I have been staying in a mud hut for the past week and I will be departing for the U.S. soon.

Overall, the trip went very well, though I learned a lot about what to do differently in the future. The team did a terrific job, ministering in a women’s prison, six churches, a children’s home, in the slums, in an AIDS home, doing prophetic training in a Bible school, and training over one thousand people in hygiene habits. Much of the ministry took place during a very short period of time.

One of the highlights and remarkable events of the ministry trip was when I watched firsthand a community leader involved in witchcraft get changed by God in just over an hour. I will remember it for a very long time.

In the morning, Pastor Solomon asked me to share at his church in Kehanche, Kenya. After the service, Pat Selvey, Stephen the hydro-geologist from Uganda, Pastor Jackson, and I headed for the Tanzanian border village of Borega to complete a hydro-geologic survey at a primary school that we felt had some promise for digging a hand-dug well.

We parked the vehicle at the school and Stephen went to work, trying to get the Terrameter to function properly. Soon, a crowd of African males, young and old, surrounded him to see what kind of contraption he was using and what he was doing.

After several minutes, Pat and I stood on the fringe of the small crowd of around thirty guys, talking and watching. Soon, I noticed an older man approach the crowd. It was obvious that he was a respected elder who carried some weight in the community. He walked near to us and seemed to ask one of the guys what was going on. When he heard what we were doing, he seemed to sneer. He then looked toward Pat and me and made some comment that made the guys around him laugh. It was clear that he was mocking us in some way and was saying things at our expense.

The old man made a few more comments, seemingly aimed toward us as the guys continued to

laugh. I looked at Jackson, who had been distracted by the laughter and was now listening to this guy. I asked Jackson what he was saying and he told me in English that he was making some comments about Pat and I being white, but quite different looking from one another (in coloring, etc.).

The man who was mocking me provoked me and I began to think about how unusual it was to see an old man in this land where the life expectancy is in the 50s. I knew that he didn’t know God.

I asked Jackson to come near to me: “Tell him that he is old and may not live much longer. Ask him if he knows Jesus.”

Jackson went to him and gave him my message. The man replied, “No. For seventy-four years, since all of my days, I have been serving the spirits of the world.”

Jackson and I then engaged him in conversation, talking about change and following Jesus. Pat was also there, and the four of us formed a small circle. The old man said that he could not change after all of these years. I told him that he was right, but Jesus could change him if he would let Him.

The man kept looking at me, his eyes very cloudy and lost, but somehow he was being impacted by the conversation. When I looked at him, he reminded me of my Grandpa Huitt before he met the Lord in the last year of his life.  

The old man then looked at me and asked me if I would like him to change. I said, “When I get old and die, I’m going to heaven for eternity and I want you to be there with me.”  

During this conversation, all of the guys who had been laughing at this man’s jokes surrounded us so they could hear what we were saying. It was obvious that the man engaging us in conversation was not being sarcastic, and it was surprising to them.

The old man then told Jackson that his name was Mwita and that he wanted to get away from the crowd and talk to us more privately. We stepped several feet away and continued talking. I told Jackson to just share whatever he felt he should with him.

After a few moments, Jackson said to me, “I have found out some very interesting things about this man. He is heavily involved in witchcraft and is a part of a group that enforces female mutilation in the area. He told me that the people in this area see him as a god as he is one of the leaders of this group.”

Jackson then asked Mwita if he wanted to leave all of this behind and give his life to Jesus. He said that he did want to change, but said that before that could happen we needed to go to his home and remove all of the items associated with the occult. We agreed.

We all piled into the Nissan Patrol with Mwita and drove along the main road to his home, which was about an 8’ x 10’ room, dark and filthy. The walls were made of mud, protruding with bare wood, with a wall shared by another home next to him. His bed was along one wall; three articles of clothing were hanging on another wall, and a few other strange items were scattered around. Two large knives and a machete were lying on his bed, which was only about four inches off of the floor. There was no chair in the room and the only light shone through the open door.

Mwita began collecting items involved with witchcraft and placed them in the center of the room on the floor—plastic bags with charms in them, a branch of an herb that was hanging on the wall, and a plastic bottle of some kind of oil. Mwita then reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a red plastic bag that was filled with charms that he carried with him. When he did this, it felt as though he was letting go of something very precious to him. We then asked him if there were any more, and he said no. Then he remembered a white charm around his right wrist. He took it off without our encouraging him to and placed it in the pile.

We were all amazed by what took place next with such little effort on our part. Without doing any convincing, but just speaking truth in love, this man was willingly throwing away seventy-four years of a lifestyle in exchange for Jesus. Everything was beginning to make sense to him. Mwita stared at Pat and me. “I have had a dream over and over about you both. For many years you have come to me in my dreams and placed me in the water and then pulled me out again.” Pat and I looked at one another in shock. We asked him to clarify and he did, saying that it was Pat and I whom he had dreamed about for many years and who had put him in the water.

Jackson asked if he could introduce him to Jesus. Pat and I told Jackson to make sure that he renounced every deed of evil and repented for all of his sins, then gave his life to Jesus and received Him.

Mwita, without encouragement, fell to his knees on the dirty, concrete floor. I knelt also, followed by the rest of us. Nashan, who is John Chacha’s brother-in-law, had also joined us after he had seen what was happening to Mwita.

Jackson led Mwita, word by word, into renouncing, repenting, and receiving his Savior. Tears began streaming down my face and I think we all were in amazement at this miracle. Pat said that he saw Mwita crying also. After Mwita met the Lord, all five of us then began to pray at the same time, our own prayer of deliverance over Mwita. In less than five minutes, we cast out demons and sensed a peace in the room over Mwita. Mwita then rose to his feet and I said, “We need to baptize him right now. Where is there water nearby?”

Jackson suggested a small creek a couple of kilometers away and so we all drove across the border into Kenya toward the creek.

The creek was not very deep and was filthy with a swift current. Looking at this creek reminded me of what Namaan must have thought when Elisha

told him to go dip in the dirty Jordan River to remove his leprosy.

At the creek, Pat and I both rolled up our pants, took off our socks and shoes, and walked down into it. We held out our hands and each holding Mwita, helped him down the dirt embankment into the water with us.

Standing in the water, I took a couple of minutes to explain to Mwita what the purpose of baptism was—that as he goes down into the water, his old life and all of the way he used to live rushes away in the current forever. As he comes up, he is a new man, following Jesus for the first time.

Pat asked him if he was ready and he said, “This is just like my dream. I’m ready.”

We asked him to sit in the foot deep water with his legs upstream. We then had him lean backwards and put him all the way underneath. I had forgotten to tell him to close his mouth and plug his nose so Mwita went under the water with his mouth wide open and I’ll never forget the image of his face under the water. We brought him up again and stood him to his feet. The five of us who came with him began raising our hands and shouting thanks to God for this brand new man, cleansed of his sin and past. Mwita also raised his hands and praised!

On the way back to his house, I asked Mwita how long ago he had begun to have the recurring dream about Pat and me. He said that the dream began soon after he joined the group of men involved with witchcraft.

I then asked him when the last time was that he had the dream. He said, “Last night.”

Arriving back at his house, we arranged for Nashan to visit him the following day to begin discipling him, getting him a Bible also. Mwita agreed and we talked about Mwita gathering his family so that Nashan could also share Jesus with all of them. Mwita agreed as numerous members of his family and bystanders were gathering around. Mwita then asked us if we could buy him some soap, saying that he wanted to clean some things. We quickly sent someone to purchase a couple of bars of soap and then we took photos of us with our new brother.

Three days later, we were traveling through the same area and Mwita was standing at the front door of his home. We stopped and greeted him. Mwita asked Pat and me, almost offended, why we hadn’t given him a new name since we had baptized him. I had never considered naming anyone other than my own children before. Mwita waited for our answer and I immediately thought of my Grandpa Huitt whom Mwita reminded me of and who had met the Lord in the last years of his life. I then looked at Mwita and said, “Your new name is James.” Pat told him who James was in the Bible and that he was a close follower of Jesus.

Mwita, now James, seemed to accept his new name. Pat and I laid our hands on James and began to pray for him, blessing him, asking the Lord to baptize him in the Holy Spirit, and speaking over his life. James then asked for us to bring him a photo of us together the next time we came to Tanzania. We agreed that we would.

Our team had dinner with Pastor Jackson a couple of days after this experience and I asked Jackson what the most amazing miracle was that he had ever seen. He told us that he had seen blind eyes opened and the deaf hearing, but the most amazing miracle he had ever seen was last Sunday—the miracle of Mwita meeting Jesus in extraordinary fashion, going from a leader entrenched in witchcraft to a soaking wet believer in about an hour’s time….

Our ZAO Life Project is focused on providing life, both physically and spiritually. Every eight seconds a child dies from unclean drinking water and thousands of adults die daily from AIDS. There are entire villages void of parents and adults and estimates state Africa could be a leaderless continent in fifteen to twenty years. It is time for us to make a difference. This is our generation—our watch. Can a nation be saved in a day? Yes, it can.

ZAO is one of the missions your MST contributions currently support. To find out more about ZAO Water, visit zaowater.com