Demons, WitchDoctors, Scorpions, Snakes, Spiders and Rats OH MY!

          After we spent some time in the urban(ish) area of Lusaka, we traveled to a place called Petauke, Zambia where we lived in tents during our bush camp training. Some of our DFAs were similar although the answers we received were quite different in the rural/bush setting of life. We were able to meet with a chief (and the chief’s wife for the ladies) as well as with a witch doctor. We also had encounters with unpleasant animals of all kinds. Finally, we had an encounter with a demon-possessed woman which we will never forget…

So, let’s begin with the less interesting, but sometimes as scary, animal portion of our experience at bush camp training. There were probably at least 5 different scorpions, 4-5 different snakes, and billions of centipedes, millipedes and spiders of ginormous sizes which we came across at bush camp. The rainy season was beginning and the wetness brought out all the bugs and critters. You would not believe the size and speed of some of the spiders and critters that we saw! (pictures soon to come). Sandals were a bad idea as they would run across your feet at night if you weren’t careful to prop your legs up! Some of these critters we found directly outside of our tent… although we were careful enough to keep our tent zipped up and sealed so that no bugs could get inside. On of the pictures we will upload eventually is a picture of the mountain of death that was outside of our tent… Some creature had built a tunnel underneath our mat in front of our tent and had torn to pieces thousands of bugs and just piled up the parts of their bodies in mounds… we think it may have been a scorpion, but we have no idea! You’ll have to see the pictures yourself!

Okay, so for the more interesting parts of this entry: The witch doctor and demon-possessed woman. First, let’s talk about the witch doctor: We went inside of the witchdoctor’s house to talk with him. He had a normal house and he looked just like any other person inside the village… he didn’t have the boned necklance and crazy facepaint that we normally think about. In fact, they now call themselves ‘traditional healers.’ The first thing that we noticed was that the man’s wife had a headdress on which had ‘Jesus’ written on it. In fact, they both went to church (although different churches). The witch doctor and his witch doctor brother were more than happy to talk to us about what they do and answer any of our questions. In fact, his brother was begging us to ask him questions about anything… that is… until I mentioned the name of Jesus… then he said that he had to leave and didn’t want to talk anymore. LOL.

          Basically, witch doctors receive a ‘patient’ who is ill, and neither of them know whatr is wrong with the person. SO, they pray to what they call thier ancestor spirits to find out what illness the person has and what roots and herbs can be used to treat the person. (What they didn’t tell us to our face is that they also do not believe that a person merely gets sick… the witch doctor will tell them that a certain someone has bewitched them…like their mother-in-law or something… this will usually cause great divisions and conflict in the village and family). Sometimes, the witch doctor will place cuts in the persons forehead or temple and place the ‘medicine’ in the open wound for healing… We saw a great number of people walking around who had these tattoos in the heads and even on their chests. We confronted the witch doctor about the fact that he was praying to demons and not some good ancestral spirits. He denied this and swore that he was not praying to demons, just ancestor spirits. He acknowledged that demons do exist, but it is the ancestral spirits which he prays to, not demons.

          We found this to be very interesting.  This man, who goes to church and believes in angels and demons, thinks that the spirits he prays to(which isn’t supported Biblically) aren’t bad demons, but good ancestor spirits. Obviously, the issue at hand is the concept of praying to an entity other than Christ. We asked the man about his wife’s headdress and he showed us a hat that he had which read, ‘Jesus is Lord.’ Nate asked the witch doctor what he thought it meant for Jesus to be Lord. The answer he gave is an answer VERY common to evangelized Africa, and probably America as well… The witch doctor could tell us the stories about how Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins… he could tell us about how Jesus was Savior… However, he had no concept of what it meant for Jesus to be Lord. This is such a fascinating insight… especially considering that there are numerous places in the Bible where Jesus is referred to as LORD….. but there is NEVER an instance where he is simply referred to as Savior without also being described as Lord. We found that asking somebody when they became a Christian is the WRONG question… they will tell you when they joined the church… the RIGHT question is to ask them when they were born again… and that is where you will be able to sift the true believers from the church attenders.

          Now for the demon-possessed woman. Well, first, let me begin by describing a couple of other fun things about the last portion of our bush camp experience. We spent four days and three nights living with a family in the village. We were given our own hut to sleep in, which is hardly larger than the size of a california king-sized bed. We quickly realized that we weren’t the only ones staying in the hut… a chicken had laid her eggs in the hut before we got there and so she stayed inside the hut the entire time we were there. At night, it was over 100 degrees Farenheit. We felt like we were sleeping in a hot-box. We had hung a mosquito net above our bed, which laid on the floor, and tucked it in under the two twin-sized matresses that we had pushed together. We slept in a sauna of sweat… but that was the LEAST of our concerns… Ten minutes into the first night we began to hear noises in the thatched roof of the hut… Rats were running around. To make it worse, they were knocking down dirt which got in our sheets and stuck to our sweaty skin… and then… we heard them running around on the floor beside our matress and heads. Let’s just say that the nights were a good time for Nate to be Lindsey’s protector and comforter. One night, a rat climbed on top of a little bucket that we had been given to use in case we didn’t feel like goign outside to use the restroom… sure enough, the rat tipped over the bucket, which caused the lid to come off and spill out…  Nate didn’t have the greatest time sleeping since the mosquito net was tucked in under the matress so he couldn’t stretch out his legs at night. One night he decides that he just HAS to stretch out his legs for just 5 minutes. Three minutes later, a rat climbs up his leg… … … He didn’t tell Lindsey about it until the morning.

        One of the days at our homestay, a man comes up to us saying that his sister is demon-possessed and wants us to pray for her. We agree to walk to the next village later that night to pray for her. Nate took some time to share with the father/husband of the homestay where we were staying about how we do not believe that a person can be born again and demon-possessed.  The Holy Spirit cannot allow demons to inhabit the same heart in which He dwells. Nate told him that we needed to talk to the woman about Jesus and how to become born again so that she will have the authority of the Holy Spirit in her life and the demon will have no right or power to remain in her. Additionally, if she were to have been cleansed of the evil spirit and NOT become born again, Scripture points out that the evil spirit may return with many more, worse spirits. So, we were all on the same page. However, David, the head of our homestay household had invited his fellow deacon friend to come along with us, and he had not been ‘debriefed’ on all of this information.

          I don’t know if the friend had never encountered a demon-possessed person before, or if he simply thought that we were just going to pray for her situation and not really do anything about it… but from the moment we got there he took charge over everything and insisted that we move to praying. Everything that was said was done so in the language of Chinyanga… so we couldn’t understand what was being said, and our helpers were not interpreting everything that was being said… NOR did they tell us the whole story of the woman and what was going on… We greeted the woman (who appeared to be absolutely normal in every sense) and followed her into a hut where we were surrounded by 7-8 women and our ‘helpers’. We began by trying to talk to the woman about what it meant to be born again (which she clearly had no idea) and tried to share creation to Christ with her… again, the deacon friend was persistantly insisting that we start to pray until we finally just agreed… and then it began.

          Lindsey placed her hand on the woman’s shoulder as she sat next to her on the ground, and Nate placed his hand on top of her head as he kneeled down next to her. Nate began to pray for her in English… which was not being translated. However, about 10-15 seconds into the prayer the woman began to breath more deeply and rapidly. Suddenly, she began to let out a loud cry and shrieking sound as she laid back on the ground and started to shake and convulse on the ground. At one point, we even heard the demon laughing (the worse of all the sounds). She was shaking her head no every time that Nate prayed for the demon to release the woman of its captivity. After several minutes of this, Nate demanded that he speak to the woman but the demon refused to allow the woman to speak. The only thing that she was allowed to say was that she wanted a drum so that she could dance (Something that the Africans do to appease the spirits).

          It wasn’t until after that experience that we were told that (1) the woman in the room were NOT believers, and they didn’t want her to be released of the evil spirit. They were laughing and encouraging her to dance; and (2) the woman did not even want to be released of the evil spirit herself! This MIGHT have been useful knowledge before engaging in a power encounter with a demon who is dwelling in a person who wants it to remain there… The examples in the Bible where demons and unclean spirits are cast out are presented in a situation where the person desires for the spirit to be released…

          I wish that the words that I type here could have fully described the encounter with the dark spiritual world that we experienced. Two months ago, I could tell you that I FULLY believed in demons and that there is such a thing as demon possession. However, I think that my American mindset, that of a need for concrete proof and/or evidence before I trust something that I am unfamiliar with… something about that could not allow me to fully understand the demonic realm… … … UNTIL this experience. I can give you my complete assurance, testimony and witness that Satan is working in incredibly dark ways in this world and that possessing and oppressing people through the use of demons is happening every day. The demon we encountered was NOT happy with me telling it that it needed to leave her body. It has had power within her for years and they continue to deceive people into thinking that they will lose power or feel incredibly lonely and defenseless without the demon inside them. They are real!

          Having shared this story, our role as ambassadors for Christ obligates us to share in the same breath that God alone has received the victory. He created the spirits and HE has allotted them any ounce of power that they have. God will one day crush the enemy and remove their power. In our hearts… He has already done this. We have been asked whether or not we were afraid during this encounter… our answer–no. Was the experience freaky and unusual? Absolutely. But never during the encounter did we feel anything different than the peace of knowing that ‘He who is within us is greater than he who is within the world.’

Nate and Tim and the Zambian (non)eunuch

Acts 8:26-35

“Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home he was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. The Spirit told Philip, ‘Go to that chariot and stay near it.’ The Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. ‘Do you understand what you are reading,’ Philip asked. ‘How can I,’ he said, ‘unless someone explains it to me?’ So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him… … … The eunuch asked Philip, ‘Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?’ The Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus…

          The last Daily Field Assignment (DFA) during our stay in the city of Lusaka, Zambia was dedicated to sharing the gospel in a storying format known as Creation to Christ. Every morning we would meet in small Bible study groups before we headed into the city to complete our DFAs. The story that we were studying this particular morning was the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. One of the particular aspects of the story that we noticed about the passage was how God had called Philip away from the 1st century equivalent of a radical revival and to head to where he would meet one man whom he would lead to Christ. There are some historians today who are researching the theory that this Ethiopian eunuch may have been the initial source of Christianity in Southern Africa today. Anyways, back to the story…

          My DFA partner, Tim, and I had arrived in the township where we had been visiting throughout the week to conduct our many other DFAs (such as asking questions about medicine, medical resources, family, gender roles, what is a missionary?, etc.). Tim and I have been accountability partners and in the same small groups and house worship groups since the beginning of our Field Personnel Training in Virginia…so we are pretty used to the way each other works. As soon as we reached the township I, and unbeknownst to me also Tim, had been praying in our heads for the Holy Spirit to guide us in wherever He wanted us to go and to do whatever it was that He wanted us to do. We walked past a great number of people and our Zambian helper, Alfred, continued to remind us that our DFA had begun and that we could start sharing with anyone now… but we were still praying amongst ourselves and were passing up people.

          Suddenly, at the exact same moment, Tim and I both turned and started walking toward this man who was sitting in a chair outside of his tiny house. It was interesting that we had both felt prompted to turn at the exact same time without looking at or telling each other… the Spirit just turned us. The man invited us into his house and as he got up to open the door for us, I noticed that he had been reading some sort of book which he laid down on the chair when he stood up. After greeting the man and asking him about his family, I asked the man what he was reading… He looked at me and said that he was reading God’s Word because he was trying to figure out what happened to a man’s soul when he died. I asked him if he had found his answer and he answered me, “No, I cannot understand what I am reading.” I laughed and grinned inside thinking to the Holy Spirit, “Are you really going to do exactly what you did almost 2,000 years ago?” We told the man that we had a story that could help answer his question if he wanted us to share it with him. He told us, “Of course, please tell me.”

          So Tim began by explaining God and creation on down to the establishment of the Ten Commandments before I picked up the story and shared through the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Christ. We shared with him how a man’s soul goes to either one of two places and that Jesus Christ was the only way to an eternity with God in Heaven. He expressed to us that he wanted to receive Christ as his Lord and Savior. So, after a few minutes of asking him about this desire and making sure that he wasn’t trying to just be polite to us as guests, we confidently determined that the man, James, wanted to trust Jesus as the Lord of his life… … … it was beautiful, beautiful, beautiful to hear James pray to receive Christ in his heart language. I couldn’t understand the words that he was repeating back to our translator, but I could feel the echoes of cheering and celebration in Heaven within my heart. Praise God!

A Week into Africa (10/20/09)

Tanzania is great! As usual, there are things that we like about the culture so far, and everything else is just different. As we have been trained to understand, “Different is not necessarily wrong… just different.” But we are learning slowly. We are picking up some Swahili along the way, and it has been good to greet some of the people in their heart language. The driving is NUTS! I have often mentioned before about my experience in Indonesia and the driving there… this is the exact same way, but I feel like I have been in more ‘near-death’ experiences in the car here in a week than my whole life. (Some of the craziest drivers are the missionaries here..). The lane markings dont mean a thing… if you need to get into the completely opposite lane of traffic just to get around a car–go ahead!… The stoplights are more like guidelines than law… and neither people nor vehiclees and bicycles look to see if anyone is coming when they step out into the road…

The shopping here is pretty interesting! Things are generally cheaper here than in the States, but you get to bargain and negotiate prices everywhere you go… all those tactics that dont change a thing in the States would work great here for getting what you want for cheap. You almost feel a little bad about bargaining down things that already cost so little in the first place. (Like one of our Tanzanian friends who bargained a hand-carved stool down to a little over a dollar…) The pricing is interesting here though… Some American items are really cheap (Like Red Bull and Sodas for as little as $0.30 for a 20 oz size drink) while others are ridiculously expensive (like cereal for $10.00) We are just going to have to learn to live as Tanzanians do and not get used to having a lot of American items.

 

The people here are very nice and open. Lindsey says that they dont seem to walk around with much of a smile, but if you walk up and talk to them (particualrly in Swhili) they will smile and welcome you to Tanzania.

 

We got our new car… It is a Suzuki Jimny… no, I didn’t misspell that, it’s a Jimny. The cars here are ALL different. The only familiar models are Land Rovers and Range Rovers. It’s a 2008 or 2009 car, and it only has 1,560 miles on it. Not bad huh? All the other cars here at the mission are big land rovers or Nissan Patrols that are old and really outdated… So, even though our car isn’t as big as the others, it’s brand new and we wont complain at all. It is basically a shorter version of an SUV, and it has 4 wheel drive (For Safaris!). We have named the car ‘Dogo Kiboko’ which means little-hippo. We have made some videos on our new FLIP camera, so I will try to post those on this website or on our facebook group. We took a trip to Morogoro yesterday to get our drivers licenses (we dont have to take any kind of test in Morogoro, but we would have had to if we got one here in Dar Es Salaam). We have been practicing driving stick-shift, on the opposite side of the car and opposite side of the road, and have been getting pretty good at it. I will be taking my ‘driving test‘ with my boss within the next few days to see if I can handle driving here in Tanzania before they hand over the car to us. Lindsey will be practicing a little more before she takes her test. Please pray for that!

 

We will be re-packing and seriously condensing our luggage before heading to Zambia. We will be leaving a majority of our stuff here at the Mission Compound while we are at 40/40. We still have to get some more Malaria medication before we go to 40/40 as well, but that shouldn’t be a problem at all.

 

God has truly been answering our prayers and working in our hearts! From safety to providence, He has truly shown Himself faithful. We got about 2 hours toward Morogoro when we realized that we had left behind our eye exams, which were necessary for getting our licenses. However, God worked it out so that the guy who helped us get our licences knew the license issuer really well… so, we didnt have to have the eye exams. Praise God!

On Our Way (10/2/09)

          This is officially the first blog post for our site. A LOT has happened since we first started this journey… and we haven’t even gotten on the plane yet! On Sept. 26th we ‘graduated’ from our stateside training (AKA Field Personnel Orientation). It was a little over two months long and we had SO much fun and learned a great deal in preparation for the field. We learned about everything from: church planting, disciple-making, spiritual warfare, the persecuted church, doctrinal truths, contingency(kidnapping) training, bible storying, servant leadership, being a family member and team player, cross-cultural witnessing, church-mobilization,  chicken-killing and much, much more.

           We are now on our last week here in Georgia before we fly out on Oct 8th. Last Sunday night, I had the blessing of being ordained at my church. It was an incredibly tender and special time for me. Whereas I thought that my oral ordination hearing was going to be a time of intense question and answer drilling (and there were plenty of doctrinal questions), it was also a time of encouragement and support as I was given much-needed advice from godly men who have gone out before me in ministry. I am so thankful for the time I had with those men…

          We have taken care of a bunch of closing details before we leave, and still have a few more to do… and we have said our goodbyes to a number of great friends from over the years. We are cherishing these last few days that we have with family and close friends. Our hearts are very bitter-sweet right now, as we will love and miss our family and friends, but we are finally heading off to the ministry that God has called us to and has given us such a passion for over the past few years.