As I've stated before I was born and raised in the Catholic
church. Very conservative and the
services very much the same in every Catholic church around the world which I
loved and believed in the teachings of.
Problem enters when you fall in love with someone from a different
denomination and you feel like this is the one God wants you to marry. If your fiance is baptized in a Trinitarian church you can marry in the Catholic church.
However, they require your fiance to agree to have your children
baptized and raised in the Catholic faith.
Well, for us that is not really an option. Abdu is a pastor of a Christian church and he
certainly wouldn't want his wife and future children going to a different
church than the one he pastors. As they
say a family that prays together, stays together… So, I am attending Saved to Serve Worship
Center with my husband-to-be.
Now, most of what happens at the church I've experienced
before in other churches. Praise and
worship and a pastor preaches. No
surprise. Pastor lays hands on some
people to pray for them. No surprise.
While the pastor is praying for someone, they fall down and start
screaming like they are being tortured and kicking and hitting….Surprise and
shock!
Abdu had shared some videos on Facebook for me to be able to
see what happens at the services before I came.
I always had a hard time watching them because I could not get over the
screams of the person. He tried to
explain to me that these people had demon spirits inside them and they were
praying for the demon to leave. The
demon was speaking through the person.
The person usually has to be restrained and even sat on because they are
fighting so badly. The videos were so
hard for me to watch…seeing it in person is another story altogether.
Since being in Uganda I've actually had time to sit and read
the Bible. Can you imagine? I've read the books of Mark and Matthew
completely through. There are many
instances of Jesus casting out demons and unclean spirits from people. It doesn't say that they were bad people or
had done anything except that they had demons in them. There are children…Matthew 15:22-28, Matthew
17:14-21 and adults in Mark 1:23-27, Mark 5:1-14. The disciples were given the power to cast
out demons and unclean spirits in Mark 6:7-13.
I had never had the experience of seeing or really knowing
about people having a demon or unclean spirit inside them. It’s not that I didn’t believe it was
possible it’s just that I didn’t know it happened often…
The 3rd Sunday of each month is an anointing
service at Saved to Serve Worship Center.
Abdu had been preparing me for it for some time because he knew how I
felt about watching the videos so we had been talking about it and preparing so
I would not freak out completely. He
told me that I needed to be praying the entire time and particularly if someone
had a demon so that to help that person.
The anointing service was supposed to be in the
evening. However after Abdu was finished
preaching he felt like he was supposed to pray over people right then and then
did an anointing service in the evening also.
There were two other pastors there to assist with praying and anointing. Each of the pastors would dip their finger in
olive oil (which had been prayed over) and then they would anoint each person’s
head and pray for that person. People
were praying for healings from sickness, for wisdom on their upcoming exams, etc. There were some who were prayed for and then
that person went on and sat down. Then
there were some who while being prayed for would fall down overcome by the Holy
Spirit. Some of the teens around would
stand behind whoever was being prayed for just in case that person went
down. Then they would carry that person
to a cloth on the floor and lay them down and cover them as many of the
girls/women wear skirts here.
In the evening service there were several who would go down
and you could hear the demon start talking.
Of course it wasn’t in English but Abdu told me afterwards what many of
them were saying. So there was about 3
people that I can recall now that this happened to. Abdu was praying over a young girl and all of
a sudden she started screaming and thrashing around. The others carried her to the stage and laid
her on the cloth. They wrapped her legs
together with another cloth because she was kicking and they held her arms
because she was hitting. The kids that
were holding her were praying for her and casting out the demon. Telling the demon that it was going out of
her and it could not have the girl. The
demon asked Abdu “Who do you think you are?
She’s ours.” Her blood curdling
screams were the worst. But after about
30 minutes the demon was gone and the girl laid there to rest for some time.
Another pastor, who they call Mama Brian (because she’s
Brian’s mom), was there also praying for a young man. Now this young man had stood in the morning
service and testified that he had been working as a DJ in the secular music
world in bars and discos but he had quit because he had been praying and had
heard a preacher who preached about discos and how they breed fornication, sin,
etc. and he decided he didn’t want to be a part of that anymore. He’s probably about 20 years old or so. He helps with the sound board and music on
Sunday services. So while Mama Brian was
praying for him, the demon in him started fighting. And when I say fighting I mean FIGHTING! There were 10-12 people at one point trying
to hold him down. He was kicking and
punching and thrashing around. I was
praying and watching from a safe distance…but I was close enough to be able to
see his face and his eyes. He was not
the boy that I knew. I couldn’t
understand what it was saying but you could see that it was the demon talking
to Mama Brian and the others. His eyes
were all crazy looking and certainly not normal. All of the biggest boys of the church were
restraining him. Two were sitting on his
legs and they bound his legs so that he couldn’t kick his legs separately. They were praying over him and telling the
demon that it was going out of him and that he belonged to Jesus and not
Satan. There were times when he was just
lay there and they would let up on the restraint and he would flip over or jump
up and try to fight. Honestly I had
never seen anything like it but I know one thing for sure….that boy had
something inside him.
Praying for this boy went on for what seemed like an
hour. The biggest boys got tired from
holding him for so long. After some time
he seemed to have been completely delivered from the demon and he sat up and
asked for some water. Then next thing I
know he’s throwing up. You could tell
that he was alone again and was completely exhausted from what had happened.
After the service they asked for people to come give
testimonies. Several people said they
had been feeling sick for several days and when they were being prayed for the
pain and sicknesses went away. Then they
asked the young man to testify as to what he felt or what had happened. He went into a long explanation on his life
which I will try to summarize.
His mother was dating a man before this young man was
born. The man she was dating was
involved in witchcraft. She left that
man and went to another man who turned out to be the young man’s father. Mr. Witchcraft was furious and told her that
they needed to pay him 300,000shillings (about $150 now) or he was going to put
a curse the child’s life. They evidently
paid the money out of fear for their child.
But this young man has been struggling his entire life. When the demon was speaking it kept talking
about the 300,000. It is clear that
there is some witchcraft curse that was put on this young man’s life. Witchcraft is still very prevalent here. There are many people who pray to their
ancestors and do sacrifices. The curses
that are put on people and children seem to follow them.
At the end of the night Abdu looked at me and said “now you
have seen and you have heard”. I had
indeed seen and heard. I had never seen
or heard anything like it in my life. It
isn’t that I thought people were faking before I came here but I just did not
understand it. Satan and witchcraft are
serious. I remember on one of our early
trips we observed an orthopedic outpatient clinic in the biggest hospital here. One man came in and his leg was just
dangling. The doctor held up the x-rays
and me who cannot look at an x-ray could clearly see the fracture. The bone was completely broken and dislocated
and his leg was just dangling there. The
doctor asked how long ago the fracture happened. It had been a couple months because he had
been going to a witch doctor for healing but eventually realized he should go to
the hospital and see a real doctor. Some
of the stories that people tell you about what has happened to them seems
unbelievable but it is true. I’m always
learning here in Uganda…
I pray that these children are protected and covered in the
love of Jesus and that these spirits that were in them never come back to them.
Stay tuned….
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