(January 05) see website

Anyone out there believe in Sorcery? Demons? Satanic power? This story might challenge many of us with our worldviews:

A few weeks back I had a much-anticipated visit from Saleh, a converted Muslim sheikh. He shared with me his extraordinary story. He was born into a Christian family but educated away from home, and became a Muslim when he was 14-years-old. He was initiated into folk Islamic practices involving sorcery. The higher he rose in Islam, the more witchcraft he got caught up in. To obtain satanic powers, he engaged in bestiality, made evil potions, and created blood bonds with people (I'll spare the details!). He was able to woo almost any woman he wanted, and used his powers to bewitch a Christian lady in the church choir whom he married. She would pray for him, but he was always alerted through his satanic powers when she was praying, and would interrupt and warn her that he would kill her if she carried on.

He became very rich, because he could take whatever he wanted from shops by blinding the owners of the shops he visited. Indeed, my friend Lin, who led Saleh to Christ and who brought him along to see me, told me how they went shopping together and it was only long after leaving the shops that Lin's own eyes were opened to seeing all the stuff Saleh had stolen, so he had been blinded as well!  But Saleh was tormented by evil spirits (called jinn) at night. He talked of walking into the lake and travelling into another world where he would meet demons and do all sorts with them. On one occasion under the lake, the demons told him to rip up the Bible, which he refused to do, so the demons said he would die poor.

He returned to Bujumbura and his father prayed for him because he was particularly crazy/possessed after his under-lake-world experience. He rejected the exorcism and fled upcountry. But his interest in Christ and his confusion over Islam pushed him to investigate Christianity. He had a Jehovah's Witness friend, and when they met up the latter derided Christ ('Jesus was a sinner, he didn't even get married, what's so special about him then?'). That was on the Friday. The man dropped dead on the Sunday.  Saleh saw that his friend had cursed Jesus and then died a few days later, so Jesus must be very powerful. To cut a long story short, he asked for Lin's help. A team of people prayed and fasted for three days before exorcising all the demons in Jesus' name.

He was totally transformed. When the jinn appeared at night to threaten him, he rebuked them in Jesus' name and they have never returned. He went back to shops to make restitution for what he had stolen. That was five years ago.

Since then he has lost all his wealth, been ostracized and threatened, and now has a job as a primary school teacher earning just $20/month. He has memorized the Scriptures and is a man steeped in prayer. I asked him how it was to lose everything. He sighed, smiled and said: "Now I have peace in my heart. Jesus has set me free. That is worth more than all the wealth I had before."

He wants to go public with his story now he is more spiritually equipped and mature, and I asked him if he was willing to be killed if we went ahead and distributed tapes of his testimony, which will undoubtedly be circulated far and wide and have a massive impact. He said that first he would fast and pray for twenty one days to prepare himself for the inevitable battles which will ensue. He has a wife and three children to think of - he is taking huge risks, and it is not a decision taken lightly. Anyone out there want to be involved in our support of him?

Great Lakes Outreach (GLO) is a UK charity which works in partnership with several organisations in the Great Lakes region of Central Africa,  notably in Burundi. It was founded in 2003 by Simon Guillebaud, who has worked in the area since 1998, in response to the massive needs and huge potential impact of strategic involvement in cooperation with key partners. (website)