Spiritual warfare prevents an epidemic: a story

Mozambique, in the year 2000.

 Photo Credit: babasteve (Creative Commons)

Half the country is under water because of massive flooding. We are working with Rolland and Heidi Baker doing medical relief work. (Tony and Rolland went to school together, so when news of the floods come, it’s a natural reaction to go help.) A team consisting of the two of us with about 10 young people including our two teenagers have arrived by land rover at an inaccessible refugee camp in the middle of nowhere. It’s late afternoon.

A man in ragged clothes addresses us.

“I’m the Red Cross worker. I’ve seen three cases of cholera today.”

We ask him to describe the symptoms. It certainly sounds like cholera. The nature of an epidemic is three cases today, twenty tomorrow, and a hundred the day after that. And we are responsible for the health, not only this team of young people, but the refugees in the camp. Neither of us has ever seen a case of cholera.

The man offers to take us to his Red Cross tent. “It’s just over there,” he says.

After about 10 minutes walking, we come to the camp’s water supply. It’s a hole in the ground filled with muddy water. People are dipping plastic containers into it and drinking it. We are horrified. No wonder everyone has intestinal problems. Another thirty minutes of weaving through makeshift huts brings us to his army style tent. He has one cot, a plastic bucket filled with water from the well and a box of packets of rehydration fluid. Not a dressing, an aspirin or an antibiotic or antimalarial in sight.

Arriving back at our own tents, we ponder what to do. It’s clearly a dangerous situation. We have a limited supply of drugs we’ve brought with us–certainly not enough to cope with a cholera epidemic.

We remember a story from the Old Testament. The story comes in Numbers 16 and is the story of Korah’s rebellion. After the rebellion, the people get angry with God for destroying Korah and his allies, and God sends a plague. But Moses tells Aaron to take a censer filled with burning coals out among the people , standing between the living and the dead and so the plague stopped.

We send our team out to pray over the tents in the camp. They are to pray to stop the plague of cholera. Using spiritual weapons, we stand in faith for the health of the camp. This isn’t a pleading with God, “Please God, don’t let people catch cholera.” This is claiming protection in Jesus’ name, using the authority he has won for us to stand against the powers of darkness.

We don’t see a single case of cholera during the two to three days we are there.

I remember clearly our last evening there. We are cooking supper over a gas burner. As dusk falls, a line of women comes dancing towards us, singing praise songs in that hauntingly beautiful harmony that is so typically African. They have become Christians during our time with them.  A church has started in this camp. Rolland and Heidi will send one of their trained pastors to help them.

Spiritual warfare has prevented an epidemic.

What other areas does spiritual warfare address?