“We are in a spiritual battle right now and need you to pray!” read the urgent message from our local evangelist Hyacinthe. A few minutes later, I received an audio message giving more details on the situation.

A young man named Felix had recently been baptized, and his parents were not at all happy about his decision to follow Christ. They tried without success to force Felix to return to animism, but Felix had determined to remain faithful.

The family also went to see Hyacinthe at his house to verbally attack him. They even scheduled a summons with some village chiefs to put pressure on Felix and the church elders.

One night Felix came to Hyacinthe’s house to tell him that his little sister Charleine had experienced seizures and was taken to the hospital. Hyacinthe sent two other church elders to the hospital to support the family and pray for the child, but by the time they arrived, Charleine had already passed away.

The next morning Hyacinthe and his wife went to pay their condolences to the family, not quite sure how they would be received. In Otammari culture, when a sudden death occurs, a spiritual ceremony is conducted to find out who or what caused the death. As they were sitting with the parents, the ceremony was about to start, and Hyacinthe was silently wondering if the spirits would point to Felix or him as the culprit. At the same time, they observed some commotion in the background and inquired what was going on. It turned out that another of Felix’s brothers, Florent, who was a little older than Charleine, was also starting to show the same symptoms. Imagine the shock of the parents! Both children had not been sick before having seizures.

Not knowing where else to turn, the desperate parents told Felix to take little Florent to Hyacinthe. And so Felix, holding his listless, unconscious brother in his arms, came over to where Hyacinthe was sitting and asked him to pray. Hyacinthe, his wife, and another young Christian followed Felix into a room, where they put little Florent on a mat and started praying and singing, fervently asking God to intervene, spare the child’s life and make His greatness known to these people.

After some time of prayer and rebuking Satan, Hyacinthe ordered Florent, in the name of Jesus, to wake up. The little boy did. Again Hyacinthe prayed and ordered the child, in the name of Jesus, to sit up. Florent now sat up. Once more Hyacinthe prayed. This time he ordered little Florent, in the name of Jesus, to stand up. Once again the little boy did as he was ordered.

Hyacinthe later said: “This was a really scary situation. Nobody knew how this would end. Outside in the yard, the family and other spectators were waiting to see what would happen next. If Florent had died while being with us in the room, we might have been beaten or even killed. But our God is faithful. He glorified His holy name; He didn’t let us end in shame; He demonstrated His power and greatness to us and all those who were present that day.”

After what seemed like a very long time the little group walked out of the room with heads held high, the little boy holding Hyacinthe’s hand. Florent’s father asked them to continue praying for him, so Hyacinthe and his wife took the little boy home with them. That’s when he sent me the message, knowing well that while they had won a victory, the battle was not over yet. Florent was with them for the remainder of the day, getting some rest while they continued to pray for him. When they took him home that night, he was playful and didn’t show any signs of sickness or discomfort. The next day, the spiritual chief of the family came to Hyacinthe’s house to thank him.

For now, Felix is allowed to attend church, and he even brings Florent and another younger brother along. Our prayer is that the whole family and all the neighbors who had witnessed the powerful encounter would be impacted. We pray that they would see that God the Almighty is stronger than the ancestor spirits and that He is the God of love, life and healing.

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