Christ and magic

Amazing things are happening in the Congo; but they are happening. I have transcribed and put on paper and send to you what was told with simplicity and sincerity to a large audience in the lecture hall at the Mission in Kananga by the clergyman Fr. Muamba. They are authentic and delicious! “In 1996 I went on a mission trip to Dimbelenge, accompanied by a boy chanter from the Kananga Mission Centre and another boy who joined us on the road. When we arrived, we met the old believers I had baptized last year and some who were waiting to be baptized now. They gave us a house to spend the days we would be staying with them. Among those waiting to be baptized was a man who magically sent lightning and had already killed many people. The traditional village chief had punished him by forbidding him to drink water from the river in the Mukamba area. I baptized those who were waiting for baptism and among them was this magician. In the evening I kneaded and left the offering for the next day’s Mass. The three of us went to sleep.

Around 4 in the morning a strong wind started blowing which made the whole house shake. I jumped out of sleep and heard the two children – my companions – crying and shouting: – Father, we are dying, come and save us! I could hear the children but I could not move and I could not reach the children’s room. I knew I was alive because I could feel my head. But the whole body was paralyzed. I had with me a cross that the late Fr. Chariton once gave me in Chikamba. I had placed it on the table since the evening. I thought of taking it and praying. But I could not stretch out my hand. The children kept crying louder. I barely brought my hand over my leg, made the sign of the cross and realized I could move. I sat on the bed with my legs dangling but the wind was blowing me from one wall to the other of the room. With difficulty and flailing back and forth I walked out of the room, crossed to the porch where I saw my motorcycle lying discarded, overturned on the edge of the porch and headed for the children’s room. I went in, grabbed them by the hand, their clothes were torn off, almost naked, they were vomiting and had diarrhea. It was about 6 o’clock in the morning. There was a night watchman inside the yard of the house who resides with his entire family in a house on the same property. He had heard what was happening in our house but could not approach us for help. I took the kids outside and told them to stay on the porch and I went back inside the house. I started calling the guard by name. Eventually he arrived. “Don’t you understand anything that’s going on?” I asked him. “Do you understand what’s been going on all morning?” “I heard it all,” he said, “but I couldn’t find the strength to come to you.” I begged him to go and call some of my relatives living in this area and the devotees. In the morning I had to celebrate the Mass. Many believers came and some of them told me: “All that happened at night is because you baptized yesterday, the leader of the ‘thunderbolts’. His friends thought: “We will now tempt and test the one who baptized our leader.” I went out for a moment outside the place where I was about to celebrate Mass. Some believers and some unbaptized villagers said to me, “They wanted to kill you, but they did not succeed.

We too believe that your God is Mighty, the True God. So we ask that you baptize us too, all of us.

I baptized them. And the leader of the lightning bolts was strengthened even more that our God is the True God. I finished the journey and returned to Kananga. When I was about to make the next journey, the Bishop gave me a Cross saying: “when you arrive, you will throw this Cross into the local river and tell the devotees to swim to find it and bring it to you.” At this word of mine many believers fell into the river to find the Cross. The one who found it and brought it to me was the leader of the thunderers, whom I had baptized on the previous trip. I returned to Kananga. On the Easter holidays, some Dibelenge believers and among them the leader of the thunderbolts came to celebrate at the Mission Center . I presented to the Bishop the believer who found the Cross and the Bishop gave him a gift. He used to walk barefoot, now he started wearing shoes. He also began to drink water from the river forbidden to him.”

† Ignatius the African centrist