Our WR colleagues sent this story. It gives some background to what many people in the villages believe and how their fears rooted in Animism control them. Thankfully Mr. Tivane made the right choice of trusting God.
Boaventura José Tivane, is a 60 year-old man from 25 Setembro/Chibabel Village in the district of Guijá. Mr. Tivane has two wives and seven children. He sustains his family as a farmer. He became a Christian five years ago, however he continued practicing African traditional religion until very recently.
He explains: In 2010 I began to go to church even though my family depended on the counsel of witchdoctors. If we had any disease or perceived some bad luck we ran to a witchdoctor. I am also the eldest son of the family so I was required to lead the religious ceremonies of my siblings if they were advised to do so by their witchdoctors. To maintain the family spirits I was required to build a hut specifically for them where I kept some red and black cloth and some coins to appease them. All the family’s religious ceremonies were held in this hut.
I decided to surrender my life to Jesus as Lord when I observed the lives of two people, including my own daughter. Besides going to church, they started to live devout lives, loving and serving other people in the community. I wanted to be a Christian who really loves people to the point of serving others. In conversation with my daughter I told her that I would change if she would call her friends to pray for me. My daughter attended a WR training in a nearby church. When they came to pray for me, they offered to destroy the hut for the spirits and burn the artifacts if I wanted to dedicate my life fully to God. I accepted, and I think of it as the most difficult and the best decision I made in my whole life.
