An Amateur Exorcist
When I boarded a plane on New Year’s Eve to fly across the Pacific Ocean and around the world, I was traveling as an executive of an international relief organization, setting out to evaluate a variety of projects in the Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand, Bangladesh, and India.
In the following days, during the height of the surge of boat people from Vietnam, I visited refugee camps in the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Thailand. I met people with heart-wrenching stories of how they’d barely survived Vietnamese army and navy gunfire and spent many hopeless days at sea without food or fresh water.
United States Navy ships had rescued many from boats that were not seaworthy. Others had crossed the border by land from Vietnam into Thailand.
I visited refugees in Bangkok in crowded camps and in cramped prisons. Many Vietnamese had crossed into Thailand not knowing they were required to register with local authorities before entering the country. As a result, they suffered the consequences in suffocating jails rather than in refugee camps.
In Bangladesh, people were destitute after floods caused by monsoon rains.
Desperation surrounded me everywhere I went. Our aid staff was busy going from village to village by boat distributing food and other supplies.
My next destination was India, where I spent time with aid workers in Calcutta, Bangalore, and Madras. In Madras, now known as Chennai, I visited a village rehabilitation project our relief agency had fully funded within the previous year.
The village, just outside of Madras, was a Hindu enclave located in a flood plain. Each year the homes were inundated by floodwaters in the heavy rainy season. Our Christian agency responded to the needs of this Hindu village by funding a major project to raise each home several feet. The space underneath was filled in with dirt and stones. Concrete was poured around the fill and above it, and concrete steps were built at the front of each home. When the annual rains came, the homes were now safely above flood level.
An Indian representative of our agency took me to visit the village. We walked on the gravel streets between elevated homes. People gathered into something of a parade as word spread that an American from the helpful relief agency was in their village. Many of them shook my hand and thanked me through the interpreter for the help they’d received.
This became a celebration as the crowd grew larger and noisier. I was treated with honor I had never experienced before. My interpreter kidded me that they were treating me as the populace had treated Mahatma Gandhi.
“Not so,” I replied. “I’m wearing shoes and a safari suit. Gandhi walked barefoot dressed only in a loincloth.”
What a humbling experience this turned out to be for me. Although I had helped raise funds for projects such as this, I had not been physically involved in carrying out the project. Yet these grateful people showered me with adulation.
The word spread from house to house about my walk through the village. Families poured out of their homes to join the procession.
But suddenly, the parade was stopped in its tracks. A man burst out of a house literally dragging his wife behind him. He pushed through the crowd and almost threw his wife at my feet.
The man spoke rapidly to my interpreter, glancing at me from time to time. When his speech was over, the interpreter told me the man was convinced that his wife was demon possessed. He said he had heard that Christ had cast out demons. He requested that I, as a representative of a Christian organization, cast the demon out of his wife.
The woman was on hands and knees on the gravel street at my feet, her face pointed toward the ground, her long hair dragging on the stones. The husband grabbed her hair and turned her face toward me.
I was appalled. The woman’s face was contorted and her eyes wildly darted back and forth. She made no sound but seemed terribly afraid of me. Her husband pulled her up on her knees until her head was at my waist level.
“Please, please,” he begged through the interpreter, “cast out this demon from my wife!”
I had never been in such a circumstance, but I had heard missionaries tell of casting out demons in the name of Jesus in African villages. I knew the Scriptures well and knew the power in the name of Jesus.
Silence now reigned as everyone strained to see and hear what I would do. The battle was staged before them as a Christian man was being asked to deliver a Hindu woman from demon possession.
I prayed inwardly for guidance and strength to respond to this woman’s needs. Although I’d been tense, my spirit calmed. I knew what God wanted me to do. I’d heard stories of demons coming out of people with loud shrieks, but I had no idea what would happen next.
I laid both of my hands upon the woman’s head. I felt her shaking violently as I began praying. I became aware that the interpreter was repeating my words in the villagers’ language so the crowd could follow what was happening. I sternly commanded the evil spirit or spirits to come out of the woman in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
I completed my prayer with a resounding “Amen!”
Instantly, I noticed that the woman’s shaking had stopped. When I removed my hands from her head, she turned her face upward, beaming with a beautiful smile. Her eyes were steady and clear. She stood to her feet as normal a person as anyone else in the crowd.
People around me began chattering and celebrating what they had seen happen before their very eyes. The interpreter kept up a running translation of what the villagers were saying. They were utterly amazed at the power of Jesus’ name.
The husband shook my hand repeatedly with unbounded gratitude. I told him through the interpreter that Jesus was the one who had caused the change in his wife.
To my surprise, the man requested that I enter his home as his guest. He, his wife, my interpreter, and I climbed the cement steps into his home. For several minutes we carried on an animated conversation through the interpreter. Then he surprised me again.
“I ask you to please pray a prayer of blessing upon our home in the name of your Jesus,” he said.
What an opportunity!
I talked aloud with the Lord, thanking Him for His act of kindness upon this man’s wife. Then I asked the Lord to place a blessing upon the home and family.
When I said Amen and looked into their grateful smiling faces, I knew that this was the real reason I had made that trip around the world.