Testimony

Philip

In 1992 my wife and I had just started helping people in our church in the area of deliverance and seen some real blessing. One night our son heard me praying with someone on the phone, and at the end he asked me to tuck him in (he was about 12 at the time). When I got upstairs he said that something inside him got very angry when I was praying. He asked me to pray for him - an unusual request from him.

My wife was with me and we prayed. As we did so, he slithered under the bedclothes, out of the bed and along the floor like a snake! We were shocked and continued praying without any success. We called on a pastor we knew and a lady who had ministered with us previously. When we stopped praying our son was quite lucid, but at other times he grabbed a Bible and threw it across the room, told me to stop praying quietly in tongues as "he doesn't like that!", and grabbed a craft knife and tried to attack the minister (three of us had to wrestle it off him). Nothing we did could remove the evil spirit that was obviously having fun at our expense.

In the end we didn't know what to do and our son then said he was tired and could he go to sleep! He was sitting on the floor by a table in his bedroom and the minister (who hadn't been totally convinced it was demonic) said he would like to anoint him with oil. My wife grabbed the only oil she could find, baby oil, and quickly asked God to bless it and then gave it to the minister. As he bent down to anoint our son we saw real fear in his eyes for the first time as he cringed away from it. They then left and our son went to sleep, but we didn't get much sleep that night!

The next day we were desperate! My wife then remembered that she had gone on a basic Christian counselling course and that there was a list of useful numbers on the back of the materials provided. There we found the phone number for Ellel Ministries. I phoned and was directed to Glyndley Manor as it was the nearest to us.

The ministry team leader I spoke to was very helpful, but couldn't seem to understand that what I wanted was for them to send round an exorcist! Instead they kept on referring to a Healing Retreat that my wife and I needed to go on. We patiently explained that there was nothing wrong with us; the problem was our son! However, it became clear that they believed we needed ministry, so we agreed and were told there was a waiting list but they would pray and seek God as to when we should attend. Within a day or two we got a call saying we could come on the next Retreat (which turned out to be only the second one held at Glyndley Manor). On asking what would then happen to our son e.g. who would pray with him, we were told that we would! Oh dear, that didn't fill us with confidence!

We did attend the Healing Retreat and got blessed. No major manifestations, just a realisation that we had gone into this ministry unprotected and open to enemy attack. We needed to be sorted out before we could minister to others. We came to realise that God had allowed all this to happen so that we could do this. We thank Him so much for that!

What about our son? Well shortly after the Retreat we prayed with him in the church with just my wife and I and an elder present. It was totally different. This time he seemed utterly bored and nothing much seemed to happen except the elder said he felt something powerful leave. The next day our son told us that as we were praying it was telling him "let me go and I'll sort them out", but he chose to resist it with his will and he knew it was forced to leave him. Our son is a believer.

We praise God for Ellel Ministries and especially Glyndley Manor. My wife and I continued in this ministry and have seen God do some truly amazing things. But that wouldn't have been possible without Ellel Ministries.

Centre: Ellel Glyndley Manor, Eastbourne, England
Event: Deliverance Ministry 1
Event: Healing Retreat