God vs. the Witch Doctor

Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord.... (Deuteronomy 18:10-12)

God has continued to amaze and challenge us day by day as we minister here in Madagascar. We have prayed for hundreds of people (both children and adults) and have seen God's healing power regularly at work.  It is impossible to describe all we have seen God do in the pages of this blog, but we can testify to the fact that Jesus is alive and well in Madagascar. Bishop Todd and Patsy McGregor's ministry here is so incredibly important, and the sacrifices they have made to be here are extraordinary. We are grateful and blessed to know them. 

On Thursday afternoon our healing teams went out to pray as usual. Our target this time was a small nearby village that we had not visited before. Calling it a village may be a bit of a stretch, since we were actually visiting scattered groupings of houses (most made of sticks, but some of concrete).  My healing team consisted of me, Abigail, Nestor (a student evangelist) and Zafi (our translator). After walking along a series of sandy, cactus-lined paths, we stopped at a small grouping of houses consisting of a larger concrete house and a few stick houses. We sat in the dirt and prayed for various members of the family. The last person we prayed for was an older man, who was the owner of the larger house. As he put it, he 'had a demon' and wanted prayer. As I began praying for him, I had a very strong sense that God wanted us to pray for his house. So I had everyone get up, and I explained that we were going to pray around the outside of his house. I specifically felt we needed to pray that the Lord would build a spiritual wall -- a wall of Holy Spirit fire -- around his house, so that nothing evil could pass through. We also blessed and cleansed all the exterior walls, the foundation, and the corners of the building. I prayed for his window and door, that nothing evil or unclean could ever pass through them. The man then allowed us to come inside (or perhaps we just went in), and I prayed for the floor, ceiling, walls, support beams, beds, and anything else I could see. I then felt convicted to pray specifically and boldly that the house would be a dwelling place of God's Spirit and I proclaimed the Lordship of Jesus over it and over his entire family. As I look back at it now, what we essentially did was 'prayer bomb' his entire home. I had no idea why we needed to do this, but I just followed what I felt was the leading of the Holy Spirit.

After leaving the house we moved on to pray elsewhere (God healed a woman completely of pain an stiffness in her wrist). When we returned to the Bishop's house, all the teams re-grouped, and it was then that I learned something that left me astonished. Every group gave a report about their experience praying. Nestor gave our report, and what he shared took me completely by surprise. Apparently, the older man who we prayed for was actually a local witch doctor (an 'ombiasa'). When we approached his house, someone was dropping by to get 'medicine' from him. Nestor said that when we began praying around the man's house, the man began to shake (I wasn't paying attention to him, so I didn't notice). Nestor also shared that he, himself, had been terribly frightened that something bad was going to happen to us because of what I was praying. As Nestor was sharing this with us, the other prayer teams were amazed and thought it was all extremely funny. I had absolutely NO idea that this man was a witch doctor. But God apparently used me, an oblivious white foreigner, to take authority over the dwelling and 'workplace' where the powers of witchcraft and darkness had been embraced and used by this man, and had likely caused harm to many people. Upon reflection, it was probably better that I didn't know he was a witch doctor. I suspect I might have then been hesitant to pray so boldly. Once again, God's plan was absolutely perfect. 

One more ministry day left, followed by two days of rest and then our journey home. It has gone by so quickly!

-Bruce

Here we are with the Witch Doctor (the older man on the right) and his family. Abigail is on the left.  Zafi is in the back row in the blue shirt, and Nestor is in the back row center in a white t-shirt. Everyone is standing next to the Witch Doctor's house. It is nicer than the rest because people pay him for his services.