Our departure for Tarkwa on 25/9 was delayed from 8:30 until 11am. TIA. This is Africa. What was particularly good about it, though, was that the previous night’s journey in the dark coming back from Kambi ya Nyasa was safe. We could have had a dangerous blow-out of the tyre and been stranded in a ditch somewhere, but the tyre went down gracefully overnight as it sat in the mission house garage. Ian’s blog tells what happened on the first day – suffice it to say that after teaching on the person of the Holy Spirit, Ian called people forward for infilling of the Spirit and about 75 came forward. The one I ended up praying for started to manifest a demon and it was not easy to get it out, so we asked her to come back the next day.
That morning, I taught on “Forgiveness”. Anne had had a word of knowledge the previous day that indicated that the reason why the woman could not get free was because she needed to forgive someone. Her unforgiveness was giving Satan a legal right to afflict her. She had bad headaches and stomach pains, following typhoid and stomach ulcers from the typhoid medication.
The talk on forgiveness was revamped late at night after Ian had fallen asleep – a complete reversal of roles :-) I was very chuffed when Lindy complimented me on the talk. She has a doctorate in teaching. After the talk, there were lots of questions to field and by the grace of God I was able to answer them. Another team member told me afterwards what important things I had missed out when answering them. I could only say that time had been limited and also, my expertise in these matters is limited :-)
The following talk was on healing and Anne, I, Peter (translating) and her pastor took the young woman aside to see if we could effect the deliverance. Anne produced Derek Prince’s 7 steps to self-deliverance, so I based the deliverance loosely on these and they were extremely effective, combined with Anne’s contribution of words of knowledge. Anne was suffering from the “team cold bug” so I was doing the upfront stuff. The woman came free no trouble at all this time. There was no need for shouting or upset.
Afterwards, we rejoined the conference and helped pray for healing. There had been a big line of people coming up for healing. There was a blind man with weeping eyes who also had a troublesome shoulder. He could not lift his arm up high. The shoulder came free of pain very quickly, but the eyes were more resistant to healing. However, I noticed the following day that the weeping had stopped. His cataract was not altered as far as I know.
We included the kids in praying for healing and they caught on slowly. I don’’t think they are normally included in adult stuff except to be quiet and sit still while it goes on.
After lunch at 3:00pm, Ian gave a short talk to the local pastors on an approach to deliverance. They had received a model of exorcism that was not very helpful as far as we could see – just hammer, hammer, hammer away and hope that the demon gets sick of it.
Ian carefully went over it, explained their authority in Christ and particularly went over the reasons for the steps we had used in today’s exorcism. We hope they will be able to remember and use what he taught.