I can save you! my heart cried. Please, won’t you let me save you?

Despair stained the young man’s face. For four years, Robinson had bounced from shaman to shaman, but his disease had only gotten worse. Finally, in a last desperate attempt to live, he had come to the lowland Batangan where he had heard about me.

“I have good news,” I said after examining him. “I can treat your sickness. You can live!”

For just an instant, hope flashed from his eyes—brilliant, life-giving hope. But then a despair even deeper than before settled around him.

Before I had arrived, yet another shaman had been there to see him. Robinson knew that if he accepted me, the shaman would send his spirits to kill him. For the first time in his life, hope was within his reach. Not just hope of physical healing, but of true freedom, and he knew it. But he couldn’t let go. The fear—stronger than any chain—held him fast.

As I slowly walked away, it seemed that I could hear God crying with me, calling to the lost of the world, “I can save you. If only you would trust me. Please, won’t you let me save you?”

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