Again, it was a morning of many manifestations as The SCOAN Choir called down the Hosts of Heaven. It was a most energetic praise and worship session in which the choristers performed a medley of songs from the general gospel repertoire, including iconic SCOAN songs such as ‘Spirit Pray Through Me’, ‘Sin’s Power Over Me Is Broken’, ‘Open My Heart To Your Word’, ‘Lead Me On’ and ‘God’s Love’. As congregants sang along with the choir, many began to swirl in the spirit and vomit the evil deposits in their bodies, thus receiving their freedom from sickness and satanic bondage.
In a message titled “THE PATH OF FAITH AND HUMILITY”, Prophet Racine noted that following Jesus means following the narrow way of the Cross that requires Christians not to give room to the temptations of fear, ego, pride, greed and moral compromise. He took his first reading from Matthew 7:13-14 and later cited Luke 9:23, Matthew 10:38-39, John 6:54, Daniel 4:30-38 and Matthew 15:21-39 as he tried to show that true Christian living requires sacrifice and self-denial on many fronts. In particular, he cautioned congregants against “the sin of arrogance and self-sufficiency”, which he said could easily creep up on the careless Christian. In Prophet Racine’s words, “When we do things in pride and arrogance we honour ourselves and dishonour God, thus we magnify ourselves above the Lord.” He therefore advised congregants to acknowledge their weaknesses and to humble themselves before God. According to God’s servant, Racine, “To honour God we must come to His presence in sincerity and humility of heart and acknowledge our position before Jesus as undeserving of His grace. To acknowledge our position before God is to admit our weaknesses, our shortcomings and limitations. And when we do, the way out has come.”
After delivering the Word of God, Prophet Racine moved into the midst of the congregation and began to minister healing and deliverance in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. Shortly after, he was joined by Prophetess Yinka and Prophet Chris as they laid anointed hands on expectant worshipers. During the Mass Prayer session, one female congregant, a non-Christian who was attending a church service for the very first time in her life, actually vomited four cowries as she expelled the contact point between herself and the forces of darkness. Indeed, it was a most remarkable sight to see.
TESTIMONIES
13 YEARS AFTER, LEG ULCER HEALING REMAINS PERMANENT
Sometime in the year 2007, just in the prime of her life, the future suddenly became a mirage for 27-year-old Miss Ogechi Iheanacho, an Imo State indigene. Ogechi had sustained a grievous leg injury during an accident and the injury was refusing to heal despite intensive medical attention at no fewer than five hospitals. Worried for her life, Ogechi’s doctors advised that it would be best to amputate her rotting lower left leg. Indeed, the problem had become a curse and only Someone stronger, smarter and wiser than herself could save her from the curse: Jesus Christ. Having realised this, Ogechi found her way to The SCOAN, where Prophet TB Joshua prayed for her in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. As the prayers went on, Ogechi’s ailing leg began to vibrate as the anointing flowed through it, flushing out the demonic agents that were causing her leg to decay and giving her great pain.
A short while later, she returned to The SCOAN to report the state of her wound, with only a scar as a reminder of what she had been through. She could now tap the scar and walk with the once-condemned leg.
On Sunday, thirteen years later, Ogechi yet again visited The SCOAN to testify to the permanence of her healing. Now married to Mr Emmanuel Ozochukwu, Ogechi told of how she had been unable to move throughout the period. “The leg was gushing out water,” she told the church. “During the prayers, the demons in my legs said they were not going to leave but they eventually vanished after the man of God commanded them to leave in the name of Jesus Christ”.
With her scar now less visible, Ogechi was in church to glorify God for saving her leg from amputation, for which the doctors had then required the sum of 600,000 naira. She also thanked God for giving her a husband after the healing. She advised people to trust in God, no matter the problem they might be facing. Her husband, Emmanuel, thanked God for having healed the woman he later married. He concluded, “When the man of God prays for you, you receive a complete package of God’s blessings.”
RESCUED FROM THE WILDERNESS OF LUST AND DRUG ADDICTION
After wandering for seven years in the wilderness of lust, prostitution and drug addiction, the 22-year-old Miss Elsa Nzuomah finally found her freedom. During the deliverance session that restored the Cameroonian to her original destiny, the evil spirit in her had confessed many things before fleeing forever. It began by claiming, “We are the ancestral spirits,” signaling the presence of many satanic agents in the young woman’s life. Making further confessions, the spirit said, “I’ve frustrated her life. She is a school dropout. She is a drug addict. She takes every drug.” Even more poignantly, the evil spirit said, “She is a prostitute. She has been in the streets for years and has abandoned her family. No one knows her whereabouts.” As the spirit boasted about all it had done, Prophetess Yinka took her stand in the powerful name of Jesus Christ and said, “Enough is enough! You spirit of prostitution – out of this body, in the name of Jesus Christ!” Immediately, Elsa fell to the floor and moments later got up to her freedom from demonic bondage. “Father, we thank You for restoring her completely,” said Prophetess Yinka as she rounded off her prayer.
On Sunday, in a dramatic testimony, Elsa tearfully told the church about her past life. Mary, Elsa’s mother, was unable to control her shock as she listened to her daughter’s confession for the first time.
Determined to confess all and be free from her shady past, Elsa looked straight into the camera, fighting back tears, “I was pursuing a Masters in Law when it all started,” Elsa began her tale. She said a friend introduced her to a Nigerian friend who was doing very well for herself with a good job and her own house. As someone who had always wanted to go abroad and make money for herself and family, she accepted the proposal of her new friend – to travel to Nigeria to make money and pursue her Law programme there. However, it turned out that she had been lured into a life of prostitution, as she quickly discovered the person she had come to meet actually had neither a place of her own nor a job; she simply lived in a brothel.
Elsa found it difficult to sell her body at first but she eventually succumbed so that she could pay her bills and survive. Relying on Internet dating applications, Elsa met and slept with hundreds of men for money; at times, sleeping with eight of them in a day. Not originally cut out for such things, Elsa began to feel depressed and to make herself feel better, she started doing hard drugs, including crack and cocaine. Having become addicted to drugs, she would do anything just to get them, including borrowing money or offering her body to dealers that she could not pay. “I could go for weeks without food as long as I had drugs,” Elsa confessed, her calm, innocent mien belying her dangerous adventures. “The emptiness became too much for me to bear and I could not take care of myself,” she added. Elsa became suicidal and several times she cut herself with sharp objects.
Suddenly, Elsa decided to run away from it all; she vanished from the brothel and found herself at The SCOAN where she received her deliverance.
Today, she is a free woman, to the glory of God. “This is the first time in seven years that I have not had a cigarette for the past two weeks and I have not had the urge for drugs or prostitution,” Elsa told of the transformation in her life. At this point, Elsa’s mother took over. She told of how her daughter had stopped communicating with the family two months after she moved to Yaounde, Cameroon for her Master’s programme, which her parents had scraped money together to pay her school fees and rent a hostel space for her. And although Elsa had been experimenting with cigarettes since she was 15 years old, her parents had been unaware – all the more reason why her mother had been shocked to find that she had taken to prostitution in Nigeria. She also told of how worried the family had been when Elsa disappeared from school and how her father became shattered emotionally and then took ill.
When she was eventually traced online, Elsa first told her family that she was in Ghana and later told them “I’m a hairdresser in Nigeria,” she lied to her mother. When asked to return home, Elsa responded rudely and cut off further communications. “We began praying for her, spraying the Morning Water on her picture,” Elsa’s mother said. Soon after, Elsa called her mother saying that she felt like visiting The SCOAN. The breaking news gladdened Mrs Mary Nzuomah’s heart, not knowing a greater news awaited her; Jesus had delivered and restored her daughter at The SCOAN.
Mary advised parents to always pray for their children and to lead them “in God’s way”. Declaring that she is no longer suicidal, Elsa said that she is now prayerful and reads the Bible. She advised the youth to pursue greatness in life in a godly way.
NO LONGER BOWED DOWN TO THE BONDAGE OF LUST AND PROSTITUTION
Ugandan Miss Nambooze Nuruh had taken to what she believed was a way to prosperity: international prostitution. Pushed by the spirit of lust, Nambooze gave herself to men in different countries, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), China, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. Knowing perfectly well what she was getting herself into, Nambooze committed to paying back the 8,000 dollars that her agent had paid to arrange her first trip to the UAE. After a year of selling her body in the UAE, Nambooze was deported following the expiration of her visa. She returned home to Uganda empty-handed and disappointed but still believed that prostitution could provide the prosperity she desired. In a desperate pursuit of her warped dream, Nambooze soon found herself jumping from one country to another but the results she was looking for never materialized; rather, her situation became worse. Tired of prostitution, Nambooze returned to Uganda and set up a business that crashed within two months. She then returned to China to once again resume the work of prostitution. After a month in China, Nambooze went to a pharmacy and met a Nigerian man who she initially tried to seduce but, as God would have it, he rather listened to her story and offered to help her visit The SCOAN for prayers.
When the man eventually paid for her flight ticket to Nigeria, Nambooze was overwhelmed, for no man had ever offered her anything without wanting her body in return. By this time, she had returned home to Uganda. “The man sent me the ticket even before I got my visa,” Nambooze told the church. She then told of how she managed to borrow the visa fee of 100 dollars to finalise her journey to deliverance. Reaching The SCOAN at last, the spirit of lust that pushed Nambooze into prostitution was exposed and cast out during the prayer ministration by Prophet Racine. Speaking on her transformation, Nambooze said, “Since my deliverance, men no longer sleep with me in the dream and I do not lust after men anymore.” She therefore advised young women, “Prostitution is not an alternative; wait on God.”