Six weeks after starting in Arnhem Land in 2008, Neville and I contracted giardia. As a result of this my body stopped tolerating an increasing number of different foods. These foods included most fruits and vegetables. As time progressed the symptom became more uncomfortable, including bloating, constipation and urinary incontinence. Doing some research I determined that it was an intolerance to amines. The number of doctors aware of this condition is extremely small
Amines are found in all preservatives, additives, flavourings and colourings, both artificial and natural. Contributing to this, is that companies producing foods at the supermarket are not legally required to inform on the packaging if the additives etc do not exceed 5% (country dependent).
By severely restricting what I ate, I could live a reasonably normal life. However if I wanted to go out for a meal, I could not eat at a restaurant, or visit someone’s home for a meal without having problems.
As a missionary this is extremely difficult. It negatively affects our furlough, travel, holidays.
Over the last five years we have tried many different natural remedies as there is no cure for this intolerance except not eating the expanding list of foods. None of the remedies or recommendations helped.
During our last visit to New Zealand I shared my frustration with our friends and supporters, and asked them to pray. At our first meeting in New Zealand our sending church leadership team decided to fast and pray for me on the following Friday. I joined them in a short period of fasting as I was now losing weight. Three leaders as well as several others we shared with all believed it was demonic in nature, three of them independently seeing in the spirit a type of lizard or bug on my back at different times.
From this time onwards I started to eat foods that previously I could not eat. Just testing the boundaries and eating a little at a time. The first day I became ill, but from that day onwards I started to improve in small amounts. The following Friday we drove back to Christchurch to attend our normal church prayer meeting. At this time in according to the Word of God the elders anointed me with oil and prayed for me.
If any among you are sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. (James 5:14)
The Lord then reminded Neville that when we became sick we were looking after someone's house. In the house were multiple objects that had Yolngu art on them. Because they were not ours we allowed them to stay in the house for the three months we were there. Paintings like these usually have animals on them with lines and dots. The animals are invariably evil spirits and the lines and dots refer to very strong spirits called principalities, powers and rulers of the darkness of this age (Eph 3:10, 6:12, Col 1:16, 2:15). It is our belief that the bug or animal seen on my back was the spirit portrayed in one of these paintings.
Once we had asked the Lord’s forgiveness for disobeying the word of God that tells us not to have these in our houses (2 John 1:10 with Gal 1:8), the elders commanded the spirit to go from me. (Luke 13:10-)
For the rest of my time in New Zealand I ate anything put in front of me and was totally healed.
Since being back in Arnhem Land, there have been some symptoms that have tried to come back. As I have maintained my confession of the Lord’s healing, these symptoms have not stayed.
I can say that all glory must go to my Lord Jesus Christ for this healing as no man has been able to help me.
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