Helena learned what the reality of a spiritual battle is like and whose authority she walks in…
If you clicked this blog prepared to read a crazy story about demons, you’ve come to the right place. This is not a teaser title.
I walked into the counseling room today at 2:00 p.m. with my squad mate, Erica, and we were prepared for another day of counseling. We were met by the social worker, Emma, and she was ready to interpret for us. I was ready for tears, for sad stories, for nightmare stories, and then we would pray with the children, hug them, and send them back out to play.
Not today. In walks Purity, a 10-year-old girl. She begins to tell a little bit of her story, how she has been seeing people come at her, and that her dead sister comes to her in her dreams.
So far this is normal. We hear this kind of stuff all the time. We tell her that when she’s scared, she needs to pray in Jesus’ name, and that we will pray for her. I ask her one last question before we pray: “Purity, do you love Jesus?”
She answers, “Yes.”
So we approach her, hold her hand, and begin to pray.
Prayer starts, and Purity shoves her chair back abruptly. Erica describes my reaction as “lunging” toward Purity, screaming “In Jesus’ Name!” (I was ready to pray this out)
And here starts the heavy stuff. We are officially casting out demons. This is my life?!
So Purity ends up coming off the chair, on the floor, thrashing. At this point I’m praying in tongues like nobody’s business, we are holding her down, and she calms down a bit. We get her back on the chair. The rain starts POURING, the lights flickered, and then the power went off. This is somewhat normal in Africa, but the timing was ridiculous.
“Purity? Purity talk to us.”
Her gaze is fixed at a point on the floor. I look where she’s looking–nothing there– and then she points diagonally down, then over her shoulder.
Lo and behold, there are shadows on the wall.
I’ve seen that kind of stuff before, so my reaction was shaking my head and laughing. Erica asks, “Is there someone in the office? Can we check?” and the social worker, Emma, assures her there is nobody in the office, and what she saw was what she was thinking…yeah…we saw demons fleeing in the name of Jesus.
So we keep praying, and we keep asking Purity to talk to us, but this time her response is different.
“This is not Purity.”
Oh. My.
So we ask, “Who is it?” and it said it won’t tell us its name. It asks for the caretaker, Madam Beth, and says that if she came it will tell us its name. More thrashing on the floor, more prayer.
“Come out!” and she shakes her head “no.”
“Say the name of Jesus!” and she shakes her head “no.”
The demon can’t say the name of Jesus.
“I’m not coming out. I won’t come out. You’re wasting your time.”
I say, “You’re going back to hell where you came from!” and the response I get is awful…
“If I go back to hell, I’ll come back when she’s sleeping.”
So we rebuke that. We do a lot of rebuking and commanding and casting out. At one point, she starts coughing — this is supposedly a sign of demons coming out. But there is still something left.
About two hours into this deliverance, we get some backup from most of the Racers. In comes the owner and director of Challenge Farm, Cheri, and she’s praying with Purity, and Cheri says “Jesus loves you, Purity.” Again, we hear, “This is not Purity,” and Cheri says, “Jesus loves Purity, and Purity loves Jesus.” Purity shakes her head “no,” and we sing Jesus Loves Me while the little girl is shaking her head and covering her ears.
At one point, Cheri asks her about her sister, and she starts crying. It is heartbreaking to see. Cheri has a really tender, loving way of speaking life into Purity. I learned a lot from watching her deal with it all. It is still authoritative, but really gentle.
We get Purity back, we get her talking again. She tells us she doesn’t remember anything after the “shadows on the wall,” and that she went unconscious. She says she loves Jesus, she prays, and we pray that nothing can come against her again. Some of the girls pray for Purity again the next night. She still needs some healing, but at the end, Purity ended up praying for us.
Sometimes deliverance is instant, and sometimes it’s a long process of forgiveness and healing. But in all things God is sovereign, and He is the great deliverer.
This was the first time I’ve ever encountered somebody who was demon-possessed, much less prayed it out. There were more than 15 people who witnessed it when it was all said and done. This isn’t just stuff you read about in the Bible from way back in the day. It’s still happening today. I’ve seen it. I’ve heard countless stories of it. Our men in South Sudan last month cast out 10 demons from a woman.
The devil and spiritual warfare are real. I hope this testimony encourages your faith and reinforces the importance of walking in our God-given authority.
Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. -Matthew 10:8
**Photos by Bethany Stanbrough, content by Helena Jordao and Lydia Hart.**
