We had been watching a programme on the TV that was the
coverage of a big healing service that was somewhere in Africa. It was a huge event and we saw a lot of
people being healed. It was fascinating
because it was so dramatic and un-English.
The problems were perhaps the same; priest who has bad knees tot eh
extent that he cannot go to the toilet unaided; woman who doesn’t love her
husband and has no feelings towards him but it was very dramatic. Bandages were waved about, woman now relaxed
and happy next to her non-communicative husband.
I asked Dawit if he thought these were genuine and he said
he did. This prompted a big discussion
about the whole topic – is it made up? People believe anything etc. But we were all intrigued and said that we would
like to go to a healing service. So
Dawit arranged for us to go to one.
It started at 2 and for the first hour or so there was a lot
of singing and prayer. It was all in
Amharic and so we couldn’t understand what we being said but we just thought
about things in our own way. Dawit
translated as best he could and I whispered into the ear of Martin and then
whispered to Fran. After a long while,
Martin nipped out for a fag and so missed the entrance of the leader
himself. He was a charismatic and
commanding figure and he started to prophesise straight away. “There is someone who can’t sit still and has
a problem with cigarettes”. Dawit
translated for me. “Is that
Martin?!” I said “It sounds like it”
said Dawit “Did you tell him?” I asked - was my first thought as Dawit had been
on a prayer retreat the previous week.
It seemed incredible that he would choose Martin but Dawit insisted that
he had said nothing.
Martin was called back and stood up in front of the
crowd. It was a rabbit in the headlines
moment. Dawit translated. “How are you feeling?” The man asked “Here?” He pointed to his heart. “Fine.“ said Martin with a self-conscious
giggle. “You have an addiction to
smoking” the man continued. “In 2 years 3 months you will have a big operation. You will have a scar from here to here.” He made an imaginary cut from the top of his
chest to his stomach. “I can pray with
you and deliver of your addiction” He said.
Martin clearly didn’t know what to do or say to this and the man told
him to “sit down and pray to be open to God” and so that’s what he did.
With Martin sat down, the man continued, and a long list of
people came up and were healed. Someone
stood up and was trying to edge out of the room, but like the unwitting target
of the man going to the toilet during a stand-up comic’s act, the man pounced
on him and told him about his business problems and a man named …… and so he
got a healing as well. After another
couple of hours Martin dared to go outside for another cigarette and meanwhile
the prophecies and healings continued. I
have been to a number of healing services and they are mostly like this but
this is Africa and there is a heavy dependence of witchcraft and there were a
lot of people with problems related to their involvement.
Towards the end people were called up for healing of
sickness so I went up and asked for a healing for my arthritis and Dawit went
up for a pain in his chest. As I said I
have been to a number of healing services like this and was not fazed at all by
people crying and falling over. But what
was different was that he used a mike and did a lot of blowing out of air which
sounds really loud through a mike and he poked people’s stomachs. He did this to me and also gave a little slap
on my chest, just below my throat and blew on my face which is kind of
startling.
We had been there for 6 hours and most people had been
prayed for we were waiting for him to return to Martin. Finally he said that he hadn’t prayed for him
because he went out for a smoke and was not listening to the message. He then then called out to him “God loves you
and he has saved you for many car accidents.”
Martin then says “Oh yes that’s true – we were in a near miss accident
just after arriving in Ethiopia!”
However Martin had made his choice and so we left, all feeling a little
strange and made our way back in record time from Addis to Nasret and were very
quiet in the car.
I wold like to say that I woke up with no pain in my hands
the next morning but that wasn’t the case.
However, I have reduced the steroids by half and am only taking one
other painkiller instead of three with no difference in the pain level so maybe
it is just a matter of time. I don’t
know how these things work!
Martin had his last cigarette outside our hotel room that
night and he has not smoked since, that’s 6 days.
So please keep us
both in your thoughts and prayers x
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