spirit and healing in africa - University of the Free State

interpersonal relations. Everyone she knew was involved in acquiring power and influence.
Power permeated all of life. Being fertile implied power; being wealthy implied power; being
healthy implied power. It meant that life was highly hierarchical, and that everyday life was an
existential power play between people. She used to ask herself: ‘who did this to me?’ when she
sometimes was weak or ill, because it meant that someone had tried to take her life force through
a spiritual medium. At a later stage in life, when she moved from her village to the capital city,
Grace Banda became a Christian, and started visiting the Reformed Church that was close to
her house in the compound. She learnt about the power of God, and the power that God had
bestowed upon the children of God. God was an almighty God who sees everything, and who
knows every sinful deed, and who hears every prayer. In church, she was confronted with a God
who became weak, and even died on a cross. This aspect of God’s life was difficult to
understand, yet the power of this God is obvious: He defeats death by his resurrection power,
and is victorious. She wanted to belong to this God, who is so powerful, and who promises to
share this kind of power with his children. That is why Grace Banda thought that the book of
Revelation is the most powerful part of the bible: its impressive images allowed Grace Banda to
envisage herself with a white robe, a crown, and the victory over all her suffering. When her
husband and her daughter passed away, and when her own illness was disclosed to her, she did
not wonder about which one of her relatives and friends tried to weaken her life force, because
she was convinced that so much suffering had to be the work of the devil, trying to lead her away
from her God. Grace Banda focused on Jesus Christ, the Son of the powerful God, because she
needed his kind of power in order to survive. She started to place all her hope in Jesus, who had
suffered on the cross so that she would be resurrected and live with him. She longed to be
relieved from this predator in her body. She wanted to be like Lazarus, whom Jesus had called
out of the grave. How would such a resurrection experience be? What would it be like, to be
strong again, to live without sores, and to be fit enough to radiate vitality and to find an
occupation again? In what sense would her life be changed? Grace Banda started to think about
the meaning of resurrection. When she asked her friends about their understanding of
resurrection life, they talked about surviving a terrible road accident, about overcoming an
illness, about knowing how to deal with an addiction. They had experienced resurrection
moments, and they praised Jesus Christ for his resurrection power which He had infused in their
lives. Grace Banda loved these testimonies about the powerful Christ, the Lion of Juda. They
made her realize that, with this God, she was safe. Still, her search for healing was linked more
closely to her cross-like experiences. She knew that she was dying, despite the medicine. Yet she
had the feeling that God would be faithful, just as Christ had been faithful by returning from the
dead. His death preceded her death. Grace Banda began to see that ín Christ’s victory, there
was his death, his non-survival. Before Christ’s victory, there was death’s victory. God had to
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