05. Strange Antics: Colombia
CHAPTER FIVE STRANGE ANTICS: COLOMBIA
It must have been May and June of 1941, or 1942, when _____ and I were stationed at Pamplona, Norte deSantander, Colombia. One day a Colombian woman, a stranger to us, came to the house in great agitation to ask if we would give refuge to a 15-year-old girl who had wandered into the town and was stirring up a great deal of trouble.
Someone had hired her to do servant work, but dishes and utensils were always flying around where she was, as though hurled by an unseen hand, and heavy furniture moved too. They had sent for a priest, but the holy water he tried to sprinkle on - had flown back in his own face. The medallion of the Virgin he wanted to put around her neck had immediately become twisted and bent, and - only laughed at all his efforts, saying that demons were doing it all.
We had already heard of this girl, on an extended trip which took us through mission stations of other societies, and what reliable missionaries had told us coincided remarkably with what the woman was telling us now. With some qualms we decided we would take _____ into our house, believing that God could deliver her through prayer, which would be anunanswerable testimony to the power of the Gospel in a small city, which had hitherto resisted practically all our efforts to win souls. _____ came that afternoon.
She was a squat, homely little girl of the Indian type, with a face which had a dark, scowling look much of the time, although she did brighten up and become talkative at times. While getting acquainted we permitted her to stay around our servant in the kitchen, but decided we would stay indoors more in order to observe her as much as possible.
About supper time, the servant called laughingly to report that dishes and pans were flying around the kitchen and that _____ wasn’t doing it!
We went to the scene immediately and all was quiet! The girl was quiet and attentive during evening devotions, and we had her sleep on a cot in a long, narrow room with a wide board floor, which we used as our storeroom. It wasn’t wired and she used a candle for light. It had one window and opened to the patio, as did the parlor where we were working. About the time we judged she should have fallen asleep a thunderous sound was heard in her room, like a number of horses galloping. I walked to her door, opened it - all was quiet and dark; but I seemed to feel some strange presence in the very air there. _____ was awake and told me the demons were there. She said they often pulled out her pillow from under her head and molested her in various ways to waken her after she had fallen asleep. I stayed until she slept again and do not recall that anything further happened that night.
Once I watched as she sat on a backless bench reading. Some unseen force suddenly tilted it and she fell sprawling on the floor. Another time she sat folding tracts in our company. While her two hands were occupied in folding one, a whole roll of them went flying across the room. While she helped weed our garden at the back of the house, she cried out that someone was throwing stones at her. None hit me and we couldn’t see any little boys around.
Another evening while we were kneeling in prayer in the same closed room with tight ceiling, suddenly handfuls of dank-smelling dirt fell under the chair where she was kneeling, and we knew she had no large pocket in which to carry all of that. At various times, dishes and pots continued to fly about in the kitchen, but never when we were present. Neither did any of the flying objects ever hit me, though the servant was struck as well as _____.
All this time we were dealing with _____ about the Gospel message, the real and awful character of these demons which were troubling her, and about her need of the Saviour. To a certain extent she seemed to understand, but it was also plain that she enjoyed the antics of the demons and also the attention from people because of their strange manifestations. This got her into serious trouble once while with us. I had taken her with me to the kitchen, where we poured a large quantity of whole wheat on the table and began to pick it over in preparation for toasting for cereal. As she stood there working, she began to giggle and stamp and slap herself.
“The demons are here tickling me, pulling my hair and bothering me,” was her explanation.
I sternly urged her to rebuke them in Jesus’ name, rather than play with them, saying it was dangerous to do so, but she kept on as before. Then I said that if that night the demons scared her in the darkness of her room, I would not sit with her, as I had made a habit of doing whenever they came around, but that she would have to face them alone. (A curious thing we observed at that time was that if we stayed with her until about midnight the demons didn’t return any more that night).
She looked at me unbelievingly, but I purposed to keep my threat. We had prayer together as usual, then each went to her room. When lights were out and all was quiet I stood at my window, opening upon the patio, and listened. Sure enough, one moment one could hear praying out _____ loud (after a fashion), the next she was scolding the demons and bidding them depart. This went on for some time, then an awful crash-bang! She screamed and we wondered what could have happened. I couldn’t go to her, but _____ went to see. After a while, she came back to say she had found the folding chairs and some suitcases, stored at the opposite end of the long room, on top of and around _____’s bed with the girl still lying in it. _____ put things back in place, then returned to her own room. But hardly was she back in bed when we heard another big crash. _____ went again, then called to me that I must come to see this. Curious, I went, and found some eight folding chairs crisscrossed in orderly fashion on top of the girl in bed. She couldn’t have had time to place them there herself, nor would it have been possible to do so lying underneath them. On that occasion we distinctly felt something “electric” and hostile in the air, and _____ had a very strange look in her eyes. When we spoke of the power of sin and of the Devil, she asked in a mocking sort of way, “What is sin?”
We definitely prayed for her then, but she did not want to pray for herself, and we felt that she did not want to be delivered from these powers which were giving her such interesting experiences. The last noteworthy event happened two nights before she left us. Missionaries who knew her arrived after _____ was in bed, while I was sitting beside her reading the Word and praying before she fell asleep. Hearing them come into the house, I left the room hurriedly in order to greet them. After not more than five minutes I went back to find the room in darkness, furniture overturned, and a coat of dirt with the smell of a closed cellar covering her bed and the floor. This I found after relighting the candle. Again she said the demons had been there. At this point, the visiting missionary wife came in to greet _____ and we stood by the bed talking to her.
After a few minutes we both turned to leave and suddenly found ourselves doused with another shower of that bad-smelling dirt! I know it was real dirt, for I found it in my hair and down my neck afterwards. Later that night a large stone fell with a thud in the room, and in such a place that one couldn’t explain from what angle it could have been thrown to enter by the only door or opening which the room had, and we know there were no prowlers in the house.
_____ was determined to go with our guests when they left two days later, and we regretfully saw her go without being delivered from the demons.
There was a conference of native churches in Cucuta, Notre deSantander, Colombia, in July, 1942, or 1943, at which missionaries of other societies besides TEAM were present, together with believers of their own groups. Among these were a few from El Cocuy, Boyaca.
I was in the chapel one afternoon session when a message came that I was needed in the house where meals were cooked and served to those who attended the conference.
Going over, I found great consternation among the Colombians in the house. A rather young, rosy-cheeked mountain woman from near El Cocuy was in a terrible frenzy, struggling to get out of the grip of her husband and another man, who had all they could do to hold her where she stood between them. This particular woman had sat near me during the morning session and gave every evidence of being perfectly normal; although very shy in the unaccustomed surroundings. What had come over her in a few short hours? I was told that after the noon meal her husband was asked to butcher a sheep out in the back yard to provide meat for the next meal, and as this woman watched the procedure she had gone suddenly berserk. Her continuous cry was, “Oh, the blood! The blood! We have been brought here to be killed just as this poor sheep has been killed! We are going to be killed by these people!” She kept ranting about the blood spilled and nobody could convince her that the native Christians were not going to die in the same way. When she saw me draw near, her screams became louder and my words were not heard.
Presently her own missionary, Mrs. Andrew Larson, whom she knew well, came and tried to calm her. But again we noticed that at the sight of missionaries she seemed to grow worse and continually accused us as would-be murderers, all the time struggling to free herself from those who held her. Her husband was in agony and said he couldn’t imagine what had come over her, that she had never before had such an attack. Different ones began to pray in little groups about the house, but her screams continued. Someone brought in a man who tried to give her a shot to quiet her nerves, but he found it impossible to administer it as she lay kicking on the floor, and he finally gave up.
Curious crowds gathered, filling the house, the windows and doors, and the whole neighborhood was talking about what was happening among the evangelicals. Word was sent to those in the chapel, and the services were suspended while they all went to prayer. The woman’s craze went on unabated for hours and she never seemed to spend her strength. All the time prayer was going on too.
Somehow, supper was served to the others and we began to gather for the evening service.
During the opening exercises, word was sent to us that the woman had ceased screaming and struggling and had fallen into a quiet sleep. When she awoke she told her husband that she felt she had been under an influence and power outside of herself, but apparently she was not aware of all that she had done and said. When they left for home the next morning she was perfectly sane, and has remained so all the years which have followed.
It was felt that this was a direct satanic attack to try to bring the evangelical cause into disrepute at a time when God’s blessing was very manifest in the large group of Christians assembled. It was prayer, and only prayer that got the victory and the child was completely delivered from the evil spirit which had attempted to use her as an instrument to thwart Gospel blessings.
TEAM Miss Cora Soderquist Ocano, Colombia, South America