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When God Thwarted the Witch Doctor

I'd been drinking poison and didn't know it

by Jean S. Munro

The coffee tasted odd. But not odd enough to alarm me, so I drank it. I was living in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) at the time, working at a mission hospital in a remote corner of Shaba Province.

The coffee had been made using rainwater from the storage tank outside my kitchen door. I always used rainwater for drinking and cooking, since the tap water was pumped from the river and therefore was unfit to drink.

I had never had problems with the rainwater. At the start of each rainy season, the tank was thoroughly cleaned and the filter changed. The tank was then resealed, so that nothing could contaminate the water. The rainwater drained from the corrugated iron roof through the filter and into the tank.

In the kitchen, I had a large plastic container that we kept filled. I used water from that container to make coffee.

My evening coffee had a nasty taste, and I remembered that my dog and cat had been refusing to drink the water for days, preferring to quench their thirst with river water when the garden was hosed. I concluded that we had either used too much cleaning fluid to clean the container or had not rinsed it properly.

---

A local witch doctor was upset because
I was telling people about the true God.

---

Next morning, I threw out the rest of the water, rinsed the container, and refilled it. The coffee tasted even worse that afternoon.

We were almost at the end of the dry season and there wasn't much water left. Sometimes the rains came early, sometimes late, so I had no idea when the first rain would fall. I couldn't waste any more water, so I decided to drink what I had, despite its awful taste. Besides, I had other things on my mind.

Witch doctor's wrath
Mutengo, an African member of our staff, had told me I'd been bewitched! Apparently a local witch doctor was upset because I was telling people about the true God. This witch doctor was losing customers and influence, and had decided to kill me. I'm not afraid of witchcraft, because I know God can protect me from evil spirits. But, I suspected the witch doctor might plan an "accident" for me. To ignore such a possibility would be folly, so I kept my eyes wide open.

A few days later, my plastic container was empty, so I took it outside and turned on the tap. Yuck! The smell sent me reeling. I turned off the tap and reported the matter to the missionary in charge of maintenance.

"Impossible!" he exclaimed. "The whole thing is completely sealed. You're imagining things!"

To humor me, he came around and turned on the tap—and leapt back even faster than I had done. He climbed up a ladder to investigate—the seal, the filter, everything was absolutely as it should be.

He told me he would get somebody to open the tank and see what was wrong. So, I returned to the hospital.

Deadly drink
A short time later Mutengo rushed into the lab.

"You're going to die!" he shouted.

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"The witch doctor, he did bewitch you. He used the snake. Come back to your house at once." He rushed off.

Thoroughly mystified, I followed.

News travels fast in an African village, and when I reached my house I found a large crowd. Whether they were concerned for my welfare or anxious not to miss my demise, I wouldn't like to say.

Everybody started talking at once. It took me several minutes to find out the whole story.

When the men opened the tank, which had been sealed six months earlier, only a few inches of water remained. In the water lay the decomposing body of a large snake! Its poison sacs had burst releasing deadly venom into the water.

No one could explain how the snake got there—apart from witchcraft—since the tank was sealed.

"One glass of that water should have killed you," the head man told me. "Witch doctors frequently use that sort of snake, because it is so deadly. They just have to put one in a well or small stream and people die."

"Never felt better in my life," I assured him.

The crowd buzzed with excitement.

"How can you drink deadly poison and not die?" asked one villager. "Are you more powerful than the witch doctor?"

"Not me, but the God I worship is," I told them.

The witch doctor had intended to kill me, but his plan backfired.

The people were impressed because God had protected me, which meant the witch doctor lost even more customers!

A Christian Reader original article.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the epicenter of Christianity. During his three-year ministry, Jesus raised at least three people from the dead. But these resurrections really amount to little more than resuscitations. Jesus' resurrection stands for this truth: death, which could not hold Jesus in the grave, will also not hold those who believe in him.

—Calvin Miller in The Book of Jesus

Copyright © 1998 by the author or Christianity Today International/Today's Christian magazine (formerly Christian Reader).
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