"Teacher, Teacher!"

It was Akong's voice from the hall outside our bedroom door. Already well after eight o'clock in the evening, our minds were winding down, looking forward to sleep. Akong didn't usually call for us at that time of the evening. And there was a just noticeable urgency in his voice.

"Yes, Akong, what is it?" replied Lucille, folding a freshly-laundered diaper into her basket. Our little daughter Esther had already fallen asleep next door in her room.

"Oom Foon is here, Teacher," answered Akong through the door. Oom was Dutch for the word "Uncle," pronounced as in “comb.” "He wants to see you. There's a very sick baby in the Bamiko sawmill and Oom has come to ask you to go and pray over her." Lucille and I looked knowingly at one another. This again. My body tensed imperceptibly at the prospect of another emergency call. Sometimes God healed dramatically and the victory was sweet. Other times He did not and we dreaded facing bereaved family and the cruel comments from gloating unbelievers that often followed in the aftermath.

"Tell him that we'll be out in a minute, Akong."

Oom Foon hailed from the Moluccas, a group of islands predominantly, though often nominally, Christian. He had come to West Borneo to seek his fortune many years earlier, settling down in Pontianak as a trigger-happy officer on the police force. Oom had been brought up to believe that though Christianity was a religion to be respected, real power was to be tapped through knowledge of the occult. Thus wherever he went on his police beat, he was armed to the teeth with all manner of charms and fetishes to protect him from harm. They could be found around the wrist like a bracelet or around the neck like a necklace. But since Oom had enemies who had survived his commando style of law enforcement, earning him the infamous epithet of "Uncle Trigger," he needed more than just standard protection. For him, nothing less than the equivalent of a bullet-proof vest would do, twenty four hours a day. This consisted of an entire sash of fetishes wrapped around his upper body under his clothes. With this kind of help and gifts which he received from grateful (or wise) shopkeepers in the city, Oom flourished financially. But as it can be when God desires to wake up one of his wayward children, Oom eventually found himself discharged from the force after killing someone unjustifiably and financially broke. Somehow he wandered down the coast into Batu Ampar and was able to find a position in a sawmill as a security guard.

When Elias and Akong first stepped off the water taxi from Batu Ampar to bring the gospel to the Bamiko sawmill, they visited Oom at his quarters. Oom's first reaction to them was one of surprise and disdain: one of this Laurel and Hardy team had a missing right hand while the other fellow spoke like a woman. And besides, who were these two Chinese guys to preach at him, he who had been baptized and a Christian from birth! But eventually the Lord melted Oom's heart and he became a passionate follower of Jesus Christ. He threw away his considerable collection of abominations, deciding to trust in Christ instead to save him. Though Oom was unable to overcome all his weaknesses (like chain smoking) with dispatch, he had sincerely repented and become a witness for God. On several occasions his colorful testimonies of miracles that God had very graciously done for him left the congregation howling with laughter.

"Good evening, Oom," I said as I saw the familiar face, dark as dark could be, crowned with short black curly hair. He had been waiting for me in our living room. This was a man whom, with all his shortcomings, we could not help but love. "What brings you here at this hour?"

"Good evening, Pastor," returned Oom, smiling. "There's a baby girl at the sawmill who's doing very badly. She's had cholera for the past three days. The parents are unbelievers. I went to them and told them about how Jesus has helped so many people and that He could help them. I said I could bring you to pray over their daughter." Oom paused from his habitual rapid-fire delivery for breath before continuing. "But they told me they couldn't afford a hundred dollars to have a pastor come."

"They think I want money to go?" I interrupted, laughing. "They must be confusing me with a witchdoctor!"

"So I told them that you've got plenty of money of your own and you don't need theirs," continued Oom. "Then they said, 'OK, go and ask the pastor to come.'"

"We'll come, Oom. Please wait while I get changed. Akong will come with me."

 

Nearly a half an hour later, Oom, Akong and I boarded a boat down at the harbor. It pulled away from the dock, following the coastline for ten minutes to arrive at the sawmill known as Bamiko. We clambered up to the pier and followed Oom, walking gingerly in the dark over rickety boardwalks to the quarters occupied by the family of a man named Aliung.

Aliung was a tall, greying Chinese man in his forties. He solemnly invited us into his home where some relatives and neighbors had gathered to comfort him and his wife. Babies often died in areas like Batu Ampar. Friends and relatives were quick to come to offer solace to the grieved parents. Aliung's child was still alive, but from the look of her no one thought she would live to the morning. They had seen enough tragic cases like Aliung's daughter to know that she wouldn't last much longer. The death of a child is an ineffable horror. But what could be done? Life was just so fragile. Aliung led us into the kitchen where a young woman was sitting vigil over an infant, laid out on a piece of cloth which had been spread out over the bare hardwood floor. Akong and I knelt over the child. Barely eight months old, she was in deep distress. Weak and barely breathing, her eyeballs had rolled back in her eyes. I looked up at Aliung.

"Teacher," Aliung began, "she's had vomiting and diarrhea for the past three days. We've taken her to Batu Ampar for treatment at the Public Health Center but nothing has helped."

"Have you taken her to a witchdoctor?" I asked instinctively. Unbelievers, especially if they were Chinese, invariably resorted to sorcerers as well as medicine for treatment of illness. Every sawmill had at least one witchdoctor who had taken up local residence, making a living consulting spirits for his clientele of laborers. For the several sawmills isolated from Batu Ampar by water or jungle, the sorcerers offered a convenient and inexpensive alternative to seeking medical aid in town. Bamiko's resident witchdoctor was a man known only as "Lo Wong" which translated, means "Old Wong." Aliung hesitated momentarily before answering my question. He knew that sorcery is taboo to Christians.

"Well," stammered Aliung, "I, uh, yes, I, uh, I did. We took the baby to see Old Wong. But she didn't get any better."

"Aliung," I asserted, "if a person wants help from God, he must first confess that God is indeed his God. He cannot trust any more in idols or sorcery, but must give them up unconditionally. If you want to ask God to heal your baby, you must first give up all your idols, charms and fetishes. Give them to us and we will burn them in the back."

 

During the earlier days of our ministry, I usually encouraged people to repent and turn to God as a condition of receiving healing from Him. Upon closer study of the Lord’s healing ministry in the gospels, I later found that Jesus imposed no such condition. The single most important factor in the sick receiving healing from him was faith that Jesus could and would heal, not faith in Jesus as the Messiah. After witnessing the miracle, however, many decided to follow him as their Messiah. In my view this was the primary purpose of the miracles Jesus perfomed.

 

The sick baby’s father agreed to my condition after a moment's hesitation. It wasn't easy to part with things he thought were endued with special power, let alone giving them up to be burned! Some of them were made by Old Wong himself, who lived just several doors away down the boardwalk. If Old Wong were to find out that Aliung had surrendered his blessed fetishes to the blasphemy of the flames, there was no telling what he would do! But at stake was the life of his beloved only child. He disappeared into his bedroom.

Moments later, Aliung reappeared with a few small objects in his hand. Hiding my disappointment at such a small cache of plunder for the Lord, I took the fetishes and gave them to Akong, who took them out the back door to burn them. Along with Oom Foon, I began to pray for the child. While Oom called on the Lord with an earnest voice, asking for mercy, I laid my hand on her forehead and rebuked the infirmity in the name of Jesus, commanding her to be healed. Akong returned and joined in prayer.

After several moments of prayer, the baby's eyes closed. I gazed at her face, so lovely with long eyelashes and soft doll-like features. She opened her eyes and looked up at me. For several transcendent moments her limpid eyes held my gaze with an indescribable tenderness. Her little hand reached up toward me pleadingly, touching my shirt. My heart broke.

Suddenly she shuddered; her eyes rolled back again as she slipped back into difficulty. We quickly laid our hands on her once again rebuking the affliction in the name of Jesus. A feeling of deja vu came over me; I had faced this kind of life and death struggle before. Now how would this one turn out? O God, give us wisdom to know what to do, I cried in my heart.

Kneeling over her, Oom Foon kept crying out to God while I rebuked the spirit of death which was hovering over her like a vulture being kept at bay. After a few minutes, she began to strengthen, her eyes returning to normal and her respiration steadying. Seeing this, we paused from the warfare to rest. But as soon as we stopped, she relapsed again into distress. At that moment, a thought came to me. I stood up and walked over to Aliung.

"You still have more fetishes back there, don't you, Aliung?" I asked curtly. "If you want your daughter to be well, you must surrender all of them. God sees everything. You can't hide anything from him!"

Aliung grunted in embarrassment and strode to the back. Within seconds he was back with a few more things in his hand. Akong took them out back to be burned. I went back to the baby, kneeling over her once more. "In the name of Jesus Christ," I intoned, "I say unto you, little child, be healed!" The familiar struggle went on. When I spoke in the name of the Lord, she recovered. But when I paused, she sank back into distress. But there was a slight difference: the period of recovery before relapse lasted longer than before. We had gained, but the end was still not in sight. It was getting late; weariness was setting in. I rose and confronted Aliung as before. He scurried to the back and returned with more fetishes. Once more Akong marched outside with matches and a small bottle of kerosene.

Oom needed some fresh air after over an hour in the sweltering kitchen praying for the baby. He slipped out quietly during a break in the ministry to the front room which faced the boardwalk. There seemed to be some commotion outside. Oom could hear thumping noises and excited voices. People had gathered in the porch and on the boardwalk to watch something or somebody. His interest aroused, Oom looked out the front window. His eyes fell upon a half-naked man holding up in each hand a huge blazing joss or incense stick, dancing back and forth on the boardwalk in front of Aliung's house like a possessed witchdoctor.

Oom looked carefully. In the light from the burning incense he could easily make out the face of Old Wong, the Bamiko sorcerer. What on earth was he doing, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, pot-belly exposed, jumping up and down with those gigantic incense sticks? Suddenly, Oom understood. Someone who had seen what was going on inside the house had gone to inform Old Wong. His clients, Aliung's family, were being snatched away by the hated Christians. They were expelling "evil spirits" from Aliung's daughter, for whom Old Wong in the past couple of days had consulted his spirits. This was blasphemy to him! Worst of all, the Christians were burning the magic charms which Old Wong had made over the years for Aliung's family! Furious, Old Wong grabbed the biggest pair of joss sticks he could find in his supply closet and after igniting them rushed off without even bothering to put on his shirt and trousers. He would surely teach these Christians to respect his proven arts and his gods. He would call upon his gods to destroy both the Christians and the child they sought to help. Surely the gods would defend their honor and their servant. They were not without power. Going into his trance in front of Aliung's house, Old Wong invoked with all his might the highest satanic powers he knew to strike down the intruders.

In the meantime, Akong, oblivious to what was going on in front, was outside in back of the worker quarters, ready to torch the third batch of fetishes. Usually he prayed for the Lord's protection before burning fetishes, but since this was the third time that evening, Akong wearily decided to forego prayer. After pouring kerosene over the fetishes, he struck a match and set them on fire. Akong watched as the disintegrating fetishes popped and crackled in the flames.

Suddenly, pain sliced through his forearm. "Aieeee!" he shrieked, looking down at his arm. Blood was about to ooze forth from a scratch just above his wrist. Quickly putting his free hand over the wound, Akong cried, "In the name of Jesus!" He removed his hand from the wound and looked. About two inches long, it resembled a scratch from a cat. But who or what had done it? Akong looked around him but saw nothing. Besides, no person or animal could have gotten so close to him without being seen. At that moment, Akong realized that it had been an attack from the realm of the spirit.

 

Inside the house, another drama was unfolding, a battle for the life of a baby girl. I could not understand it. Aliung had apparently given up all his fetishes. Each time I came against the child's infirmity in the name of Jesus, she would come out of the agony. Seeing this I would stop ministering. But within seconds, the writhing, the rolled-back eyeballs, the torturous struggle to stay alive, returned. What was going on? God would not be playing cat-and-mouse with us, teasing us over and over with the semblance of deliverance, then allowing the child to sink once more into the jaws of death. Would He?

The kitchen felt oppressively hot. My shirt was soaked in sweat. Beads of perspiration dripped off my face onto the floor as I knelt over the child, speaking to the infirmity in the name of Jesus. And I was tiring, my body, my legs, my knees, my voice. It had been two hours already. Each time she relapsed, my cracking voice picked up again, almost mechanically, like a recording, "In the name of Jesus ..." I just could not stop; she would surely die if I did. I had to persevere, for the sake of this child, for her parents, for the kingdom of God, but perhaps most of all for the sake of my reputation and ministry. For what will people say if the child dies in my hands? (How deceitful is the human heart!) But how much longer will this last? How much longer will I last?

I did not know about the intense struggle in which I was playing a part. Looking down from the heavens, an observer might have seen two opposing forces locked in fierce combat. In the house were two or three Christians invoking with all their strength the name of their Lord Jesus Christ to restore life to a dying infant. But outside the house an enraged sorcerer was mustering his entire array of demons to attack the blasphemers. The horde failed to penetrate the shield of the Most High around His servants except to cause a small scratch on one. Perhaps they turned their fury on the distressed infant. Whenever the name of Jesus Christ was spoken, they had to retreat, and the power of God quickened the child. But whenever the Name ceased to be spoken, they reconverged on the baby like a flock of ravenous vultures.

By sheer persistence, I kept up the fight. Like the mythical Greek protagonist whose efforts to push a large rock over a hill were repeatedly frustrated when each time he neared the top, the rock rolled back down into the valley, I also felt trapped in an endless cycle. But as time passed the baby seemed to improve. Each time she seemed to get closer to the top, and when she slipped back down into the valley, it was not as deep as the previous time. Sensing victory at hand, I summoned my remaining reserves of energy for a final push over the top.

"In the Name of Jesus Christ, I bind the forces of evil which intend to take the life of this child. Little baby, be healed !"

I looked down at her. Her eyes were alert, wide open. She was breathing robustly. Kicking her legs, she seemed to signal to me that she was well. I waited several moments for a relapse. None came! Rising to my feet, I informed Aliung and his wife that the name of Jesus Christ had saved their daughter. I urged them to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord.

When Akong and I arrived back home that night, it was midnight, and we were weary. In Bamiko we had wrestled with the powers of darkness in a tug-of-war struggle that lasted nearly three hours nonstop. God had given us the victory.

The next morning, Oom came by again. "Pastor," he beamed, "the baby is completely well. The people could hardly believe it. There were so many who gathered in Aliung's front porch to take a look at the child that the floorboards cracked under their weight!"

 

Within a few weeks we were able to start a weekly meeting in Bamiko. The situation reminded me of what Daniel experienced:

 

At that time I, Daniel, mourned for three weeks. I ate no choice food; no meat or wine touched my lips; and I used no lotions at all until the three weeks were over. On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was standing on the bank of the great river, the Tigris, I looked up and there before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of the finest gold around his waist. His body was like chrysolite, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude ... Then he continued, "Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia. Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come." (Daniel 10:2-6, 10-14)

 

The fierce struggle between the forces of God and those of Satan in the lives of the saints, depicted so clearly by the prophet Daniel, continues to the present.