Knock. Knock. Knock. “Please help us! Our son is missing.”

The desperate family had come to our church group in Laoka pleading for help earlier in the week, and Ni, a member of the village church, later relayed the story to us.

The son, about 18 years old, had disappeared two days before without telling his parents that he was leaving. When young people go on excursions in the forests here, they usually inform their families. That he did not do so seemed very strange to them, and they asked the Laoka group for help to look for him. They searched the forests, calling his name, but he did not appear. After two days, the young man, dirty, hungry, and disoriented, showed up alone at his house.

“Where did you go? Why did you leave?” his family asked.

“I do not remember,” he replied. “I only remember that, while I was at home alone, a very beautiful-looking elderly couple and child appeared. They said, “Come with us. We know a perfect place where you can find honey.”

Honey is a favorite product to eat or sell here. Once he began to follow them, he remembered nothing else.

This was not the first time beautiful-looking spirits had appeared and caused people to get lost in the forests. Some here lose their lives by drowning or falling from trees. In this culture, the people understand these experiences as demonic possession. The two other children in this family had already experienced identical situations. The enemy was harassing this family tremendously.

After the young man returned, the Laoka group went to his house and began to persuade the father to follow Jesus. “Do not wait for one of your children to die to realize that Jesus is the right path to follow,” one of our church members told him.

For the first time, after many attempts by our church to reach the father with the gospel, he truly began to consider following Jesus, though no decision has yet been made to do so. We continue to pray for them. Our groups continue to preach about Jesus. The church continues to insist to the people that when they have these kinds of problems, Jesus is the solution and that they will find protection and salvation in Him.

We hope that this man and his entire family will soon realize the dangers they face by remaining involved in the worship of spirits and will begin to follow the only One who can protect them, that stronger man (Matthew 12:28-29), Christ Jesus.

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