PRAYER LETTER NO.34.
www.greatlakesoutreach.org
Dear Tigers, 31st
January 2005
Do you believe in witchcraft? Sorcery? Demons? Satanic power? This story might challenge many of us with our worldviews:
A few weeks back I had a much-anticipated visit from Saleh, a converted Muslim sheikh. He shared with me his extraordinary story. He was born into a Christian family but educated away from home, and became a Muslim when he was 14-years-old. He was initiated into folk Islamic practices involving sorcery. The higher he rose in Islam, the more witchcraft he got caught up in. To obtain satanic powers, he engaged in bestiality, made evil potions, and created blood bonds with people (I'll spare the details!). He was able to woo almost any woman he wanted, and used his powers to bewitch a Christian lady in the church choir whom he married. She would pray for him, but he was always alerted through his satanic powers when she was praying, and would interrupt and warn her that he would kill her if she carried on.
He became very rich, because he could take whatever he wanted from shops by blinding the owners of the shops he visited. Indeed, my friend Lin, who led Saleh to Christ and who brought him along to see me, told me how they went shopping together and it was only long after leaving the shops that Lin's own eyes were opened to seeing all the stuff Saleh had stolen, so he had been blinded as well! But Saleh was tormented by evil spirits (called jinn) at night. He talked of walking into the lake and traveling into another world where he would meet demons and do all sorts with them. On one occasion under the lake, the demons told him to rip up the Bible, which he refused to do, so the demons said he would die poor.
He returned to Bujumbura and his father prayed for him because he was particularly crazy/possessed after his under-lake-world experience. He rejected the exorcism and fled upcountry. But his interest in Christ and his confusion over Islam pushed him to investigate Christianity. He had a Jehovah's Witness friend, and when they met up the latter derided Christ ('Jesus was a sinner, he didn't even get married, what's so special about him then?'). That was on the Friday. The man dropped dead on the Sunday.
Saleh saw that his friend had cursed Jesus and then died a few days later, so Jesus must be very powerful. To cut a long story short, he asked for Lin'
s help. A team of people prayed and fasted for three days before exorcising all the demons in Jesus' name.
He was totally transformed. When the jinn appeared at night to threaten him, he rebuked them in Jesus' name and they have never returned. He went back to shops to make restitution for what he had stolen. That was five years ago.
Since then he has lost all his wealth, been ostracized and threatened, and now has a job as a primary school teacher earning just $20/month. He has memorized the Scriptures and is a man steeped in prayer. I asked him how it was to lose everything. He sighed, smiled and said: "Now I have peace in my heart. Jesus has set me free. That is worth more than all the wealth I had before."
He wants to go public with his story now he is more spiritually equipped and mature, and I asked him if he was willing to be killed if we went ahead and distributed tapes of his testimony, which will undoubtedly be circulated far and wide and have a massive impact. He said that first he would fast and pray for twenty one days to prepare himself for the inevitable battles which will ensue. He has a wife and three children to think of - he is taking huge risks, and it is not a decision taken lightly. Anyone out there want to be involved in our support of him?
Well, that's a little different from my 'normal' prayer letters! I just thought it would be good to hear of something which doesn't quite fit into our neat boxes; and it highlights again the spiritual battle we are all involved in. It illustrates the power of the name of Jesus, and how critical prayer, fasting, and knowing the Word of God are. We face the same enemy in the West, although he is much more subtle in his attempts to lead us astray.
Indeed materialism, relativism, spiritual apathy, general business et al seem far more effective weapons than his blatant attacks as recounted above.
So let's get praying!
I have spent much of the last two months in bed, which I have found intensely frustrating and boring at times. Now back in the UK and having seen the best specialist in the country, we still don't know what it is which has wiped me out. Nothing has shown up in detailed tests.
Humanly-speaking we have tried everything. Could it be witchcraft, some kind of spell? Maybe you think I am being daft. But we were returning from pioneer evangelism in an area full of witchdoctors when it kicked in, and I had just resolved to spend more disciplined time in prayer. Who knows. but how short-sighted of the Devil, because this experience has undoubtedly drawn me closer to the Lord, and has enabled me to spend invaluable and highly fruitful time strategising, planning, writing etc.
Lizzie has been amazing. She has continued in Burundi by herself, and we have been apart for nearly month now. I am so proud of her - how she has settled in and been embraced by those around her. We both thank God for how easy the transition has been for her to get adapted to Burundi, and we are very grateful to those who have prayed for us. I can't wait to see her when she flies over this week, and she will join me in the US for some important preaching opportunities. Our trip is both an exciting and a daunting prospect for me in my current state. I do believe it will be a significant time, much prayed over and prepared for.
Some verses I have memorised of late with particular significance to my feeling so weak are Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 12:8-10: "Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take the thorn in my flesh away from me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness'. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. for when I am weak, then I am strong." Please pray for healing, energy, and as the verse says, for Christ 's power to rest on me, so that many people are deeply impacted.
Other news for prayer: there is famine declared in two provinces, Kirundo and Muyinga i.e. horrific poverty and suffering; still sporadic attacks, including an ambush last week in which a provincial governor was murdered; momentum being lost in the peace process, really needs to pick up; Cossette thrilled to go and see her daughter in Congo after eleven years separation, thanks to those who helped out, see website for photos of when we broke the news to her; was gutted just after the last prayer letter when a friend went to the bank for me, took out $2,000, and was held at gunpoint (there are no credit cards in Burundi, you have to do transactions in cash) but thankfully she was not harmed.
In the powerful name of Jesus,
Simon Guillebaud
Simon Guillebaud
Great Lakes Outreach
www.greatlakesoutreach.org
c/o LLB, BP2260, Bujumbura, Burundi
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