01. Chaos in a Locked Room

CHAPTER ONE CHAOS IN A LOCKED ROOM A 16-mile hike had brought me here to this West African village to heal and to preach. A wildeyed young woman was brought, pulled along between two male relatives.

“What’s her trouble?”

“Evil spirits,” they explained. “Our medicine men cannot help her. Please give her some medicine.”

“Nothing in my medical box to help her,” I said. “But I know who can.” So I had the pastor take her aside and explain to her about the Lord Jesus.

It was growing dusk when the woman was brought again. Poor soul, there she stood in her filthy, scanty bit of torn cloth about her waist, and her unkempt dirt-matted hair, a human battering ram for foul spirits! Her quivering body and the glassy stare betrayed the tortuous possession that held her. She was no better. Is there nothing we could do for her? What a challenge to faith!

Again we preached Jesus to her. But, this time, we also prayed over her in that name. And the demons came out of her. Immediately, her wild countenance gave place to a look of calm and peace. Later that evening, you could have counted hundreds of these pagan Hausas, squatted around the dim glow of a storm lantern, listening to the Gospel.

After he had preached, the native evangelist dismissed the crowd with prayer. Soon they dispersed and the evangelist went off to his hut, leaving me alone. Alone with my little lamp, feebly trying to penetrate the thick darkness.

Once inside, I firmly tied the cornstalk door with ropes, very securely, making sure that no one could untie it from the outside, nor any goats, wild beasts or robbers could get an entrance, except they forced it open. Scared? Well, yes, I admit it. But, maybe so would you be - a little - in the midst of a compound of pagans in the African bush sixteen miles from home. I made a bedside table of the gramophone and folding chair, and had my bedtime devotions under the mosquito net. Then I allowed myself the luxury of reading a book in bed. When the book had dropped onto my chest for the sixth time, I esteemed it better sense to obey my sleep instinct and snuff out the light.

Suddenly I awoke. What was it that jerked me so rudely awake? Yes - sounded like heavy footsteps in the hut? Thud! Thud! Thump! Thud! Nearer and nearer to my bed! My heart pounded wildly. I was really scared. Probably I betrayed this as I yelled out in Hausa, “Who is there?” No answer came. The thudding footsteps suddenly ceased. But the darkness - the darkness - was terrific. Darkness that could be felt!

Timidly, I pushed out my hand from under the mosquito net and felt on the ground for my flashlight. Ah, there it was! I switched it on and circled the light around the room. What a mess!

It looked as if nothing smaller than an elephant had entered the room! The lamp, chair and gramophone were sprawled in various corners (that is, if a round hut has corners!) Yet the amazing and terrifying thing was that the door was as fast closed as I had tied it. No bodily form of man or beast had entered that hut. What then? Indisputably, evil spirits! The darkness was still very intense, and my heart was still giving a fairly good imitation of native drumming. So I did the only thing I knew to do at such a time. I drew myself up on my knees on the cot, and prayed. Prayed - claiming the protection of the name, the name that had sent the wild-eyed woman away calm.

Before I had finished praying, the oppression of the intense darkness had lifted. An evil power had fled that room. Again the Lord Jesus gave His beloved sleep.

I awoke again when the chinks of light from the rising sun were seeping through the cornstalks of the door. Did I have a bad nightmare during the night? Certainly not, for as I gazed around that room it revealed nothing less of the disorder that the flashlight had shown earlier. Yet the door was still tied firmly - emphasizing again that no bodily form had entered during the night.

None of my belongings had suffered greatly, save that the lamp was a bit dented, and a couple of gramophone records were cracked.

Sudan Interior Mission Rev. Elijah Bingham Nigeria, West Africa