Shanksteps – Habiba #105
Like many of the women here, Habiba delivered her baby at home. Fortunately she didn’t have any problems during the delivery, and the baby was born healthy. For about a week before having her baby, she had been having bloody diarrhea at home. She finally decided to come to the hospital a couple of days after delivery to get checked out. She was found to have dysentery and started on treatment. After several days of being in the hospital she was still having diarrhea, but now was also found
to be anemic. Her family donated a sac of blood for her. We arrived from the US one or two days after she was transfused. She continued to have bloody diarrhea, abdominal pain, and was still very short on blood. Now though, she was also vomiting and not able to keep food or her medications down. Greg realized that she was also bleeding vaginally and performed a curettage. She was transfused a second time and seemed to do better. Several days passed and she wanted to go home, so Greg discharged
her.
Three days later, she returned to the hospital with the same symptoms; bloody diarrhea, abdominal pain, vomiting, and anemia. She was transfused a third time and started on a different set of antibiotics. She perked up for a day, but was then very pale again. After the fourth transfusion, I started to think that there was more to this sickness than just the obvious physical ailments. I found out that her mother wanted to take her home so that that whole side of the family could perform sacrifices
to their idols and call on their sorcerer. Her husband (a wonderful Christian man) wanted her to remain at the hospital and asked if we would pray for him to stay strong for her. He said that if he told the family that he didn’t want them to take her home, that they would tell everyone that he had abandoned her, and that he didn’t want what was best for her. So we prayed for his strength, for her healing, and for the right decision to be made. She was allowed to stay, but I realized that there
was very serious spiritual warfare going on. I heard that same day that the belief within the family was that she had been “spiritually taken captive and was being held in chains in the devil’s heaven.”
If you don’t remember what the “devil’s heaven” is from previous stories, I’ll give you a brief review. The Mafa people believe that god (small g) is the one that brings both good and bad on people. You have to keep this god happy or something bad will happen to you or your family. (Even most Christians and Muslims believe this way about the Mafa god; even if they say that they believe in the God of the universe.) The Mafa people also believe that there is a second heaven (also called the devil’s
heaven) where only the sorcerers can go. They believe that it is a real place, set up like a market, where sorcerers can buy and sell anything, even intelligence, sickness, death, and longevity. If someone goes uninvited, or doesn’t do the correct sacrifice; or if a sorcerer is “employed” to capture someone, that person will remain in chains in the “devil’s heaven” until a sufficient sacrifice is made. When anyone is a spiritual captive in the devil’s heaven, it is manifested as sickness, even
to the point of death, in “our world”. This is what was believed to be going on with her.
As is our norm, Eliza and I had been praying for and with Habiba and her husband every day since she arrived on our ward. I realized that this was going to take more spiritual “fire-power” than just a simple prayer. So, I asked all of the workers who had the desire, to come and pray for her in a group. We surrounded her, laid hands on her and prayed. We prayed for healing; for faith; for comfort; for her husband; and for the bondage of Satan to be broken. We commanded the bad spirits to leave
her body, and for her to be restored to complete health. As is normal for Americans, I wanted to see an instantaneous change in her – which didn’t come.
However, when I went to see Habiba the following day, she was a different woman. She was eating, had no more bleeding, there were no signs of the anemia that had plagued her for days, and most amazing was the smile that was on her face. She continued to stay at the hospital for the next week, mostly to be ministered to. She was afraid that when she left the hospital that her problems would just reemerge. She and her husband finally set a discharge date. Her one request was that we all come as
a group to have one last prayer with her and her husband. So, about 15 of us went and prayed for Habiba, her continued healing, and most importantly her continued faith.
I have since heard that she did not go home to the village of her parents, but to the house of one of our church elders for continued spiritual mentoring. Our chaplain visits her once a week as well to see how she is doing.
We thank God for His healing power. We thank the willingness of our workers to lay out their hearts in prayer for this tormented woman. We thank you readers for continued prayers for our little hospital, which we hope will be a light in the darkness here.
In His Grasp, Audrey (for the Cameroun Shanks)