1:42 pm - At lunch today I sat down to visit with Martin (one of the Sudanese staff here). He told me that he went to town today to get something, and he decided to stop at that house on the main road where the witch doctor is practicing (he even has a big banner advertising his cures out front on the road). Apparently, there was a woman who came to Martin and his family many months ago who was demon possessed and rolling around and naked etc. Martin and his family prayed for her and cast out the demons and preached the gospel and she became a Christian. She lived with them for 9 months because she feared to return to the house with her family where the evil things were going on. Eventually she returned. So Martin stopped there today because he had been noticing the big neon green sign in front of the house advertising a witch doctor there. He found that the woman he had helped had moved away to get away from the evil things, but that her mother was now possessed the same as she had been and acting crazy. Martin gave the gospel to her and another daughter (the sister of the original girl that he and his family helped). They professed to be Christians and said that they had no control over what was going on in the house. So he gathered the women of the family who were living there and the all prayed together. While praying, one of the men, the younger of the two witch doctors, was laying in a room nearby. Martin could see through the slightly ajar door that the man had the head of a goat on a stick placed carefully in the room along with goat testicles and other witch doctor paraphernalia. While they were praying together (which usually lasts a while) the man could not stand to be in the house and got up and moved about from room to room in an agitated manner. After they were finished praying, Martin asked one of the ladies, “Who was the one that I heard moving about the house while we were praying?” They said that it was the apprentice to the witch doctor. So Martin asked one of them to get him (Martin wanted to preach the gospel to him). One of the ladies went to him and asked him to come and speak to Martin and he asked, “Who is he? A soldier? A pastor?” They told him that he was a pastor and the man refused to come out. Martin asked them to go again and tell him that he wasn’t there to to anything bad but only to ask him a question. They went to the man again but he would not come out. Eventually Martin left. He told me about what happened while we were eating lunch. He said that he wants to go back there again at a random time because the man never saw his face so he doesn’t know what Martin looks like. That way Martin can have the chance to give him the gospel. Martin asked me, “What do you think will happen? I want to give him the gospel.” I told him the only thing that I know for sure to be true. I told him that God’s Word is sharper than a two-edged sword and able to cut between bone and marrow, between the soul and the spirit. When we bring the truth of God’s Word (in humility and the love of Christ), it will never return void, but it will accomplish it’s purpose. It is powerful and it WILL do it’s work. In some cases the response to it is repentance - turning to the Lord - and salvation. In other cases the response is one of pride and/or anger and turning away. We cannot know nor do we have the power to change it. We can only go in the love and compassion of Christ, with the power of the truth of His Word, and allow it to accomplish it’s work. We will pray that the man receives Christ, repents, and turns to him wholeheartedly.
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