Crossing KCU

Reality in the Shadows

As I made my way down the stone sidewalk, winding deeper into the park, I couldn’t shake the feeling of loneliness stealing over my thoughts. It began as a small nudge, somewhere in the inner recesses of my soul, and slowly rose upward and out, taking over my mind and body until it began to affect even my muscles. Walking became difficult, as if I was slowly being paralyzed by some unseen force.

I stopped for a moment to catch my breath. I was barely moving, but taking just a few steps had become so laborious that I couldn’t go on. The air had grown cold as well. It stung my nostrils as I gasped for breath, sucking down great gulps of the frigid wind passing by me and moving off into the trees beyond.

The park was deserted. All was quiet but for the wind. The sun was shining somewhere off to the eastern horizon, as if it was early morning. There was also a foggy mist beginning to form at the edges of my vision, and between it and the density of the surrounding forest, little light was making its way to where I stood.

For a brief moment I thought I saw something move out of the corner of my eye several yards away. As I turned to see what it was, I caught only a brief glimpse as the giant snake’s tail disappeared into thick undergrowth.

Then I heard something hiss behind me from the opposite direction. It was closer, and as I turned to meet this new threat, I came face to face with a woman standing about twenty feet away, directly in front of me. She looked like she was somewhere in her late twenties or early thirties. She had an extremely pale complexion which was further highlighted by her black hair, dark eye shadow, and the long black coat she was wearing over a black outfit and boots.

With another hiss, much longer this time, as if she was calling to someone far away, several more women began appearing. They materialized out of the air and formed a complete circle all the way around me, the same distance away, with me in the center. It was as if they had already been standing there and I just didn’t see them. But there they were, at least a dozen of them, maybe more, all dressed in the same fashion as the first one.

I couldn’t move, still frozen to the spot where I had stopped to catch my breath. Even if I could move there was nowhere to go. So I looked at the women surrounding me, peered into their eyes, and took the measure of them. Upon first glance they all looked the same, but as I studied them a little closer, looking into each of their faces, I could see they were different. Some of them were extremely angry, murderously staring me down as if they were about to attack me. Others were confused, and they were whispering to those standing next to them, looking back at me periodically with stunned looks on their faces. And some of them were completely frightened, as if they had no desire to be there.

After a few moments, the woman who had appeared first stepped forward about halfway into the circle, staring me directly in the eyes. The others grew completely quiet as she spoke.

“I have some questions,” she shouted at me menacingly, and the anger was boiling out of her words. Then her tone fell slightly, and she stated quite plainly, “We are a coven of witches, and we’ve been trying to kill you all night. For some reason we can’t do it, and I want to know why.” She straightened up to her full height then, pointed at me and screamed with madness, “I want to know the reason why, I want to know right now!”

When she said this, I didn’t really know what to say at first. “Was this really happening?” I thought to myself. It was like a dream, but it was much more real than a dream, it felt like I was awake. “Lord, what is going on?” I prayed silently.

Then, without really thinking, I looked down at my feet and noticed that there was a very bright, white luminescence surrounding me right where I stood. I smiled, looked back up into the eyes of the woman yelling at me, and I said to her, “do you see this light surrounding my feet?” I pointed to the ground. “That’s the Holy Spirit. That’s what you’ve been attacking all night. I’m a child of the Most High God, a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, and while you think you’ve been attacking me all night, in reality, you’ve been attacking the Holy Spirit. And you can’t kill the Holy Spirit. You’ve been attacking God.”

As the words left my mouth the crowd of witches began screaming as loud as they could, wailing miserably as if they were in terrible pain. Some of them began running away, others began cussing at me, spitting and yelling all manner of obscenities. But there was one who did something different. I noticed her immediately. She was off to my right, standing still in the midst of all the chaos. She looked younger than the others, and she was crying.

Then I began waking up, and felt myself gaining consciousness. I knew there was little time. I ran over to the girl, only a teenager, and I said to her, “Listen to me, you don’t need these people. You know the truth. Come back to Jesus and they will never be able to hurt you. You’re better than this.” Then I was awake. The sun was shining through my window; it was morning, the beginning of a new day.
_______

I couldn’t write a book about my experiences in Christian education and ministry preparation, without saying something about Christian warfare. I know I’ve hinted at it here and there in other chapters, but there’s a little more to say, so I’ll take some time and do that here. I call it Christian warfare, even though it’s usually referred to as spiritual warfare. I guess I prefer to give it this designation because of how central it is to the life of every Christian. I know, for my own part, I used to think of spiritual warfare as one small part of the Christian life; something that happened every now and then, and maybe only to certain people. But I’ve learned the hard way that spiritual warfare is the heritage of everyone who claims to follow Jesus Christ. When we claim to be a Christian, when we make that good confession, “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God,” and when we’re baptized into his death, burial, and resurrection, we are choosing a side in a cosmic war that has been raging since before time even began.

I don’t think I can overstate this point enough. There are dozens of highly prominent, nationally recognized ministries out there where preachers and teachers don’t even talk about the reality of being a Christian. Instead they preach a gospel of fantasy. One of the best known pastor’s in America, Joel Osteen, essentially preaches that the Christian life is a matter of being wealthy, with good relationships, living in total victory, without pain, and without anxiety. But there are a few pastors out there who are sharing and speaking about the true gospel, and expounding on what the Christian life really entails. Pastor Mark Driscoll, from Mars Hill Church in Seattle, speaking about Joel Osteen’s message says the following, which can also be seen here:

“Let’s think about it, if God’s plan for you is that you would prosper, that you would be rich, that you would have more than enough money to pay your bills, what does that say about Jesus—who was born in what, a rich family, or a poor family? A poor family. He worked a common job for thirty years, spent three years in ministry flat broke, homeless, sometimes hungry, and when it came time to pay his taxes (like some of you) he couldn’t afford it. How about this issue of relationships? Did Jesus ever have any strained relationships? I feel ridiculous asking the question…. Jesus, our great God and Savior… family disowned him, his friends abandoned him, Judas betrayed him, and the crowd screamed, ‘crucify him!’ I don’t mean to overstate my case, but it appears as though there were, perhaps, occasional relational strain. How about this issue of pain? Did Jesus ever suffer physical pain? Some of you have constant, chronic physical pain. Jesus Christ was beaten, his beard plucked, crown of thorns put on his head, scourged, beaten, whipped within, literally, the near point of his own death, and then was crucified, nailed to a Roman crossbar between two thieves. You know what that is? Pain. Excruciating, horrendous, physical pain. How about this other issue of victory, ‘God doesn’t want you to be a victim, but to be a victor?’ Was Jesus ever victimized? Some of you have been victimized. Some of you’ve been raped, abandoned, beaten, molested, abused, neglected, hated, despised, and betrayed. Ever been a victim? Happens all the time. Jesus was. False accusations, false witnesses, false trial, false condemnation, false execution. That’s a victim. And lastly, worry and despair… do you guys remember the night before Jesus died? He was in the garden of Gethsemane, so stressed out he couldn’t even sleep. And his stress level was so high, that he literally sweated drops of blood, which is unbelievable anxiety. Here’s my point: A relationship with God is not all lollipops and skipping while singing hymns. There are days that are very very hard, and very difficult and very painful.”

I think this is what Jesus was talking about when he said, warning his disciples and us what it would mean to follow him as Lord…

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also…” –John 15:18-20.

The point is that, for those who follow Christ, there is warfare—not physical warfare like the president of the United States sending troops into another country in order to bring “freedom”—but spiritual warfare, waged every day against the sin working against us in our flesh, and the forces of the enemy attempting to deceive and destroy us from the outside.
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I remember during my early days at K.C.U., right before I dropped out during my third semester, I had a professor who said something to me that has stayed with me ever since. His name was Dr. Peter Verkruyse, and he was a large, highly energetic man who sometimes got really worked up when he was teaching. On those few occasions his mild mannered teaching would transform into passionate, deeply sincere preaching, and when it did, he would have all of us on the edge of our seats. This one day in particular, he was talking about our preparation for ministry, and he stopped for a moment, looked around at all of us, and then pointed out the windows behind us.

“You see all those people out there—those people out in the world who don’t know the Lord?” He was getting worked up. “Satan doesn’t care about those people out there.” He was wiping the sweat off his brow now, pacing back and forth across the room. “Satan cares about you. He cares about the ones who might end up being a threat to him. That’s who Satan is going to attack. He’s going to attack you.”

By that time he had everyone’s complete attention. “Let me tell you something else. If you breeze right through this place in four years, and never have any problems at all, then that’s because Satan doesn’t care about what you’re doing. And if he doesn’t care about what you’re doing, it’s probably because you’re not a threat to him at all.”

At the time, I didn’t realize how true his words actually were. It would take a few more years for me to even begin to see that, and a few more years still to fully understand what he was trying to say to us.
_______

My close friend and brother Kiel, whom I’ve mentioned already, had an experience during his first semester as an RA that illustrates some of the ways in which the demonic forces were at work on the campus.

One day in particular, Kiel came to my room in a troubled state. Jeff was already there in the room and we could tell immediately that something was bothering our brother. When we inquired, he started telling us about a problem he was having up in his section on the third floor of the dorm. One of the other RAs, a guy who had been Kiel’s friend for awhile, had been harassing him in ways that were starting to grow increasingly forceful and intimidating.

The struggle that Kiel had been going through centered around his duties as an RA. He had entered into the job at the same time he was becoming friends with us, and at the same time that I was resigning my RA position. As a result he had read my letter to the campus administration concerning my time as an RA, and because he was hanging out with me more, I was able to share all the experiences I had gone through over the years.

Kiel eventually began experiencing the same sort of conviction that I had about the job, but in the meantime he was living up on the third floor, and the enemy was aware of the conflict going on around him, and the important decisions he was making. His friend, the other RA, was one of the really forceful types who enjoyed the little bit of power that he had been given over the other students. He was the typical example of what most kids turned into once they were given that authority. And while Kiel had been friends with him, it seemed that this friendship only lasted as long as Kiel was listening to him and appearing to be his disciple of sorts.

Eventually, the more Kiel began hanging out with Jeff and I, the less he was hanging out up on the third floor, and the less he was listening to this other RA. And then things began getting a little weird. This guy began approaching Kiel at odd times, asking if Kiel hated him. Of course Kiel said no, but the guy kept persisting, continuing to ask more and more frequently. Then he began acting like a stalker. Kiel would be walking down the hall or be in the bathroom or something, and then turn around to see this guy standing right there, inches away from him, staring him in the face. When Kiel would ask him what was up, the dude would either turn and walk away without saying anything at all, or laugh at him.

One night while Kiel was leading Bible study in his room this guy came in and took over the group time. He then proceeded to lecture for five hours straight without stopping, discussing everything from history and romance, to theology and quantum physics. A few of the guys stayed and listened to him all night while Kiel eventually just crawled into bed and tried to go to sleep.

Things began getting worse when Kiel started losing sleep. At one point he was unable to sleep for three days straight. During that time he would try and lay down to sleep but would be abruptly woken up by shadows floating around the room, or strange noises, or things hitting the shelves and slamming into the edge of the bed just when he was beginning to doze off.

All the while this other RA kept treating him even worse, at times praising him loudly in front of other people, and then in the next minute chastising him for not doing a good job as an RA. He would insult Kiel, and say all manner of odd things to him, trying to provoke him into stupid arguments. The manner and frequency of these kinds of things began growing in their intensity over a few weeks, and eventually it became evident to Kiel that something was just plain wrong about the whole thing.

In a state of complete exasperation, Kiel wandered down to my room. Jeff and another friend Jonathan were already there and the three of us listened as Kiel sat down on one of the beds and began talking.

“Hey guys, I have something kind of weird to discuss with you. I don’t really know what’s going on,” he said with a look on his face as if someone had just beaten the hell out of him.

Jeff slowly shut my door and locked it, then stood in front of it as Kiel continued, looking down at the floor while he spoke in a low, somber tone. “I haven’t slept for a few days. Every time I try to sleep, I get stuck in this half-conscious, paralyzed state and see shadows float around my room. Last night someone or something slapped the shelf above my head and when I woke up nothing was there. I’ve been cleaning up all the trash in the dorm every night, except last night I just walked around and prayed.”

He then proceeded to tell us everything that had happened with the other RA who was harassing him. We just listened to him, all too familiar with what this kind of thing meant, and what was causing it. When he was finished we sat in silence for a few minutes. I was waiting for Jeff to explain to him what it was, but he just looked back at me, waiting for me to do it. We were always really reluctant to talk about this sort of thing because we didn’t know how people were going to react. But Kiel was the kind of guy who was serious about his faith, and sincere in his desire to know the Lord and serve him. So I decided to just tell him plainly what had been happening to him.

“Kiel, basically what’s going on is that you’re most likely the only one praying up there on third floor, and as you’re praying for all the guys up there, you’re making the evil spirits really angry. They can’t harm you directly, but they can harass you and make things pretty uncomfortable at times. Also, this other RA who is giving you a hard time is completely being controlled by a demonic presence. They’re basically just using him to attack you. He’s probably got some things going on in his life that we’re not aware of, like some hidden sins or something that is making him susceptible to demonic exploitation. We just need to keep praying, and make this a priority when we pray together.”

We prayed that very night, and after that Kiel was at peace. The other RA left him completely alone from then on, and would even move to the opposite side of the hallway or sidewalk and put his head down whenever he passed Kiel, never saying another word to him. And sure enough, by the end of the semester it came out that this RA had been bringing girls up to his room to “spend the night” all through that semester, and it wasn’t long afterwards that they fired him.
_______

By the time I was in my final semester at K.C.U. I was fully aware of how dark a place it had become. I’m not sure how long it had been that way, because my awareness of the spiritual state of the campus coincided with my own spiritual growth. The more I learned how to pray, and took time to do so on behalf of other people, and on behalf of the campus, the more I saw the enemy working against the students and the faculty and staff. This was evident in a number of things. There were students struggling with all sorts of things, from witchcraft, to homosexuality, to chronic hardcore drug addiction, and pornography. Sexual activity was widespread and reached across the spectrum of students, administrators, and teachers. There was an epidemic of eating disorders plaguing the women’s dormitories, as well as suicide attempts, most of which were swept under the rug and never talked about. Even one of the youth ministry professors was eventually arrested about a year later, and subsequently convicted for raping girls in the youth group he was running at one of the local churches.

A lot of this stuff I’m sure is not unique to this one campus, or even Christian schools in general. But these sin issues were not what bothered me as a missionary whom God had sent there to help and serve people. What bothered me a great deal—what angered me I should say—was the way that the leadership of the campus would deal with these problems. In most cases, at least as much as they were able, they wouldn’t even acknowledge that these things were happening on the campus.

One of the administrators who I was close with, and who I had a good relationship with, told me how there had been a student addicted to crack, and how that student had come to the dean asking for help to get off the drug and get his life together. At the time he had come asking for help, there were only a few weeks left in the year. The dean told the dorm supervisor (the administrator who I knew) to ignore the guy until the end of the semester, then they would just not allow him to come back.

This type of neglect was applied across the board. During my last year, there was a homeless guy who had come to the campus asking if he could work for a place to sleep and some food. We were all instructed not to let him in the dorms, even though there were plenty of spare rooms. It wasn’t long after that when they found this same homeless man dead at the edge of the soccer field. He had died from exposure on a campus of hundreds of Christians.

Another thing that the administration attempted to sweep under the rug was the attrition rate of students. At the beginning of each academic year, there would be grand speeches made by the president about how it was a year of record enrollment. But if you waited a few years and then looked again at the records of those students enrolling, you would see that over half of them, and in many cases somewhere closer to three-fourths of them, were never there long enough to graduate.

These were all signs that the spiritual state of the campus was anemic. And so it was that with the few brothers and sisters I had at the time, we took it upon ourselves to fight against the darkness in the only way we knew how—through prayer. There were less than a dozen of us who gathered together on a regular basis to pray specifically on behalf of the campus, and among these, only a few of us who lasted for the duration of the battle that ensued.

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” –Ephesians 6:12-13