Mid-morning Theophilus and Pastor Gabriel picked us up again and drove us to the college compound. They led us to a large area where concrete had been poured for a foundation.

“G-d has so blessed and prospered me since you prayed for me,” Theophilus beamed, “I will now have my own office space.” Not quite remembering which prayer he was referring to he refreshed my memory: on my first visit to the College we all had assembled in his tiny office and I had prayed for G-d to bless Theophilus for his faithfulness and obedience and to give him larger quarters and office space.

So, one year later there we were, standing on the concrete foundation. Hallelujah! G-d had answered this prayer!

We passed the usual time of waiting for the customary meal, sitting in the grass and talking while people came up with prayer requests. Theophilus showed me their cattle and where they kept the calves when he brought in the oxen to feed.

To be sure, I was shocked!

There in the very hall where we had been having church and I had been preaching the Word of G-d and ministering, stood 4 calves mooing desperately between the benches, soiling the floor with their urine and excrement. 

I had to greatly restrain myself to hold back words of condemnation that were rising up within me, as Theophilus is of the most gentle, humble, kind and generous disposition. Simply out of plain ignorance, Theophilus chose the hall as a shelter for his calves, safe from the oxen. Gently I explained that the “pulpit” cannot reside with excrement as this defiles the meeting place. The Presence of the Holy Spirit cannot abide with animal feces.

He immediately understood and was cut to the heart, repenting. Since I hadn’t been there to preach for a whole year, he did not consider this area as a sacred place where the Holy Spirit would manifest. Theophilus solemnly promised he would not use this hall for the calves ever again.

Nevertheless I marveled at the Lord’s amazing grace, for the Holy Spirit had definitely anointed me when I preached there 2 days before.

Now that incredible rainstorm took on a different meaning. Rather than the devil trying to stop me from preaching, it may have been the Lord Who opened the windows of heaven on this particular place and removed all defilement. 

As we were about to leave after our meal, Pastor Gabriel walked up with a grandmother and her 10 year old grandson. He wanted me to pray for the boy, and explained that this boy had been “mentally challenged” and troubled by a demon every night since his birth. He earnestly besought me to deliver this boy. Pastor Gabriel believed that I could do just about anything, like Yeshua.

However, as I looked at the boy whose eyes were crooked I heard the Holy Spirit clearly say to me, “Do NOT touch this boy! You are not ready for him!”

“I am so sorry, Pastor Gabriel, but I cannot minister to this boy. I am not ready for him.”

At this, Gabriel implored and beseeched me with every means of persuasion at his command to take mercy on this boy and deliver him. I finally relented, moved by Gabriel’s compassion, and took hold of only the boy’s fingers.

I asked the Holy Spirit to show me what the problem was and how to pray. But all I was given to see was that the mother had conceived the boy under the influence of witchcraft, and given birth to him while sick with malaria. She had died from that disease and the boy was being raised by his grandmother. The particular demon troubling the boy was not revealed to me, as I was not then fully prepared for it.

Against my better judgment, I prayed nevertheless, being most uneasy because of the Lord’s warning.  I came against and rebuked what I saw, neither more nor less.

That night I awoke with symptoms of malaria, feeling hot and cold, shivering and trembling, with mounting temperature. This was frightening. But it couldn’t be Malaria as I was taking preventive medication. 

“O Lord, what is it?” I cried to Him. “I am so sorry I DID pray for this boy despite your warning. I couldn’t resist Pastor Gabriel and his compassionate begging for this boy. Please forgive me my disobedience, that I hearkened to Gabriel instead of to you.”

“Please!” I cried, “tell me what is troubling me?”

“The curse on the boy went into your body,” the Lord answered ever so quietly, “for your prayer was not a prayer of overcoming faith. But because of your compassion, being willing to put yourself at risk, nothing worse has happened to you.”

Then He said, “Remember what I taught you on ‘transference’ when Charlotte cried for help to you for her beloved ‘Mom’ Ruth?”

Oh yes, I remembered that one. Ruth was terribly sick from parasites and the doctors were at a loss where they came from and how to treat her condition. They gave her up as being incurable.

Firstly the Lord had shown me that the parasites were in her liver and spleen, and that they had been “transferred” into her from a demon-possessed young man on whose head she had laid her hands for deliverance. He got delivered in that these demonic parasites were transferred into Ruth, trying to kill her.

In the middle of the night the Lord had awoken me to learn about “transference”. With Bible, pen and notebook I went to sit outside under His starry skies. He took me to the story of the ax head that had fallen into the river Jordan. Elisha threw a stick in the place where the ax head had dropped, and the ax head came up and the stick went down. The weight of the ax head had been “transferred” into the stick, and the weight of the stick into the ax head²⁴ Elisha ministered the same principle at Jericho, where the water was undrinkable and made the land unfruitful. The impurity of the water was ‘judgded’by and ‘transferred’into the salt, and its purifying, preserving nature, sprinkled from a pure vessel, was “transferred” into the water²⁵. The same principle was at work with the poisonous pottage made harmless²⁶, and the waters of Marah made sweet by the tree Moses cast into the bitter waters²⁷.

But the greatest of “transference” was accomplished by Yeshua when He hung from a tree: the curses of transgression were transferred onto Him, and the blessings of righteousness onto us; our sins and guilt were transferred on Him, and His righteousness and sinlessness on us; our sicknesses, diseases, pains and afflictions were transferred onto Him, and His divine health, strength, peace and joy on us. 

And the Lord explained that the stick that Elisha used was cut from an almond tree, and so was the new bowl. The tree Moses cast into the bitter waters also was an almond tree, and the rod of Aaron that budded and bore fruit was an almond branch. 

“The almond tree stands for ‘judgment’,” He said. “By the almond tree the bitterness in the water was being ‘judged’ and it turned sweet. By My Son bearing all of mankind’s grief and sorrow, all their sin, guilt, transgressions, iniquties, sicknesses and diseases I ‘judged’ them in Him. The almond branch in the Ark of the Covenant speaks of Him.”

“Do what I taught you,” He said. Ruth got delivered and healed from the parasites by precisely 10 steps, but I did not have all these items at my disposal. Then the Holy Spirit instructed that a wooden cross, blessed salt, water and anointing oil would suffice.

When morning came I requested these 4 items. One of the Mamas ran home to bring me a small flask of anointing oil. Then she went to a neighbor and came back with a rosary. This would not suffice. She ran again and came back with a plastic crucifix. I laughed and told her that Yeshua did not hang from a plastic cross but from a crucifix of wood. 

“Just find some wooden sticks and bind them together into a cross,” I instructed. This is what the Bishop did, although they did not appear to be from an almond tree.

I asked him to bring those 4 items, and consecrated each according to what the Lord had taught me. I asked the Bishop to lay the cross on top of my body, to sprinkle me with the blessed salt and water from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, while I prayed simultaneously for the “transference” of that curse into that cross, for purification from the defilement and cleansing from all its effects. Then I asked the Bishop to mark crosses on me with the anointing oil on my forehead, my mouth, my chest, my belly, and my feet, and prayed the prayer of consecration and dedication.

All these prayers I spoke in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, by the authority of the Name of Yeshua.

To G-d be the glory! The deliverance was immediate! The fever, the hot and cold flashes, the shivering and trembling, all ceased! I was well!

We thanked God and rejoiced!

Of course, it was neither the wood, nor the salt, nor the water that delivered me. It was the faith in the atoning work of my Lord upon the cross, which effected the “transference”’ while employing those symbolic items.

I quickly learned that there are certain evil powers that will not come out except by prayer and fasting. I had indeed not been ready for the one in that boy!

Our excitement, however, was short-lived. The red spot in my axilla was now enlarged, swollen and had doubled, taking on the appearance of two lips. It was very painful. This was serious! How was I to take care of this phenomenon? To whom should I turn? I got on my knees. I knew exactly where to look for help…