“He dropped to the floor and started rolling around like a crocodile or a snake,” Fidel told me as he related the story of praying for Assa.
While we were on furlough, Assa had a variety of health issues. He spoke with a former church member of ours, Dabaro, who told him to go to the Adventist church, and the members would pray for him. So Assa started attending the church, but he wasn’t impressed. He didn’t see the members doing anything flashy like speaking in tongues or other things he thought should be associated with the presence of the Holy Spirit.
When we arrived back from furlough, Fidel started to talk with Assa. Assa mentioned that he didn’t see the Holy Spirit in the church, but Fidel told him that those manifestations are not necessarily from the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit was certainly present in our church.
Assa told Fidel his story. His father was a fetisher. Assa attended school through the eleventh grade until he started having problems. When he was 15 years old, a demon took possession of him. It made him unable to concentrate at school and pushed him to make pacts with other demons. He went to the fetish (demon) of his mother’s family and made a pact with it. He also made other pacts and was driven to begin drinking and smoking. Not a day passed that he didn’t drink or smoke. He married a woman who was also possessed, and they had a child. Later, he converted to Islam and was a Muslim for more than 10 years.
Then Assa’s wife left him, and he was on his own again. He would go drinking every day with other men. As the years passed, he started to have health issues. Doctors told him he needed an operation on his kidneys. But he didn’t have any money, so he struggled on. He left Islam and attended another Christian church but found that they couldn’t help him. Then Dabaro directed him to our church.
As Fidel started to work with Assa, he asked him more about his history and the pacts he had made with demons. Fidel prayed for him, and while he was praying, Assa fell to the floor and started rolling around. A demon started speaking through Assa, saying that it was a water spirit from Morocco and wanted him for its work. Other spirits chimed in and explained that they had come to destroy the churches.
Fidel called another brother for help, and together they prayed in the name of Jesus for Assa’s deliverance and commanded the demons to leave him. After a prolonged struggle, the demons finally left Assa. Praise the Lord! After several more sessions of prayer, Assa was completely freed and was able himself to call on the name of Jesus, which he hadn’t been able to do before.
Now, after much prayer and many in-depth Bible studies, Assa is a new man. He doesn’t drink or smoke anymore, and he attends church faithfully. We helped him open a barber shop, and he has started working. His ex-wife tried to come back to him, but God revealed to him in prayer that she was still with another man. She left their son with Assa and departed. Assa has a new life and a son to raise. In October, 2018, he was baptized.
Please pray for Assa as he leaves behind his old life and walks with his new friend Jesus.
