“It was exceptionally beautiful … At seven in the morning, thin clouds of fog were slowly dancing almost like they were looking at their mirror image reflecting themselves in the excess water which was slowly engulfing the rice paddies.”

This was anthropologist Bjorn Blengsli’s introduction to a Great River village. He continues, “Surrounding the houses … are coconut trees, banana, mango and papaya trees, vegetable gardens, pineapple fields, and so on. Occasionally, I saw what seemed to be new wells, where people were showering, cleaning vegetables and washing clothes. Dogs, cows, buffaloes, ducks, and chickens were everywhere.”

Does this sound like a tropical paradise? Some may think so. But when you look beyond this romanticized external description and peer into the eyes of the Great River People, a darker picture emerges. It is a place where the people fear spirits called jinn, which they consider the greatest single cause of illness. Where black-magic practitioners cause pain and death. Where the heads and intestines of evil witches called ab are believed to leave their bodies while they sleep and streak across the sky to prey on frogs, newborn babies and the elderly. For the Great River People, this is no paradise. Spiritual ignorance engulfs them in darkness.

Praise God for His promise! “For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people; But the Lord will arise over you, and His glory will be seen upon you. The Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising” (Isa. 60:1-3).

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