Casting Out and Call to Prayer

We shut the door behind us and sit down in the small office. It’s just the three of us now, me, Bethany, and Sarah. It’s two o’clock and her mother is expecting her back by two thirty, we have half an hour to minister to a girl plagued by demons, knowing full well we may never see her again. We bow our heads and pray, we pray for wisdom, we pray for discernment, we pray for healing, we pray for strength, and we pray for protection, it’s our first battle, and we aren’t about to go in unarmed. Bethany picks up the bible, and I look at Sarah, “we are going to pray for you the way we all did when Rick was here, is that ok with you?” she agrees and I ask her to close her eyes. “In the name and power of Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior, I forbid any and all demons in Sarah to be violent, to throw up, to cause harm to her or us, to be showy, to try and scare us, to seek revenge…I forbid any outside demons from assisting or aiding any demons in Sarah…”

After laying some ground rules, I call the spirit to attention. I have previously and consistently felt that a spirit named Death was present, and so I acknowledge it directly. Her body slumps over, Sarah doesn’t seem to be mentally present anymore, she just sits there limply. “Look at me,” I command the spirit. We want to confirm who it is, what it wants, and who is in charge. “In the name of Jesus Christ, look at me…” I continue to command it, her eyes flutter and her head moves, the demon is present, it’s aware, but it’s being stubborn. I ask Bethany to start reading scripture, she keeps reading, and Sarah’s eyes glance over at Bethany multiple times, it doesn’t like hearing God’s word, its challenging her and she knows it. We had prayed before that Bethany and I would be unified as a team, that our deliverance session would be organized and when one is talking the other is praying, (she later told me that she needed to enter into the situation more fully and confront the spirit, and I confirmed that I felt that I needed to keep my pride in check and humble myself) and so we switch spots, I begin to read from a Kiswahili bible and she begins to rebuke the demon. As I continue to read it covers Sarah’s ears, Bethany commands it uncover her ears and it does, she tells it to listen in Kiswahli, she says firmly, “You have no choice but to listen to us, Christ has already defeated your master, you might as well save yourself the pain and tell us what we want to know sooner rather than later. I am not afraid you.”

Throughout the next hour we battle, in spirit and in truth. We continue to tell the demon of our power in Christ, and the reality of the resurrection. The demon within her squirms at times like a child who can’t sit still during a dentist visit, her arms bend, her head moves, a muffled “ouch” is uttered and I feel her head, its burning. I place my hand on her head and command that the burning pain stop, her head begins to cool, and as it cools, my arm floods with pain, it’s not a familiar pain, it’s as if I’m being squeezed from the inside out. Bethany notices immediately and forbids that the pain continue any longer. As we speak to the demon, it begins to cover her ears again. We stop and pray for wisdom, I notice a water bottle next to me and decide to anoint it. Taking the holy water in my hand I make the sign of a cross on her forehead, she grabs her forehead as if in pain. Again it covers her ears, so I dab some water on her ears, her hands drop to her lap. I take a bit more and spread it over her eyelids, it rubs her eyes so much we pray protection over her eyes so that no harm would come. Finally after threat of more holy water I command it to look at me, it raises her head, and her eyes begin to turn upward and for a moment they lock with mine, her whole body jolts in one quick convulsion, fear overwhelms it’s eyes, I know it has seen the power of Christ within me.

We take turns questioning the demon we believe to be Death, we ask it what its name is but it shakes her head, when we ask it if it is a spirit of death it nods her head. “Are you in charge?” it shakes her head, “who is in charge?” it shakes her head, “is there another demon more powerful than you?” it nods her head. “Can you speak?” it shakes her head. After a long amount of time demanding it to give us a name, Bethany considers asking it to respond in writing. When she commands it to take the pen and paper it does so and when we ask it what its name is, it begins to write. We quickly realize it is writing in Kiswahili and Bethany leaves to find someone to translate for us. We bring in Anne, a Kenyan woman who works with first love, she says he wrote, “sorry I can’t speak, I am going.” We push harder, each command now being translated, the demon responds faster and seems more alert, “Pole naenda pole sana kwaheri,” (sorry I’m going sorry bye.) We tell it that it will only leave when we say it can leave, that we are in control. I ask it if it’s had enough and if it’s is ready to leave for good, it nods her head. We tell it to tell us who is in charge again, “I cant, Im going goodbye,” it writes back. We ask it where it is, it tells us it is nearby but not in her, it says that it is very tired. We finally cast it out, ask angels to come take it away and bring it to the feet of Jesus, we don’t want him waiting just outside the door, only to come back stronger. Her body slumps over again it what appears to be release. We call the spirit to attention to be sure it wasn’t lying or bluffing. We continue to several minutes to be sure command that in truth it answer if it is still present. No answer comes, Bethany experiences peace, and Sarah begins to wake up. We feel like we can start to talk to Sarah again. She starts talking about how tired she is, she asks if she has been there long and when she realizes she has been there for hours, she tells us that the last thing she remembers it eating rice. We take the time to explain to her what has happened, we tell her that the spirit of death is gone, and we do our best to equip her for how to fight them off and rebuke them herself. We tell her it is in the power of Jesus, and she believes that, and yet she cannot bring herself to make a commitment to decidedly choose Christ. Knowing we may never see her again, we give her two bibles, a small pocket sized New Testament and a full Bible, she is overjoyed and anxious to start reading on her own. We walk her back to her home and say our goodbyes, that night we pray that we will see her again one day, that we will see her come to know Christ, and see her free of all demonic oppression.

I must admit to all you readers that posting this was not easy, not because it’s hard to talk about, but because it’s a challenge to decide whether I can fully explain to you what it was like, and how it all happened, and how we are affected by it. I would prefer to have these conversations in person, but I also know that if I am asking you all to pray, I think it only fair you know what exactly you are praying for. Please don’t feel fear when reading this, God’s word tells us that perfect love casts out fear, and that Him who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. Witnessing the power of God is amazing, humbling, and encouraging. Be encouraged not afraid, we serve a mighty God who wants to use us to set the captives free and bind up the broken hearted!

I have to share with you some exciting news, Thursday afternoon we were walking through a village market and I thought I heard Sarah’s voice, I turned around half consciously to see her standing there behind me. Over many laughs and hugs we asked her why she wasn’t in Tanzania, she told us that the trip was cancelled she wouldn’t be moving there and won’t be visiting until December! Praise the Lord! Tanzania is known for its dark magic and knowing she will be at the school with the First Love staff and not visiting some witch doctor is a huge answer to prayer. In addition we will get to see her one last time (tomorrow.)

We need you to be praying, we do not know if we will be confronting anymore demons but we need to be prepared. However, we do not only desire your prayers for protection and discernment, more than anything we want to see her make a commitment to Christ. It seems very possible that her inability to commit is a result of demonic influence, pray against that influence, and pray that God would break that hold on her through us. We will be at the school around midnight to 6 am California time. We know this makes getting people to pray difficult but we would really appreciate you committing to an hour, half hour, etc, during that time to back us up in prayer. We love you all, thank you for your support, encouragement, and prayers. God Bless!