13. Strange Actions and Long Weeks of Prayer

CHAPTER THIRTEEN STRANGE ACTIONS AND LONG WEEKS OF PRAYER In the city of Saratsi, North China, we were having special meetings for women. Coming out of church, we met a woman none of us had ever seen before, who was acting strangely. It did not take long before we knew that she was possessed with evil spirits. We took her into the inquiry room, and sent someone to find out where she had come from and to whom she belonged. Some boys had seen her strange actions as she stood outside our gate, and pushed her in. After some searching we found her husband and son, and from them we got the story. They came from a village far on the other side of the mountain range, where we had never been able to go with the Gospel because of the bandits in the mountains. Her husband told us that she had been possessed for two years. They had tied her with ropes and chains, and had burnt her with hot irons. (There is nothing the evil spirits like more than when the person they possess is tortured). No one in the home had been able to work properly, as she took up all their time. At last the family talked it over, and decided to take her to the city of Saratsi, where there was a big Devil’s Temple. There people could go and dedicate their lives to the Devil, and become fortune-teller mediums. But when her family brought her to the city she ran away from them, and it was then that she came to our gate.

Now the battle began. Together with co-workers I had prayed for many possessed Chinese, but never had we been in such a battle as this.

There were never less than two praying, and most of the time we were four and five. We would pray hour after hour. When you pray for one who is possessed, you cannot for one minute take your thoughts away from the blood and the cross or you will lose power; and never have anyone with you who is afraid.

You must take your stand that the enemy has been conquered through the work of Christ. We would pray, and then for a change continue on our knees and sing of the blood and the cross.

After hours of battle, the woman would become rational, but she would not name the name of Jesus, and so we knew that she had not been freed. This kept on for three weeks. One morning early someone came and said that she was very violent, and told us to hurry. I called our co-worker, Miss Frelander, and our Chinese pastor. It was about 7 in the morning when we started to pray, and we were never off our knees before 2 in the afternoon. None of us had eaten anything before we started to pray; so it was that the Lord made us fast and pray. That was one of the last battles, but not the last.

Chinese New Year came, and we were having meetings in the church in the evening. The woman attended and was quiet the whole time. After the meeting I had gone home and was preparing for bed, when someone called, “Come at once; she is very violent.”

Miss Frelander and two of our Chinese Bible women went with me. We had not prayed long before the evil spirits spoke through her and said, “I am well now; you can go to bed.”

I said, “In the name of Jesus, we will not leave this woman before you have left her.”

We prayed for some time, when the evil spirits said, “We did not know that you were so determined as all this; we have waited for this evening to make her go out and take her own life.” This was spoken in Chinese through the woman. Again we said that we would not leave her before they left her. We prayed on for about half an hour, when the evil spirits left her and she began to pray and, together with us, praise the name of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ.

She was wonderfully saved, and learned to read her Bible and sing hymns. She stayed with us for some time, then went back to her village and became a living testimony for her Lord and Saviour.

Every year when we had special meetings, she would ride a little donkey over the mountains and would always bring someone with her who had been saved. As long as we were able to hear anything about her she continued her faith and testimony.

Swedish Alliance Mission Mrs. Filip Malmvall Jonkoping, Sweden