Local Pastors
One of
those eateries
was run a by a young local man who identified himself as a pastor and introduced
us to a few of the other local pastors in town who spoke some English. As we got to know the local pastors, we did share with one what Kristin was dealing with and asked if
he would be interested in joining us in the spiritual battle. He readily agreed,
spent one late Sunday morning praying for and commanding the demons to come out of Kristin, and then
said that we should go in the afternoon to another local church, where he could
invite many other local
pastors to gather to pray and cast demons out of Kristin, so we
went.
Most of the gathered local pastors were young. We already had met some of them, but others were new faces. I joined the local pastors in a circle around Kristin, who was seated on a plastic chair, and they began to command the demons to come out of her. The room had four walls, each with large openings instead of windows, and all of us were soon drenched in sweat in the afternoon heat. After a couple of hours, I told the local pastor next to me that I am going to get some water for everyone, exited the church to go to the market, but was pleased to find at the first corner a woman selling bottles of water out of the basket on her bicycle handle bar , bought two bags of small water bottles, returned to the church, and found a sight that I didn't expect.
Kristin was on her knees on the floor with her arms raised. One of the local pastors was behind her and smacking her back with his hand, while another local pastor was in front of them taking pictures of her getting smacked. I shouted, "Hey! What are you doing!"
Everyone stopped, looked at me, looked away, and became silent. I put down the bags of water, ran over to Kristin, helped her off the floor and asked her if she was hurt. She said she wasn't but her eyes showed panic and bewilderment. I turned to the local pastor who had smacked her and yelled at him, "Why did you hit her?" He replied, "To get the demons out of her." When I asked him, "Where does the Bible say to hit anyone, especially a woman, to get the demons out?" he fell silent, took a step back and looked away.
I asked Kristin when they began to do this to her, and she said that it was as soon as I left. So I looked around at the local pastors and asked, "Why did you do this when I wasn't here?" No one answered and they all looked away or down. I then turned to the local pastor who had been taking pictures and asked, "And why did you take pictures?" He didn't answer, so I repeated the question louder, and he replied, "For our website."
Associating with Caucasians, especially Americans, is considered prestigious in Asia. That's why the Korean youth pastor had taken Kristin to Korea, why his "mentor pastor" had seated her next to him during his church's Christmas performance, and why these southeast Asian pastors wanted to post pictures of themselves beating demons out of a white woman, an American no less, on their website.
I was furious, looked around at the local pastors with a stare expressing it, told the one who had taken the pictures to delete them, and when he committed to doing so, took Kristin away from them. She later said the demons inside her were laughing when she was getting smacked.