A strange spiritual power has been affecting some of the school children in our area, causing them to begin shaking violently and lose control of their tempers.

At the same time, a far different spiritual phenomenon has taken hold of our soft-spoken Bible worker from Balimo. It has also affected a group of young men from Kewa who love to sing hymns together.

A number of years ago, when David and Cindy White were the AFM missionaries on the Gogodala Project, David wrote an article in Adventist Frontiers about the need of sponsors to send Gogodala men to a Bible school. Readers responded, and the project sent two young men to Omaura in the highlands to be trained. After two years of study they returned to their people and have worked here among the Gogodala faithfully leading small churches in Awaba and Balimo. Years passed, and the churches struggled.
Earlier this year, Laurie and I were away from the Gogodala region for a few months. On our return, I went to Balimo to take care of some business. On my way there, I met our Balimo church elder, Wamsy. I asked him how things were going in the Balimo church. “Steve!” he exclaimed, “Something is happening. A change has come over our Bible worker, Wally. He used to be so soft-spoken, but now he is preaching powerful sermons in the market and in the series of evening meetings we recently completed. People from all over are inviting us to come to their villages to give the same messages. They say, ‘We have never heard a message like this before!’ And your boys from Kewa are helping us with their singing.”

This past weekend, Wally and his group from Balimo along with five of our “sons” from Kewa went by invitation to Saesaerema, a nearby logging camp, to hold a weekend series. Those loggers and mill workers ate it up. Many responded to the calls for surrender to Christ.

There is a spiritual war raging out here, and we covet your prayers.

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