SEND! magazine Fourth Quarter 2007: Leading Others to Liberty
Leading Others to Liberty
Hirla Harish could not believe his eyes when he saw the tiny woman tied to the center post of her mud-walled home. His heart was immediately filled with compassion for this lady being restrained by the ropes.
"Why is she tied up?" he wondered. "Only animals should be tied up like that!" Punita Oraon's family, weary from her erratic, dangerous behavior, had secured her to the post for her own protection. As a last resort, they called Hirla, a Gospel for Asia missionary, to come and pray for her.
"Don't come near me! Don't do anything to harm me!" she screamed as he approached. Undaunted, Hirla knelt beside Punita and prayed silently.
"Lord, if it is Your will, You can do this and heal her," he requested. "It is not by my might, it is not by my power, but by Your strength, by Your spirit that You can do this."
Hirla stood up and gently dabbed a small dot of coconut oil on Punita's forehead. As he was closing his eyes to pray, the woman, in a brief moment of lucidity, spoke to him.
"If you are a good doctor, give me medicine so that I may get rid of all these problems," she pleaded.
"I am only a spiritual doctor, but I will give you good medicine so that your problems will go away and not come back," Hirla assured her.
Hirla placed one hand on Punita's head and raised the other hand toward heaven and began praying in a loud voice.
"Lord, this is not impossible for You. You did miracles 2,000 years ago, and You can still do them today. I have faith in You. It is impossible through my hands, but it is possible through Your hands," he prayed, tears streaming down his face.
Hirla opened his eyes and looked down at the woman. He could tell right away that his prayer had been answered. The demons that had been tormenting Punita were gone.
She was free.
Quest for Redemption
This was not the first time—or even the second—that Hirla had witnessed God releasing someone from demonic powers. During his four years of ministry in Rajasthan, India, he has seen the Lord free dozens of people through prayer, and today he is considered something of an expert on the subject. The first time he witnessed such a transformation was also the first time he encountered the love and power of Christ-and it forever changed his life.
It began when Hirla's wife, Gitanjali, suffered a prolonged series of painful physical conditions. Her constant suffering drove the young couple to consult many witch doctors. They gave her amulets to wear, sacrificed animals, cast spells and instructed her to chant mantras, sacred words and phrases. All the while, Gitanjali's physical condition deteriorated.
"One by one, the sicknesses increased in her body. Then, all of a sudden, she began having mental problems and started screaming," Hirla recalls.
Gitanjali's behavior was frightening.
"I didn't know what I was doing," she remembers. "All I remember is taking my children around to different villages and to different houses, wandering here and there, even out into other people's fields. I would even beat my children.
"I didn't have a desire to eat. I was crying and howling and shouting and running all over the place without telling anybody where I was going. I had no peace."
Gitanjali knew that somehow, an evil spirit had taken control of her. But she could not verbalize what she was feeling.
"There were no words to explain it. I was in a real panic," she recalls. "I just had a desire to be redeemed from this satanic power."
At this point, treatments prescribed by the witch doctors became even more bizarre. Hirla allowed one healer to severely beat Gitanjali with a 20-pound metal pipe. Another pressed a searing-hot iron rod into her abdomen.
The people in Hirla and Gitanjali's village tried to help. Their solution was to bring together all the villagers and witch doctors for an intense night of prayer and sacrifice. They each prayed all night to the various gods they worshipped. As daylight came, Gitanjali was still not healed, and Hirla's agitation and frustration boiled over. He had spent all his money and traveled great distances to find a cure for his wife, only to see her get worse.
"I was just sad looking at her," Hirla says. "I decided to commit suicide and finish my life rather than watch her die."
So Hirla hanged himself inside his own home.
Thankfully, his sister was walking by the house and saw him. She rushed in, cut the rope and revived him. But neither his sister nor his fellow villagers were sympathetic to his plight. Instead they scolded him for trying to leave his children fatherless.
'I Went to Jesus'
Shortly after the suicide attempt, one of Hirla's distant relatives—a Christian woman—shared the Gospel with him and encouraged him to seek help from a pastor.
Having tried everything else, Hirla thought it would not hurt to try a Christian prayer. He contacted the pastor of the closest church—which was 21 miles away. Hirla made the journey with Gitanjali, two of his children and his father—and a bottle of coconut oil the pastor asked them to bring.
The pastor followed the biblical instruction in James 5:14 to pray for the sick, anointing them with oil. He dabbed the coconut oil on Gitanjali's head and body. Then he prayed, asking her family to join him. Even though Gitanjali was weak, she suddenly began shrieking. Then a strange sensation came over her.
"It felt like I was flying on air. Something had left from my body, and I was okay again," she explains.
When the prayer was over, Gitanjali looked up at the people standing around her. "Why am I here?" she asked. "Where is our village? Why did you bring me here?" Gitanjali slowly came to her senses. She and Hirla realized that she had been demon-possessed, and now the living God had healed her.
"I spent thousands of rupees on witch doctors. But here's the great thing: You can go to Jesus without any expense," Hirla says. "I went to Jesus with only five rupees worth of coconut oil and my faith."
For the Glory of God
Gitanjali's deliverance led to a whole new way of life for the family. They settled into a routine that focused on worshipping and serving God.
"I cannot explain the happiness in my heart. It was a great and marvelous thing for me," Hirla says. "We put our faith in God, and from that day onward we trusted in Him."
During this time of intense spiritual growth, both Hirla and Gitanjali sensed that God was calling them into service for Him. Three years after Gitanjali was healed, Hirla enrolled in a Gospel for Asia Bible college.
Gitanjali understood Hirla's desire to serve the Lord, but she worried about the more practical matters.
"Who will take care of our field? Who will take care of our home? You cannot leave me alone with our children!" she implored.
Hirla reminded her that God had always taken care of them, and He would certainly do it again.
"God healed you. He is our caretaker," he said. "In my absence, Jesus will take care of you. I am going for God's glory, and when I come back, we will do something for the glory of God."
Just before he was to leave for Bible college, God showed Himself able to provide for their needs. Hirla did not have the 300 rupees for his bus ticket. The entire family fasted and prayed about the matter.
When they had finished praying, Hirla walked a short distance away from home to take a bath in the lake near his home. On his way back, his daughter, Latangi, ran up full of excitement. She was walking along the same path and had found a gold ring. They were able to sell the ring for exactly 300 rupees.
The First Witness
About three years later, just before he graduated from Bible college, Hirla fasted and prayed, asking God where he should serve. The answer came: God wanted him to return to his own village and share the Gospel.
Hirla knew that many of his people suffered from the same problems that he himself had over the years.
The majority of the people in his village, including Hirla and Gitanjali, are from the Bhil tribe. This group of Dalit ("Untouchable") people relies on agriculture to make a living. If they are fortunate, villagers have a home with mud walls and floors and a tile roof, but no electricity or running water. Locally brewed wine is a staple in their homes and is the cornerstone of their social life.
For the most part, the Dalits in Hirla's village were illiterate. Their traditional spirit worship practices had left them open to satanic attacks. Many people were sick. Alcohol abuse and family problems were common.
Hirla knew he would be the first Christian witness in his village-the first one to tell people about Jesus and His power to free them from Satan's grip on their lives.
An Unwelcome Homecoming
Hirla came home carrying God's promise that He could rescue these people the same way He rescued Gitanjali six years earlier. The first thing he did was erect a cross outside his home. Then he fasted for 30 days.
At the conclusion of that time, Hirla met a woman who was exhibiting the same uncontrollable behaviors he had witnessed in Gitanjali. He immediately recognized that she was being tormented by demons. He prayed for the woman for several days, and she was released. Word soon spread about Hirla and this new God named Jesus whom he talked about.
Soon there were many new believers in the village as people turned away from their traditional religion to follow Christ. This angered the village head, and he began threatening Hirla. Then this powerful man instituted a campaign to rid the village of Hirla and to force the new believers to denounce Christ.
"Don't allow this pastor to come into your villages or into your houses," he declared. "Don't give him a glass of water. Don't give him a bucket of water from the well. Don't talk to him. If you have a wedding or a party, invite everybody else, but don't invite this missionary. That way, we will be able to eliminate him from our customs, traditions and everything else."
Hirla felt the impact of the social boycott almost immediately. His resolve to serve Christ was shaken, but he never stepped back.
"I am human—and when I realized that I was being threatened and pressured just because I received Jesus Christ, I would think about going back to my old life," he remembers. "But then I would think about my wife's healing and tell myself that whatever the cost, whatever the problem may be, I have to stand for Christ."
Slowly, people began coming back to Hirla for prayer. As the requests increased, he built a small, tin-roofed shed next to his home to accommodate those seeking healing. And one by one, they found freedom from their spiritual chains.
A House of Praise and Worship
Today, up to 70 people crowd into Hirla and Gitanjali's tiny, one-room house on any given Sunday. These new Christians spend up to four hours praising and worshipping the mighty God who has set them free.
Incorporating the music of their culture, the men and women take turns singing, producing a unique and beautiful worship chorus. Their communion bread is made from homegrown, stone-ground corn rotis—a type of flatbread common to this area. Hirla's sermons are simple teachings on the basics of the Christian faith.
Of course, prayer is an important part of the service too. On one Sunday, a couple brought their 13-year-old daughter, Nidhi, to the church. She lay on a cot in front of the house writhing in intense pain. She said it felt as if someone were poking needles all over her legs. It was Nidhi's first visit to the church, but her mother previously had the same symptoms and was healed after Hirla prayed for her. This dedicated band of believers surrounded Nidhi and prayed fervently for her. By the end of the day, her pain began to subside.
The service also includes time for believers to share their testimonies. Punita, a small woman swathed in a bright sari, stood up and began to describe her ordeal. When she developed a problem with her leg and sought out the local witch doctors for treatment, he gave her some herbs and chanted some mantras.
"When I allowed the witch doctor to do this, it seemed to get much worse," Punita says. After several such treatments, her behavior turned erratic. At one point, her family even sent her to a mental hospital. But nothing seemed to work, so she returned home. The people in the village, worn out from all the disturbances that Punita was causing, begged her husband to go to Hirla for prayer.
Punita's quest to find healing ended when she found Jesus. Both she and her husband gave their lives to the Lord, and they are now free from the demonic powers that nearly wrecked their lives.
"My life now is completely happy because God has made me different," she explains.
Released from Satan's Hand
Today, people continue to arrive at Hirla's doorstep, some on cots carried by friends. They stay in his makeshift prayer "hospital" for a few hours, a few weeks or even longer. Hirla and Gitanjali spend hours praying for these people and tending to their physical needs. More than 70 people have found healing and freedom from satanic and physical attacks.
Hirla still remembers what it was like to be finally liberated from spiritual bondage-and how that led to his choice to serve the One who rescued him and his family.
"I decided that no matter what the cost to me, I had to do something for the lost," Hirla says. "Just like my wife, there are so many people out there suffering through satanic attacks. I wanted to be the person to stand firm, to have faith in God and to release them from Satan's hand. I wanted to establish a church where I could stand with them and worship God."
The cross that Hirla built in the early days of his ministry is now covered with lengths of woven string. These amulets were originally tied around people's wrists or necks by traditional healers who taught that they were "magic" and held supernatural healing power. Today, the strings have been abandoned. They waft in the breeze as silent testimony to the true healing power of Jesus Christ and His power over evil.
