Pentecostal Church
Hoping
for more Christians to join in
casting the demon out of Kristin, I searched online and found a Pentecostal church
in the city that was led by a young American and listed
"Deliverance" as one of its ministries. The phone number listed on
its website wasn't being answered and it was getting late, so we hopped into a tuk-tuk
and just headed to it,
hoping to find someone once we got there.
When we arrived at the Pentecostal church and exited the tuk-tuk, Kristin, who during the ride had been silent, which I later learned stemmed from her feeling very rejected by my mistaken words earlier, had trouble walking, so I supported her. She then suddenly curled into a fetal position and fell onto the pavement. Because my arm had been under hers to support her, I got pulled down and actually fell on top of her. When I stood up and asked her if she was okay, her eyes were closed, her left cheek was on the pavement, which she began to lick with her tongue.
I said to her, "What are you doing?" and quickly pulled her face away from the pavement, at which point she began shouting gibberish in a baby's voice, still with her eyes closed, and began flailing her arms and legs like a baby throwing a temper tantrum.
Shocked, I picked her up and carried her to the Pentecostal church's gate, where two young men rose from the cots on which they had been lying. When asked if they spoke English, one of them nodded his head. So I told him that Kristin is a missionary who needs help, and asked him to open the gate so that we can take her inside the church and pray for her.
They looked at Kristin flailing about and shouting gibberish with her eyes closed, and their eyes filled with fear. The one who had nodded that he spoke English said, "Just a moment," while the other made a call on his phone. I laid Kristin down on her back so that she won't be able to lick the pavement again, but her shouts of gibberish grew louder and rang out through the quiet street on which the Pentecostal church was located. Drawn by her noise, the locals began to come out of their homes and gather around us, so I pleaded with the two young men to please open the gate so that we can take her inside and wait there for whomever they were calling. But all I heard back were repetitions of "Just a moment."
Soon, the street in front of the Pentecostal church was filled with people. Lined up in front of and facing away from the church's gate as if to defend it were a handful of men who I presumed were the church members who live nearby. On the opposite side of the street and facing the church was a much larger crowd of the street's residents, invariably Buddhists, who had come out to see what the commotion was about, and to check out the white woman lying on the pavement, flailing her arms and legs, and shouting gibberish in a baby's voice.
A young local man arrived and identified himself as a deacon of the Pentecostal church, so I told him that Kristin and I are American missionaries, Kristin needs prayer, the Buddhist locals seeing her being locked out of a church run by an American pastor is bringing dishonor to their church, his pastor, and Jesus, and asked him to please open the gate so that we can take care of Kristin inside among Christians, away from the Buddhists. He replied that he didn't have the authority to open the gate and had to wait for an elder to arrive.
Upon arrival, the elder, a middle-aged local man, immediately ordered me, "Take this woman away!" I replied, "What? How can a Christian church tell a suffering missionary to go away? Please, let's take her inside and pray for her, at least until this crowd of Buddhists disperses. If she isn't helped by our prayers, then I will take her away."
He turned his back to me, made a call on his phone and walked away from me. I thought he was calling his American pastor but was mistaken. He had called the police, who arrived and ordered me to take Kristin away. I told them that we had nowhere to go, and then turned to the church members who had gathered in front of the gate, and yelled at them how it was possible that instead of praying for a missionary in need, they had called the police, and had done it in front of all these Buddhists? A tall young man in a red shirt among them began to cry; the rest of them looked scared, indifferent or annoyed, and said nothing.
Next to appear was an ambulance, which the police apparently had called. Without saying a word to me, the paramedics pulled out a wheeled stretcher, lifted and put Kristin on it, rolled her into the back of the ambulance, and one of the policemen ordered me to get into it as well. I sat down inside the ambulance and looked down at Kristin, who was strapped down and had her eyes closed but was still shouting gibberish in a baby's voice. I then looked out the window and saw the local men smirking while one of them pointed his finger at the Pentecostal church. As the ambulance pulled away, I felt Jesus' name and honor being dragged through dirt, and became furious at the Pentecostal church.
The ambulance took us to the country's best hospital, one that had been built by the French many decades earlier. Upon arrival in the emergency room, Kristin was unloaded and given an injection, probably a sedative, which knocked her out. For the next couple of hours, I sat next to her bed and kept an eye on her as she slept. Her face was caked with dirt, tears and disheveled hair, which I tried to clear away. I didn't know why she had behaved so bizarrely. What I did know was that that she is a courageous missionary who loves Jesus and was willing to serve Him where few missionaries wanted to go. She had been disowned by her parents, and now rejected by two 'Christian' churches. I felt so sorry for her, and decided that if nobody else would take care of her, I would need to.
The nurse eventually returned and told me to pay the bill and take Kristin home. I couldn't find a taxi so I put her in a tuk-tuk and held onto her, lest she falls out, during the open-air ride to the guest house, carried her up the stairs, put her to bed in her room, watched her for a while to make sure that she was breathing normally, and then returned to my room.