The following story is from a recent quarterly report from Mission ONE ministry partner, African Evangelical Christian Mission (AECM). AECM has a focus on evangelism and church planting in remote villages in the West African nations of Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo. One of their favorite ministry tools is the JESUS film.
The story below refers to Pastor One Day (yes, that is his real name). Pastor One Day is from a village that worshiped the python snake. This story speaks of an entire village being delivered from satanic oppression by the power of the gospel of Christ.
Top: Pastor One Day preaching the gospel. Middle: The crowd listening. Bottom: Dancing to the glory of the Lord.
The village of Vogan Kpedakondji is located at 60 km in the southeast of Lome (the capital city of Togo). It has about 400 inhabitants. It is a fetish village. They worship python that has a sign of “2 times 5” on his face. It’s easy to recognize the people of that village by this same sign on their face.
This last week of April, all the people of that area who have accepted Jesus, have given an appointment to celebrate and testify about the power and the greatness of our Lord. This evangelism celebration has lasted four days with messages, testimonies and film projections.
Pastor One Day, our regional representative of Notse is from that village. During his message, he declared: “I have lived in this area since my childhood, and I was lucky to know my grandfather who was a great fetish man. Many people from the village and from other places were involved in this practice. I was very closer to him and I was following all the practices. I used to see ministers, directors, generals, kings … who were coming for power. And which power? The one of Satan.
It’s so miserable to see those great men to come and park their beautiful cars and follow all the ceremony my grandfather was prescribing them. They were ready for any price. That’s why they brought goats, chickens, corns … My grandfather told us that the python is our grandfather so we should not kill them but take care of them. Every morning, we must take a python on the neck, sometimes, take in the pocket before we go to school. Our house was full of pythons. We were all obliged to have the sign of “2 times 5” on the face to show that we totally belong to that fetish so that it can protect us. What a pity, the ignorance kills.
Today we have received Jesus and we are children of the Most High. We have tasted His love, His power, His authority and His protection in our life. We preached Him and give testimony about Him everywhere we have the opportunity. We are very sorry to have been in those things and have their sign on our face. That’s why we are claiming loudly by calling all the population not to follow any more those practices and put those demonic signs on the faces of the children of the village. We are no more children of the snake but children of the King of Kings. We must emergency and immediately got out of the ancestral inheritance.”
We at Mission ONE praise God for our partnership in West Africa with AECM. Mission ONE President Bob Schindler was there in September; he accompanied AECM leaders as they visited several villages that had been impacted or transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. Bob also met Pastor One Day and heard his testimony.
It is good to be reminded of the words of Apostle Paul …
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek (Romans 1:16 ESV).
Would you like to know how you or your church can partner with AECM to share the life-transforming gospel of Jesus in remote villages of West Africa? Or perhaps you would consider serving as a Mission ONE Ambassador for AECM? To find out more, send me an email. Or check our Contact page. Thanks,
Werner Mischke
