on Ghana

“And many that believe came, and confessed, and showed their deeds” (Acts 19:18).


We were witnesses to one of the greatest events in the entire universe! Over 115 people gave their lives to Jesus through baptism, and we stood rejoicing on the beach, singing hymns, praying, and praising God for these young students’ decisions to follow Christ. All heaven rejoiced with us.

The devil, on the other hand, was not rejoicing. Suddenly, unexpectedly, we heard piercing screams. Just twenty feet away from us, one of the students was flailing in the sand—tossing and turning, shouting , screaming, tormented and tormenting. An evil spirit had possessed her.

Shocked and motionless, we stood there, watching her writhe on the sand. The girl got up and started running towards the ocean – towards us! The spirit was trying to drown her in the water and we were in the way. Most of the people got out of the way, but I stood there unable to move. I bowed my head and prayed, “Lord Jesus, heal her of this spirit!”
The girl was now only a few feet away, and I braced myself for impact. Just then the school Chaplain tackled her, knocking her to the ground and holding her there as she fought to free herself. “

This is Africa,” they told me. “These things are commonly seen here.”

If you had told me before I went to Ghana that I was going to encounter demon possession, I might have reconsidered going. But I didn’t know. I was just excited about this opportunity to preach the gospel. For a long time I have wanted to develop my preaching skills, and this trip provided just the opportunity I needed.

After landing safely in Accra, we were exhausted. Once settled into the hotel, I slept all night. I didn’t suffer from jet lag, since I hadn’t slept a wink on the plane. Morning came soon enough. Kimmy, Marcia and I split off from the rest of the group and headed to Sedass Adventist High school in Ogona-Swedro, a little town about 18 kilometers north of Winneba.
Most of the roads we traveled were not bad, but the last few kilometers of the journey we had to drive at speeds that made walking look fast. We arrived at Sadass after dark. The students were already assembled on the second floor of the building. We could hear them singing. It was time to meet “our” group.

Marcia stood first, grabbed the microphone, and said, “Hello everyone!” The entire school erupted with laughter. They had never heard anyone talk so oddly in their entire lives. Kimmy was next, and the same thing happened. They mimicked our accents and giggled conspiratorially with the friends next to them. Even I had to laugh. English may be Ghana’s “official” language, but the students learn it from generations of teachers for whom it is not a “first language.” Not only this, but the textbook English they study originated in old England, and not in America. To their ears, our informal American English really does sounded strange.

I was next. Thankfully I was last. They had gotten most of their surprised laughter out of the way by the time I took the microphone. But as I preached that night, I knew they were not getting the message.

“You will have to slow way down if you want to be understood,” I was told. So I preached more slowly than I had ever preached in my entire life. Things improved as the week went on, but in the beginning I was boring myself, trying to make it so the students could understand. In fact, it wasn’t until Tuesday that the students actually started paying attention and understanding more of what I was saying. Up until then they “heard,” and they did take some notes, but the events of that Tuesday changed the course of the week.

I was preparing in my room that afternoon when I noticed black thunderclouds heading our way. I love a good storm but this was huge. Wind whipped the raindrops against the windows, thunder crashed, and lightning streaked down relentlessly for half an hour. I had a feeling that I knew what the devil was planning.

On past mission trips when I have spoken about the great controversy, the devil has always turned off the power. This happened in the Philippines, Russia, Honduras and even several places in the States. This Tuesday night in Ghana would be no different.

At the school we climbed out of the car. The power was on, but the instant we set foot on the building (it's not finished yet so there is no "in" the building) the power cut off. No lights. No sound. Nothing. I was not surprised. Some traditions must be kept in every country. I made up my mind that the program would continue even without power. Even so, I knew it was not going to be easy speaking to eight hundred people without amplification.

We sang songs. We prayed. We sang again and prayed again. I stepped to the back to see how the volume was. I could just see myself getting home without a voice.

We asked the students to pray individually for the various prayer requests, including the need for power. I expected a moment of silence, but the students took this to mean that they were to pray out loud in groups of two or three. As these earnest prayers were ascending to the throne of grace, the devil couldn't keep the power off. The electricity turned on and each one realized the power of God.

Seeing first hand that prayer has power over the devil was the tipping point of the week. When I made a call for those dealing with “spiritual issues” (code for demon possession), over 100 people came forward asking for God’s power to heal their lives. That night a group of students decided they would pray several times throughout the night, each night, so that God’s power would keep back the spirits.

The meeting ended and the students were dismissed. No sooner had they gotten to their dormitories than the devil started working. He was angry. The spirits visited the dormitories that night and possessed several of the girls. The devil was fighting a losing battle, but he was not going to give up without a fight.

The next day my faith was tested beyond what it had ever been before. Kimmy and I were sitting in Pastor Richard’s office when he handed me a notebook and told me to look in it. It was full of demonic pictures and the text was written backwards, like you would expect it to be if you saw it in a mirror. Reading it was creepy. In her right mind, the writer had no idea about this notebook, but now the girl walked in, possessed by this evil spirit, and demanded to have the book back. She snatched the book out of Kimmy’s hands and hugged it to her body. The pastor began to pray.

As Pastor Richard prayed, the student became violent and struggled to get away. The pastor and another chaplain held her down. The girl’s Pentecostal parents had been invited to meet with us, and they began chanting. That was just as scary as what we were witnessing in the girl. They kept chanting while the pastor was praying. Kimmy and I were rooted to our chairs, afraid to keep our eyes open and scared to keep them closed. You could feel the evil in the room, hovering around. The spirit did not leave immediately. The girl was not set free until a later prayer session which took place after we had left the room.

That evil feeling stayed with me all day. I didn’t know why I couldn’t shake it. I knew I loved Jesus. I knew that my sins were forgiven. But the more I prayed that day, the more frightened I became. I didn’t sleep all that night. I sat in the chair and jumped at every click of the air conditioner. I felt awe and amazement that I was witnessing the Great Controversy in action.

Thursday morning I still had “that feeling”, and I was very tired. After the morning meeting I talked with Pastor Richard about what I had experienced. His words were just what I needed to hear. “The spirits have no power over the one who is in Christ” he said. “They can scare us and let us know they are around, but they can’t touch us.” This gave me the peace of mind I needed.
We headed back to the hotel. I grabbed a book from my room, locked the door and went to see Kimmy and Marcia. There, I actually fell asleep in my chair—the first real sleep I’d had since the terrors of the day before. By the time I woke up, it was time to get ready to leave, so I headed back to my room, unlocked the door, and started changing my clothes. Turning around, I looked at my bed. There written on my white sheets in ink from my blue pen were words I didn’t understand. It was enough to put me on my knees.

“Jesus, the devil is trying to scare me and it’s working,” I prayed. “But I won’t change my message, because you are more powerful than the devil. He can scare me but he can’t control me.” I actually became so angry with Satan that I thought I would get him back as soon as I entered the pulpit. But not before I had my sheets changed.

I headed to the meeting that night with renewed peace in Jesus. When I made the appeal for baptism, people started coming forward. I made several calls and by the end we had a total of 73 giving their lives to Jesus. I stood there amazed at the power of the Spirit to change the hearts of these kids, many of whom were fighting very hard against the power and possession of Satan.

Sabbath after church we piled into the vehicles and made our way to the beach. There we met our friends who had conducted a similar series of meetings in Winneba. People lined up along the sandy beach. The hot sun tanned their already black skin while burning mine. I hardly noticed. One by one the students walked into the water and committed their lives to Jesus through baptism. Heaven was rejoicing. The devil was angry.

Suddenly, a spirit took over a young girl just as she had entered the water. She took off for dry land, screaming and yelling. People moved aside to let her pass. Just a few moments, and her screams became mute. After the baptisms were over, the pastors went to her and brought her down to the water. Because she had made the decision for Jesus at the school when she was in her right mind, they were going to baptize her. She struggled the entire way and it took four of them to get the job done. But when she came up out of the water, the spirit had left her and she laid on the sand, unconscious.

That’s when another spirit took control of her. She flailed in the sand. When she got up and charged towards the water I knew we couldn’t let her get there, but I was thankful that the chaplain tackled her before she got to me.

We gathered around the struggling girl and sang hymns. We prayed one by one that she would be freed. When the pastor reached out to grab her hand, new life flowed through her veins and she stood up from her previously unaware state. We sang again and praised the Lord for His mercy and grace in delivering her from the power of Satan.

The power of God is much greater than any other power. I now know that with His help I can meet any circumstance the devil throws my way. If He can save others in Africa, He can save us here in the US. If He can show His power to them, He can show it to us too. I’ve determined to be faithful no matter what happens.


“So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed” (Acts 19:20).

on Skeletons From the Past

Seventh-day Adventism in visible origin is a white, Anglo church. We see this by looking at its founders and early leaders. However, the theological foundation upon which the church was built is anything but Anglo; Truth by nature is culturally blind. As this Truth spread across cultural boundaries, the diversity of its believers increased and subsequently, the church set up different institutions to handle this diversity.

Broadview Swedish Seminary was founded in 1909, Clinton German Seminary in 1910, and Danish-Norwegian Seminary in 1911.[1] The purpose of the seminaries was not to separate immigrants from American-born church members or to single out ethnic groups, but to accelerate the immigrants’ assimilation into English-speaking America. These institutions had served their purpose by and were each closed or merged in the 1920s.[2] The result was an increase of ethnic diversity in the early, non-segregated Seventh-day Adventist church.

We can see today that the Adventist church has taken the gospel commission to heart because no other denomination, except for Jehovah’s Witnesses, can match Adventism’s degree of inclusion. The church can claim a presence in practically every country of the world. Jesus Himself envisioned a church that was multi-racial. He gave us the great gospel commission of Matthew 28:19, to “Teach all nations, baptizing them…” The result of fulfilling His commission is a church made up of all ethnicities.

With men and women of more cultures joining the incipient Adventist church, however, a new problem manifested itself—racism. Unfortunately, during the early years of Adventism, racism was not just a sociopolitical problem. It was also rooted in the hearts of church members. Divisions over color have proven to be one of the greatest obstacles this church has ever faced.

For example, in 1906 a group of black students from Oakwood College, a denominational school for blacks, were invited to a small Adventist church in Alabama to share a Sabbath program with the predominantly white congregation. The students arrived at the church and found a roped-off section where they were to sit. But the section couldn’t hold them all, so some found seats among the white members of the church. This mingling created a major problem for the deacons, who tried to usher the students out. One account of the story notes that when the students refused to leave the church, an elder pulled out a gun and declared: “I’ve got six bullets here and they all say nigger on them.” The minister’s wife began to cry. “We love you niggers,” she said, “but we just don’t want you to sit with us.”[3]

By 1944, the African-American Adventist population stood at nearly 18,000[4] but was still virtually unrepresented in the administration and institutions of the church. Around this time, Lucy Byard, an African-American Adventist from New York, became ill. The Washington Sanitarium refused to admit her because she was black, and the delay in treatment led to her unnecessary death. Adventist hospitals were not the only discriminatory institutions, however; many Adventist schools segregated blacks and others barred black students completely.

Demands for integration in Adventist medical, educational, and administrative institutions were not met. Instead, the General Conference offered a conference structure exclusively for blacks.[5] There now exist nine regional conferences around the United States.

The American Seventh-day Adventist church is not alone in suffering the effects of racism. Adventists in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Croatia have struggled with strong feelings of prejudice and racial and national pride and have bought into the solution of segregated conferences and churches so people of one race or color do not worship with their brethren of another.

Today, American society has largely recovered from, though not eradicated, the problems of inequality confronted in the Civil Rights era. But what about the church? Are we working towards racial integration? Or do we continue to faithfully, unquestioningly separate ourselves in matters of worship? Is racism still a problem demanding separate conferences or are we just clinging to the skeletons of past generations’ mistakes?

In 2009, a group of black Adventist students attending a secular, predominantly Afrikaans university in South Africa were asked by their white brethren to help run an evangelistic literature store near the institution. However, the white organizers never allowed the two races to work together but gave the black students different working days and hours. When the black students invited the same white students to their outreach activities on campus the generosity was not reciprocated. As one student commented, “It seems the legacy [of apartheid] far exceeds the Love of Christ.”[6] Now, non-Adventists on the campus are noticing and asking questions about the Adventist church’s practice of segregation. Racism and segregation are impeding the Adventist ministry at the university.

Yes, racism is a problem, but such incidents as that above illustrate that segregation has not solved it. Separate conferences and churches that segregate worshippers based on the color of their skin are counterproductive to the gospel. Separate conferences do not exist because of differences in musical tastes, preaching methods, or worship styles. They exist because of the inequality and injustice in which the church passively took part. But the church doesn’t have to continue ignoring the issue.

Adventism has a history of inclusion dating back to the early 1900s when American immigrants first accepted the Three Angels Messages and joined the church. Why should the church accept anything less than the Biblical ideal now? When Christ prayed in John 17, He asked God to unify His followers. The phrase that is repeated five times in four verses is “that they may be one.” (John 17:11, 21-23)

So how can we help address this issue and bring about change within Adventism? How can we achieve racial unity and inclusiveness? There are a few ways to help.

Some churches have been involved in “unity Sabbaths,” during which black and white congregations join together for worship. Change will not occur overnight, but when churches participate in these special Sabbaths they help to facilitate an environment for change to take place. Ask your pastor if your church can be involved in a “unity Sabbath.”

The Desegregation Project is an initiative designed by young people to create awareness of the racial climate of our world church. Its leaders have been looking for testimonies, experiences, and stories about segregation and desegregation to compile into a book and to produce a documentary. Share your experience with them at desegregationproject@gmail.com. The more people who participate in projects like this one, the more effective the projects will be.

Some have suggested writing letters to our leadership, asking them to reevaluate segregation in the church. The sacrifice and commitment of our church leaders, combined with support from the laity, are the fundamental forces that will bring about true racial inclusion.

Most importantly, it is time for church members to earnestly begin praying for the church. There is still much pain and sensitivity over this issue, and many do not know exactly what steps to take to unite racially-divided conferences. Only by the direction of the Holy Spirit can we ever expect to achieve true reconciliation within Adventism. Prayer is the most instrumental tool in accomplishing any goal.

Prejudice is a contradiction to everything for which the gospel stands; this is why the church must revisit the issue of segregation and facilitate racial healing among members of the body of Christ. Only then can we see Christ’s prayer for unity answered to its full extent. “…Unity is a convincing proof that God sent His Son into the world to save sinners.” (18MR 190) True Christian unity will tell in a powerful way “that those who possess it are children of God.” (ST Feb. 7, 1900)

---

[1] Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia, vol. 10, 251, 383, 730.

[2] Review, May 20, 1913, 59-62,

[3] These quotes have been taken from a story published in the Pacific Union College student newspaper. Lee Mellinger, “Racism? Not Here! Not Now!” Campus Chronicle, February 18, 1982.

[4] Malcolm Bull, Keith Lockhart, “Seeking A Sanctuary” Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1989.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Sihle Khanyile, email correspondence, May 11, 2009.

on Homeless

Downtown. Cars honking. Pedestrians crossing. Surprisingly warm. Whoa, windy. Cold. Lost. Really? GPS. Working? No. Yes. Um... "Go 416 feet and make a u-turn." What happened to the walking setting?

"Excuse me sir." Oh boy... "Sir, Jesus Christ sent me here to tell you that He loves you."

How can I get out of this?

"How do I get to GRCC?"

"You know, you might not be walking according to everything you know is true. The devil is clouding your mind so that you cannot see things clearly but God sent me here to tell you that you need to guard your mind."

Did he just ignore my questions?

"I'm Joseph." Eye contact. Swollen and cloudy.

"I'm Daniel." Hand shake. Cold skin.

"Daniel, Jesus is coming soon and you need to be ready for His coming. Because He's coming as a judge. I don't know if you're mad at God or not or what your situation is but He's coming very soon to talk us back to heaven with Him.

"I know." Look past. Group sitting on park bench. Talking. Laughing. Look back. Shake head

Might be here a while...

Listen to him Dan. The Holy Spirit might be speaking through him!

"Daniel, I'm homeless. No place of my own. But I'm happy. I love life because I know Jesus. When you go home tonight and are laying down on your bed think about what I'm saying to you."

Not your typical homeless person.

Keep listening! This is for you.

Here goes nothing.

"Jesus takes care of me. He knows my heart. He's given me boldness to be able to talk to people like you. We've never met. I don't know if my situation will ever get better but the Lord knows my heart and I'll serve Him no matter what.

"The Lord knows that I love people and that's why I came to talk to you today. I gonna tell you straight. The devil will do everything he can and throw difficulties your way and the Lord will even allow it to happen. Just stay faithful! He's testing your faith.

"Jesus is coming very soon."

"Thank you for talking to me, Joseph. I appreciate your willingness to be used by the Lord. I believe what you've told me today is true and the Lord used you to encourage me today. Thank you."

"Alright man. Be faithful."

"Hey, How do I get to GRCC?"



Within the last year Grand Rapids estimated a homeless population of over 3,000 people. Some of them have jobs but can't afford housing. Others have nothing but the clothes they wear. Some have died in the snow. Some are driven place to place seeking shelter. Others have been helped by Guiding Light Ministries Homeless shelter which shares the gospel with anyone that comes into their grounds.

My conversation with Joseph was encouraging. The Holy Spirit spoke to me today through his words, "Don't give up. Keep pressing on."

Joseph and I area so different. Besides the fact that he is tall and I'm short, he's black and I'm white, I have a job, a car, food, shelter, clothing, even friends and family to fall back on in hard times while he has nothing but faith in Jesus. He believes that God will pull through when the time is right. "God knows my heart and He'll reward me in due time."

But in some ways Joseph and I are not that different. I recognize too, that I am homeless, a stranger and a pilgrim on this earth. Like Abraham of old I am looking for a home where God is the builder.

The Bible has promised that if we look for that heavenly home we will find it.

Hebrews chapter 11:8-10, 13-16 reads,

"By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God...

"...These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country... But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city."

Christians may be homeless on this earth but like my new friend says, "Jesus is coming back soon to take us to our real home."

I'm thanking the Lord for sending Joseph to me today because he helped paint the right perspective on life. God always pulls through at the right time.

Seeking my real home...