Auntie was sick. She didn’t know what to do.

Auntie lives in a mud hut with a grass roof. The door is a wooden frame covered with tin roofing. The doorway is low, and the threshold is raised, so you have to simultaneously duck down and step up when you enter her house. Inside it is dark, and you will probably start to sneeze because of the bag of hot chili peppers sitting in the corner.

There are several more rooms like Auntie’s that open onto the family courtyard. One of them is the kitchen. It features a triangle hearth of three large stones that support a round-bottomed pot. Nearby is another hearth stone that is added when a smaller pot is used. The walls in the kitchen are black from years of smoky fires.

Outside in the courtyard are clay water jars, chairs made of branches, and many other things. There is also a mysterious pile of rocks covered with some sort of white material spattered with dried blood and a dusting of chicken feathers.

Auntie was sick. Her hands and feet and legs burned like they were on fire, though they didn’t show any visible symptoms like hotness or swelling. She went to several natural healers who made small cuts in her feet and hands and rubbed them with magic powder, but it didn’t help. Auntie kept using her tobacco and alcohol to try to kill the pain. Finally her son brought her a fetish, the pile of stones in the courtyard. He told her that this fetish demon would help her. But it didn’t, and her pain continued.

One day her nephew brought Fidel to see her. He asked her a few questions and then asked if she wanted to follow Jesus. She said yes. She asked Jesus to come into her heart, and Fidel prayed that God would heal her. When he finished praying, her hands and feet stopped hurting and she had relief for the first time in years. After a few days she found that she no longer craved alcohol or tobacco. The desire for those things was gone. A few months later she was baptized into our church. She looks 10 years younger, and she is full of praise for her Savior.

• Twitter