From time to time, a church member who is trying to become a true disciple experiences a moment where the religious teachings they read in commentaries suddenly become a real, living challenge right in front of them. For me, that moment arrived on the evening of Monday, June 15, 2026.

I have served as a Seventh-day Adventist Church Elder since 2022, but nothing in my training—no board meeting, no camp-meeting, no standard pastoral visit—could have prepared me for the phone call from my cousin. Her young house help, a teenage girl around 17 to 19 years old, was violently out of control.

When my wife and I arrived at the house, the living room was a scene of absolute chaos. Furniture had been scattered and broken. Standing over the young girl were three burly men from the neighbourhood—two Muslims and a Catholic. They were just finishing a kaba knot, binding her hands and feet with heavy ropes. Even tied down, the girl possessed an unnatural, terrifying strength.

As I stood there, the lone spiritual worker in a room filled with frightened onlookers, a wave of profound scepticism hit me. Just months earlier, I had visited a patient at Muhimbili National Hospital with my friend, Elder Dr Richard Christopher. 

That patient had originally been brought to our church for deliverance, but when things worsened, medical professionals (including Dr Richard Christopher, the Elder) correctly diagnosed it as a severe mental health crisis. With proper hospital treatment, their health greatly improved. 

Looking at this bound teenager, I found myself wrestling with that exact question: Is this a spiritual battle, or am I looking at a medical emergency playing out on a living room floor?

Context of conversion

But then, the specific context of the girl’s life came to the forefront. Just two days prior, on Saturday, June 13, 2026, this young woman had made a radical, dangerous choice. She had abandoned her ancestral Muslim faith, walked down into the baptismal pool at the SDA Church Mwenge, and washed away her old life. She was no longer Najma. She had been renamed Sarah.

Now, barely 48 hours later, Jesus was on trial in this living room, and I was his unexpected defence lawyer.

In my heart, I prayed a silent, desperate prayer. The response from the Holy Spirit was immediate and clear: “Do not rely on yourself or your title. Depend fully on Jesus, the Crucified.”

Driven by that impression, I did something that made everyone in the room gasp. I bent down and began loosening her ropes.

“Utamfunga?” (Are you going to tie her?) someone whispered in panic. “She is too powerful!”

I told myself that if we were going to put on a show for Jesus, we had to actually have faith that he could defeat the darkness. I completely untied her hands, and later she untied her legs, I suspect with some help from her possessors.

The atmosphere in the room shifted instantly. A small group of Adventist sisters (my wife and cousin included) in the room began to sing hymns. The music acted like an environmental irritant to whatever was inside the girl. Every time the name of Jesus was sung, she would violently clamp her hands over her ears to block out the sound. I reached down, gently but firmly pulling her hands away from her head.

When I did, she curved her palms outward, twisting her fingers into the shape of a dragon’s jaws, opening them wide as if she were a beast about to swallow an animal alive. She alternated between these terrifying posturing movements and a mocking, eerie smile that evoked a sense of unease and mystery.

Throughout the drama, a persistent, quiet nudge kept echoing in my subconscious mind. It wasn’t loud, but it was relentless: “This is not your war. Let them know you aren’t here to fight them. Tell them to leave the way they came, because Najma—the old person they are looking for—was buried in the baptismal pool at Mwenge last Saturday.”

Moment of truth

The door. For a long time, I lacked the courage to say those words out loud. I didn’t want to play the hero. I kept trying to manage the situation, but after an hour of stalemate, it became obvious that these entities weren’t going to leave on their own.

I finally spoke up. “Najma is no longer here,” I asserted. The girl looked at me, flashed that chilling smile, and used sign language to gesture: No, she is still in here.

“I am talking to you about Jesus,” I insisted, refusing to back down. “He defeated your boss, the devil, at the Cross. Tonight, I want you to leave the way you came in. In Jesus’ name.”

The moment I said “leave the way you came in,” the girl began to crawl strangely and forcefully toward the front door. Three times she went for the handle. Each time, thinking I had to physically block her to keep her in the room for the deliverance, I pushed her back inside.

Then, the quiet voice in my mind corrected me with a touch of divine common sense: “Who told you demons can’t walk out through a door? If they entered her life through normal entry points, why are you blocking the exit? Let them go.”

The realisation hit me like a physical blow. My confidence was restored. I looked at the girl and asked directly how they intended to leave. She pointed straight at the front door.

I turned to my cousin’s husband. “Open the door,” I commanded.

He swung the door wide open. The young girl looked out into the night, turned back to us, and literally waved “bye-bye” with her hand. The heavy, oppressive atmosphere in the living room vanished instantly. The exhaustion remained, but Sarah was finally back, resting in her right mind.

My key takeaways: when we pray, we must be calm to listen and follow the instructions. We must surrender fully in such moments because the battle belongs to Jesus.

Kiiya Joel Kiiya is the founder and chief executive of C-Sema, a faith-based organisation in Tanzania. He’s available at kiiya.jk@sematanzania.org or on X as @KiiyaJK. The opinions expressed here are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Chanzo. If you are interested in publishing in this space, please contact our editors at editor@thechanzo.com.