At War

The kids have been memorizing the verses in Ephesians about spiritual warfare and the armor of God, and it has prompted some great family discussions, especially because of some cool things that God is doing in the hearts of some of our Agta friends lately.

In the village where Jose (one of our leaders) has planted a church, they recently did a study on spiritual warfare. After the lesson, one lady approached Jose with a request for guidance. She told him that she was a medicine woman, but that she has no knowledge for how to heal people. She said that when people come to her for healing, an evil spirit possesses her, and it is the spirit who heals the people. She said that she has chosen to follow Jesus now, so she doesn't want this spirit to come to her anymore. She asked Jose how she could keep the spirit away now. This is a huge deal, because this healing power provided income and status for her family. It was so encouraging to hear her step forward in faith and turn her back on the old way and ask for help in knowing how to follow Christ alone.

In another village, Christopher (another of our leaders) has been sharing with his cousins. Christopher said that one of the young men had understood and believed a while ago, but that he recently got sick (stomach ulcer?). They prayed for healing, but the sickness continued, so he went to a spiritual healer. The sickness went away, but now he is having trouble sleeping and "his thinking is always confused, like it is far away". Steve and Christopher went to visit him, and they had a great conversation about where that healing came from (evil spirit) and why his thinking is now in such turmoil (can't serve two masters!). The young man began to cry when he realized what he had done, and asked, "Now that I have sinned, all is lost. What will I do?" He figured it was all over at this point. So Steve shared with him the story of the Prodigal Son and how God is yearning for him to come back to Him. He removed the little charm the shaman had used, crumpled it up, and threw it away. Wow, what a moment.

After talking about how we are at war and telling the kids these stories, Steve asked the kids if the spirits that are healing people are good spirits or evil spirits. They all agreed that they are evil spirits. So Steve asked why evil spirits would do good things like heal people of sickness. Zach answered, "Because if they only ever did bad stuff, then people wouldn't follow them. If they sometimes do good stuff, then people will think they are good and want to be on their side. They do it to trick them." So cool to see our kids begin to understand this spiritual war in which we are ALL engaged - whether or not we realize it.