Testimonies from the Lovelines Crisis Centre
All counselling cases are treated with great confidentiality. Although we gladly share these testimonies to encourage others in Christ, we also wish to respect the privacy of those who graciously shared them with us while protecting their identity. Consequently, all names used within these testimonies are fictitious and are meant to mask the identities of those involved while aiding the narration.
Case #1; Amina, 2003
Amina was a young lady brought to the Crisis Centre by her mother, Salamatu. Amina had miscarried all her three previous pregnancies. Salamatu had been afraid that her daughter might miscarry when she took seed the fourth time. She therefore thought of suggesting that Amina visit the local witch-doctors in her hometown for cleansing rituals. She, however, spoke with one of our grass-roots volunteers while still thinking this over, and was persuaded to attend one of the In-Person Counseling Sessions at the Crisis Centre.
During the first session, it came to light that some water spirits had been consulted prior to Salamatu’s birth. Furthermore, Salamatu had herself consulted water spirits before she gave birth to Amina. She recollected that these during these visits to the water spirit shrines pacts were made which effectively sold their souls to these demons. The miscarriages would continue as long as they forgot to pay homage to these malevolent spirits.
While being counseled to help alleviate her fear, Salamatu was led Christ and denounced the visits to those oracles as sins, asking God for forgiveness according to I John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness [NKJV]. Amina was also led to Christ and confessed her sins and those of her parents, asking God for forgiveness. They then renounced any links they had with the water spirits. We then prayed and commanded the spirits to loosen their hold over Salamatu and Amina and the baby in Amina’s womb, thus breaking the covenant in Jesus’s name. They now have a new covenant in the Blood of Jesus.
As we prayed for Amina, Salamatu tore her hair while screaming “Take your child back!” while pointing at her daughter. The water spirits who had possessed Salamatu while we were praying were no match for the power in the Blood of Jesus Christ. The Good News is that Amina and Salamatu were delivered from the grips of the evil one. Amina recently gave birth safely to the Glory of God.
Case #2; Sarah, 2003
Sarah was an up-coming and promising student admitted to one of the Ghanaian universities. During the registration process, for no apparent reason, Sarah had a nervous breakdown and went mad. Her auntie, Rebecca, who had heard about the ministry called us and we invited the family to come over with Sarah. Her father, Emmanuel, came but Sarah refused to come. The father thus invited some of our counselors into his home.
While on the way to his home, I asked Emmanuel if there was a case of madness in their family. He replied that one of his uncles who had been admitted into a German university many years back had, just like Sarah, gone mad under unknown circumstances, during his pre-enrollment registration period. This mad uncle had been chained and deported to Ghana from Germany. That had been the end of his university education. Emmanuel was unsure of what his family might have done to incur such a curse so we prayed with him as he asked God to forgive any transgression that might have incurred God’s wrath as Nehemiah did in Neh. 1:6-76Please let your ears be attentive, and your eyes open, that thou may hear the prayer of your servant, which I pray before You now, day and night, for the children of Israel Your servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against You. Both my father's house and I have sinned. 7We have acted very corruptly against You, and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, nor the ordinances, which You commanded Your servant Moses. [NKJV].
When we got to Emmanuel’s house, I prayed and in Jesus’s name broke the curse over Sarah standing in the word of God found in Gal. 3:13-1413 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become the a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hands on a tree), 14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. [NKJV] for her redemption. To the Glory of God, Sarah was back in school the next week and has been there ever since sound and whole in body mind and soul to God’s Glory. Hallelujah.
Case # 3; Cynthia, 2002
A young Ghanaian lady named Cynthia won the United States Diversity Lottery and moved to Atlanta, GA. While there she met and moved-in with a Ghanaian man named Tony. Tony was a drug-addict and an unbeliever. He always did drugs with 3 or 4 lady partners who would often beat-up Cynthia and throw out her belongings. Not wanting to be involved with the police, Cynthia suffered this abuse in silence for one and a half years.
Meanwhile her mother, Agnes was moving from one prayer camp to another crying to God to deliver her daughter Cynthia from her tribulations. The pastor of her congregation directed her to the Crisis Centre for counseling. During one of our sessions, Agnes confessed that she was not living right before God - she was in an adulterous relationship. After asking God for his forgivenss, we asked her to tell Cynthia to repent of her from her adulterous relationship with Tony. She complied and asked God for his forgiveness as we continued to counsel her and pray for her.
After a few weeks she found new accommodation and moved out from her illicit relationship. We continued to urge her to draw closer to God and search for a nurturing assembly of the righteous . She found a loving church and joined it basking in her new-found love in Christ. Not long ago, I had this phone-all saying she had met a young believer who wanted to marry her. Praise be to God. Amen.
Case #4, Pastor Joe, 2002
One day in June, 2002, a very sick and wretched looking young man walked into the Centre with one of our hand bills in his hand and said he was being harrassed by demons. I asked him how he knew he was being tormented by demons. Pastor Joe, as we shall call him, said he knew because as a pastor, he had read about it in him Bible. He had had many nightly prayer sessions at his church seeking deliverance but with no success. He had also asked fellow ministers of the gospel to pray with him several times and yet he felt no deliverance. The Holy Spirit led me to ask him about his marriage life. When I asked, he broke down and said: "What I'm about to tell you, I've never told anybody, but I believe the Holy Spirit is here and must have prompted that question."
Pastor Joe told us he was a pastor from a neighbouring country, who had been ministering in Ghana for the last 20 years. He had married at a young age but had lost his wife when she emigrated to Italy and married another man with whom she even had children. One day she came back and he remarried her. She stayed with him and had a child. Before long, she run away from him and went back to her former husband in Italy. Everytime she was in Ghana, he would sleep with her. With time he noticed that he felt worse each time he was with her. Pastor Joe's ability to act as spiritual leader for his church was eroded away. Soon, he was asked to no longer pastor his congregation. The morning he came over to our Centre, he had been evicted from his home because he could no longer afford to pay his rent. He felt he did not want to live with human beings any more. He therefore took his portable radio set and headed for the bush. He was in this wretched state when a former fellow minister met him and urged him to seek counselling and directed him to our Centre.
We started the counselling by opening the Bible to Deuteronomy 24:1-4 1When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favour in his eyes because he has found some uncleanness in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house, 2when she has departed from his house and goes and becomes another man's wife,3if the latter husband detests her and writes her a certificate of divorce , puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his hous, or if the latter dies who took her as his wife, 4then her former husband who divorced her must not take her back to be his wife after she had been defiled; for that is an abomination before the Lord, and you shall bring sin on the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and reading that what he had done was an abomination before the Lord God Almighty. I asked him to repent and ask God for forgiveness and purpose in his heart not to repeat what he had done. Pastor Joe did ask for forgiveness according to 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and we interceded on his behalf before the merciful and gracious throne of God. The Lord is good all the time and his mercies endure forever. The very next day, this man walked into our office, changed, trimmed and looking healthier. He told us he had gone home and spoken with his landlord who had agreed to give him an extension till he found money to pay his rent. He said he had lost the desire to no more live with human beings and had even called and spoken with family for the first time in a long time. He further confessed to us that he had picked up drinking and smoking and wanted to stop. We reminded him of what the Bible says in Proverbs 28:13 He who covers his sins will not prosper But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy ; of how he who covers his sin shall not prosper; of how the having iniquity in our hearts makes the Lord deaf to our pleasin Psalm 66:18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me ; of how we are urged to confess our sins one to another and to pray for one another for healing and restoration in James 5:16 Confess your trespasses one to another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of the righteous man avails much; and of God was ever ready to send his word to heal and deliver his children from their destruction when they cry out to him in Psalm 107:19-20 19Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble. And he saved them out of their distresses. 20He sent his word and heald them, and delivered them from their destructions. He went home and acted on those words. The next time some of our counsellors saw him, he was well-dressed in a suit and in the company of other ministers of the Gospel. We heard from him recently: he has used his experience to start teaching the youth to evangelise and live with the desire to please God first. To God be the glory for the great things he has done.
Case #5, Christine, 2003
Christine called us on the phone and said her husband, Tetteh who was 40 years old, had left her and their 4 children to marry a 70 year old woman. Tetteh took away the kiosk in which she sews, for she is a seamstress, and gave it to 70 year old woman who sold it. Tetteh also took away all their home appliances and gave them to the old lady. Christine's first child, Christopher, was from a previous relationship with a man named Mensah. Christopher who was in technical school had his fees paid by his father Mensah. However, the month Tetteh left to marry the 70 year old woman, Christine was forced to use Christopher's examination fees to pay for their rent. Christopher was thus at risk of not taking the end of year examination and thus risked not being promoted in the next year. Her other three children, aged between 3 and 5 also had to stay home from school because she could not afford to send them to school. She found it hard to feed her kids because there was nowhere to operate her business. She grew lean from fear, depression and hopelessness.
During counselling, we advised her to contact Christopher's father, Mensah, and tell him about how she had not used the money meant for his son's fees for what it was meant for. We also asked her to talk with family members and ask for help with taking care of the children as she looked for another place to re-establish her business. We prayed with her for her husband's deliverance, for it was a form of bondage for a forty year old man to suddenly, and without provocation,leave his wife and family to marry a sevent year old woman, take away all his legitimate family's possession and even deprive his wife and children of their livelihood. We asked God to favour her and asked that Mensah will be understanding and help her through her crisis.
Two weeks later, she called and told us that Mensah had sympathised with her and paid Christopher's fees and he was back in school preparing for his examinations. Her brother-in-law, had also asked to help take care of two of the younger kids till her business was back on its feet. With the youngest child to take care of, she had set off to become an itinerant seamstress till she could obtain a shop to sew in. The biggest news was that Tetteh had come back home asking for forgiveness, saying the old woman had manipulated him to the point where he even worked for her without receiving pay. He had packed his belongings and wanted to come back to his family. We give God the glory for this deliverance and intervention.