From around the campfire: Pastor Baz talks to the community

Tales from around the campfire

All my life I've been involved in sport from Tae Kwon Do to Ballroom Dancing to Boxing to Surfing to Rugby league and Oztag. Right now I type this short article with a badly sprained thumb from attempting to score a try last night  - try typing without your right thumb for a while!!! You keep missing the space bar.

 

And around sports you meet lots of people from various backgrounds, experiences and belief systems. You just have to be willing to ask - "Have you ever had a supernatural experience"

 

This week I was talking to my major sponsor, a sports warehouse and I asked that question "Do you guys have any stories".

 

And this is the story I heard from the manager - which was turned on its head  two hours later when another person (a missionary raised in the occult) gave me an interesting perspective on what I'd heard.

 

The first part starts in an old house, which was built between the world wars. The lady who owned the house was named Minnie. Minnie died in the house and then it was sold as a deceased estate and snapped up by a young family.

 

Not long after, conversations could be heard in the oldest childs room - a child who had no understanding of the history of the property. One night, when the father of the house heard the talk, he walked in, saw no-one but the child and turned off the bedroom light. As he walked away the light turned back on. He walked back into the room puzzled and as he went to flick it off again he noticed his child sitting up in bed.

 

"Are you ok" He asked?

 

"I was talking to the old grannie of the house - she comes and sits on my bed. She said her name was Minnie. I told her to go away, so she did".

 

The same man went on to share with me stories of his wife working as a nurse at various Sydney hospitals, where similar stories - including that of an old lady who rummages through peoples belongings looking for cigarettes - but who is the same person who died in the hospital years before - for half an hour.

 

An hour later I had a meeting with a potential sports chaplain who shared with me his stories of being raised in Wicca, life as a missionary in Indonesia and the incredible supernatural stories from that country and deliverance ministry that followed them wherever they went. Stories of incredible demonic oppression of the local people and the freedom they encountered in Jesus Christ as they were set free.

 

I shared with him the story about Minnie and he added his own to it.

 

"We lived in a house in Sydney, and there was the ghost of an old lady in it. One night my mother saw her sitting in a rocking chair in the corner of the room and she said that the kids room was this room and we should be moved into here. My mum, being a person who was involved with many seances trusted the spirit and moved us into the room as indicated. One night I was walking past the room and saw the old lady pulling the bedsheets over my brother. I always thought this was a benevolent spirit who cared about us until I had a dream".

 

He then started to unpack the reality of the situation. 

 

"In the dream the old lady was knitting in the room, smiling at me. Then the facade of who she was started to unravel - literally. Her skin started to unravel and I saw the most diabolical monster underneath - it had sharp teeth and claws and eyes full of hate. As her real form was revealed, she leapt at me from the chair and I cried out 'Jesus save me' and she dissapeared in a puff of smoke. I believe that when people tell me they see ghosts, especially of the departed, it is usually a mimic, trying to get the person to focus on the phenomenon and to lose their focus on God - which if you look at the increase in shows on this subject has worked. People aren't interested in God, their focus in on working out what this phenomenon is, and it draws them deeper and deeper in until they are snared in it".