Shanksteps # 80

Shanksteps # 80Meningitis vs. SacrificeOne week ago, 13-year-old Birmé came into the hospital with a 5-day history of headache and neck pain.  She was diagnosed with meningitis (the first of the season) and started on a long course of antibiotics.  During the first two days she had convulsions and severe agitation. After several days, the agitation resolved, but unfortunately last night she again started having convulsions and vomiting. She has been in a coma of sorts since entering the hospital.   I repeated a spinal tap on her todayand it was clear, indicating that the infection is, in fact, being treated by the mediation that we are giving her.  Why then is she still in a coma and having convulsions?Medically, it’s very possible that her brain was damaged by the infection during the first 5 days that it went untreated.  To complicate things, she took many different medications from the market, including one made in Nigeria that contains dangerous drugs (including cocaine?).  She may have taken traditional potions or powders that could further damage the brain.  Much has been written about the lasting sequelae of meningitis including: blindness, deafness, paralysis, coma, and death.Although the family brought her into the hospital for medical healing, they believe that her illness is of a more spiritual nature.  For those of you who don’t believe much in the “spirit world”, this will just come across as a weird story.  For those of you who truly believe that there is a war raging between God and Satan, please read this and pray, HARD!  I assure you, living in a land where the Devil can and does work openly; I have no doubt that we are involved in spiritual warfare.  Here isher story, and the beliefs of her people, the Mafa.In Birmé’s case, she is unlucky enough to have a grandfather (father’s father) who is a sorcerer, an old one at that.  As the story goes, her grandfather is becoming more and more feeble and is afraid of dying.  Every year, for the past three years, he has sacrificed (in the spirit world) one of his grandchildren in order to “buy” more life.  Consequently, in the “real” world, each of these children has gotten sick and died.  This year it’s Birmé’s turn.  To make matters worse, her mother’s brother”knows” what has been going on, and has threatened that if Birmé dies, he will kill everyone in the grandfather’s family.  This 13-year-old girl IS a spiritual battleground.To give you a better idea of the Mafa ideas, and how one can “buy” life, you need to understand their basic spiritual beliefs.  I won’t pretend to understand most of this culture, but what I have started to understand I will share with you.  The Mafa believe in what is called a second or middle heaven.  Some Mafa Christians call this The Devil’s Heaven.  In this heaven is a grand market.  At the market, you can find almost anything you want, from special pieces of clothing, to knowledge, to longevity.You can also buy spells to harm or kill people.  Only a sorcerer can go to this market, however many people here are considered sorcerers.  My opinion is that a sorcerer here is just one who has access or is open to this spiritual world.  (I have also learned that you can indeed buy the title of sorcerer in a nearby village from a certain group of people.)  From what I understand, people go to this market all the time to get what they need.  They can also see others there, and therefore see whatthey are buying.  Sometimes if you go and you aren’t supposed to be there, or you try to steal, you will be stopped by a soldier.  If this happens in the spiritual realm, you will become sick in the physical one.  There are many stories of people who had traveled to the Devil’s Heaven and been stopped by a soldier.  After getting sick, they went to the hospital but were unable to be healed/cured.  There is the story of a student 4 years ago who was doing poorly in school, so he went to the Devil’sHeaven to buy knowledge.  For some reason he was taken captive by a soldier and held in chains on his left side.  The physical manifestation of this was that he was forced in the physical world to lie on his left side.  If he got up, his eyes would roll back in his head and he would stop breathing. He was able to do complicated assignments for school as long as he lay on the left.   As you can imagine, the doctor here didn’t know what to do to cure this kind of sickness.  He was sent 7 hours awayfor further testing, only to find nothing.  Then the neighbor saw him captive at the spiritual market, being held in chains on his left side. She told the family who employed the services of a sorcerer, who aided in the release of the prisoner, and therefore the immediate healing of the patient.Back to the story of Birmé.  Apparently her grandfather goes to this Devil’s Heaven to buy longevity, but the spell only lasts for a year.  His payment each year, for the past three years, has been the lives of his grandchildren.  I don’t know how her story will end.  I have talked with her parents, prayed with them and her each and every day, and prayed for her healing, and more importantly her parent’s understanding of the gospel, all the time throughout the day.  Her father believes that it isthe Devil’s doing that she is sick, but I don’t think he has quite understood that blood of Jesus has already defeated the power of Satan and that he needs to call on that blood.  Please pray for her healing, the true understanding of God’s love for her parents, and that despite the Mafa beliefs, that we can find a way to explain God’s love and redemption to this culture that relies so much on appeasing the evil spririts.In His Mighty Grasp, Aud and family