The healing power of prayer.

By: Caroline Anderson

SOUTH ASIA– Starting a church in Bhutan is spiritual warfare. That’s why prayer is so important to Namita Pema.*

After they heard God’s call to plant a church, Pema and her husband prayed at the top of the mountains that surround their village. Pema pinned a cross to each mountain to claim the land for the Lord. She fasted for a week, not even drinking water.

In the past, evangelists and pastors tried unsuccessfully to start churches in the valley. Church doors closed within weeks and months of opening.

“You must first bind the place,” Pema says, pointing to the mountain visible from her living room.

Why? Because the devil wreaks his destruction in Bhutan through spirits, nightmares, and illnesses. Demons appear in recurring dreams, and people fall unexplainably ill in this cloistered country.

Pema’s healing prayer is how Jigme Wangdi* became a believer.

In addition to fever and chills, Wangdi had visions of cobras and tigers attacking him. He felt like his nerves were being pulled out. The Buddhist priests could do nothing for him, so Wangdi told his wife to take him to the church to die.

When Wangdi entered the church, he felt as if an electric current coursed through his body. The visions no longer had any power over him.

“I will believe in the Lord,” Wangdi told everyone present. “Then I began to realize, He is the true God who cares and loves us.”

Pema fasted and prayed for Wangdi for 12 days. “If I don’t stop to pray, then I disobey God,” Pema says, her voice cracking on points of emphasis.

Now Wangdi, a church elder, is completely healed. His constant joyous smile never betrays his past pain. He doesn’t speak about himself, but only of what the Lord has done in his life.

Sharing the Good News in Bhutan is illegal, so Wangdi recently baptized one of his employees at night. Many other believers have been imprisoned for sharing their faith.

Pema’s husband lost his job after he led three of his coworkers to the Lord. They had to move to their current city, but, Pema says, it’s all been for the glory of God.

Wangdi and Pema both share the Gospel through what Pema calls friendship evangelism. “When you make a good friend with them, by visiting them, then when the opportunity comes you can share the Gospel,” Pema explains.

Through friendship evangelism, Pema has led seven families to the Lord, and Pema’s church has grown to produce four more.

“No matter how much you suffer, you always have to be faithful to the Lord,” she says. “I know God will help me … it will happen by faith.”

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* name changed