Dr. Drew and the Brujos
2002-2003, I was attended Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and served as Missions Pastor at Daybreak (Nuevo Amanecer) Community Church in Shawnee, Kansas. In January 2003, we led our first medical, evangelism, and Gideon Bible distribution team to Amberes, about 50 miles southeast of Guatemala City, in partnership with a Guatemalan Baptist Cesar G.
We stayed and worked in Cesar’s home, where each day we would have the medical clinic, and each evening we would attend a church service. The second night we drove to Aldea La Casita in the hills above Santa Rosa de Lima.
We were greeted by the pastor, entered the church and almost immediately discerned something was not right. The team went to sit at the front, and I stayed in the back watching. Minutes late Leann came back to me in tears and said “Those women look at me like they want to kill me.” Also at the front were 3 nativo women sitting together, wearing traditional Kʼicheʼ clothing; wrap skirts and embroidered blouses with a wide belt. I went to the front with Leann and stared at the women; a younger woman, a middle-aged woman and an older woman. They would not make eye contact with me.
Then the lights went out, but came back on after a dangling electric line was spliced.
Then the younger of the women came forward to sing what was apparently a Christian song, but she kept repeating the chorus over and over almost as a chant (chanting was typically part of indigenous religious ceremonies).
Leann was to give her testimony but couldn’t.
Gary was to preach, and it was as if a spiritual wall separated him from the people (sometimes referred to as a “blocking spirit”). He cut it short and quit.
I was still at the back watching and praying and during the service, outside the door to the church there was chaos.
When the service was over, the 3 women walked past me, and the faces of all 3 were now that of an old women.
We got back to Cesar’s house and the team was quite emotionally and spiritually disturbed, trying process what we had just experienced. We discussed spiritual warfare and the reality of Satan’s opposition and prayed together.
Andy and I were sleeping in a tent next to the house, and at 1:00 I awoke with a start and heard the sound of drums and very faint chanting in the distance, toward La Casita. Then a rooster crowed directly behind our tent, followed by another rooster to our right, and another to our left, then another far in the distance to our right, and another far in the distance to our left; crowing back and forth, which was not unusual at night. There was also an odd steady ‘click’ sound closer.
Then the crowing changed to screaming. The sound was NOT from chickens and directly behind us and on each side of us. With chills up my spine I lay there and prayed, and the Spirit communicated to my spirit; demons are all around you, but I and the prayers of the saints back home are your protection.
The screaming lasted a few minutes, and then it became roosters crowing again, then it stopped.
Years later I was told “There is a very powerful brujo in La Casita.”
Nothing of that nature happened on the June 2003 trip, but we were fully prayed up and had folks earnestly praying for us.
In January 2004 Pastor Steve from Daybreak drove with Cesar from Kansas City to Guatemala City, with several 20 something guys, in a church bus that he was giving to Cesar. They made it after driving 3 long days, and then they did some missions activities north of Guatemala City. Andy and I were delayed a day because of an ice storm in K.C. and arrived after Pastor Steve, Cesar and the guys had gone to Amberes.
We were talking, and a couple of them said that Cesar had told them there was a ghost on his property; an old woman who could turn herself into a horse. But she didn’t bother him. And he took the guys to find her one night, but they didn’t.
I was shocked that our Baptist Guatemalan partner didn’t seem to care that a demon was on his property and confronted Cesar about his “ghost”. He was evasive and never admitted to what he had told the guys.
Cesar had added a couple of rooms to his house, so Andy and I were not in a tent. The 3nd night we were there, this after hearing about Cesar’s “ghost”, I awoke about 5 am needing to use the bathroom, which would require going outside the room and down the open-air porch, in the dark, to the bathroom. I REALLY didn’t want to leave the room, but also really had to pee. So I turned on my flashlight and down the porch I went. The light was shining on the concrete as I walked, and on the floor I thought I saw a vague image of one of the women from La Casita the year before. But told myself I was imagining things, made it to the bathroom, slid the lock shut, and started to pee.
Then the door started to shake as if someone was on the other side trying to open the door, making the same click I heard the year before. It wasn’t an earthquake, and it was real. So I’m peeing with chills up my spine! The shaking lasted about 10 seconds then stopped.
Now I’m in the bathroom, and I can spend the rest of the night there, or open the door. I prayed for a while, took a big breath, opened the door, and no one was there.
That “chills up the spine” feeling occurs every time now when I encounter a demonic presence.
For more insight, please see
and
But it’s not always demonic. About 10 years later the teams were now staying in the home of Betty’s mother-in-law in Casillas. I was sleeping in the room next to the kitchen and open-air pila. In the middle of the night, I awoke to hear the sound of running water and muffled talking. It was La Llorona!
(La Llorona is a vengeful ghost “The Weeping Woman”, roaming at night wearing a white dress near water while crying “¡Ay mis hijos!” [Oh, my children!] for her children that drowned, or that she drowned in a fit of jealous rage. Children are warned throughout Latin America and the American Southwest to come in at night or La Llorona will kidnap them to replace her dead children.)
The next day I told Betty what I had heard. She explained that water had been running only during the night, and her MIL was so gracious that she sat up next to the pila waiting for the water to start so she could fill buckets so we would have water, and had been talking to her sister.
Betty’s MIL got a chuckle, but also told Betty that she did occasionally see a woman, about 3 feet tall, wearing a white dress, standing on her patio at night.
Satan rarely reveals himself in Western Europe and North America; he would rather be thought of as the ASU mascot “Sparky the Sun Devil”. Everywhere else in the world, especially Central America, Haiti (Voodoo), Brazil (Santeria), Sub Saharan Africa and SE Asia & Indonesia, he is much more “in your face” and the people are fully aware of his presence and power, and the dangers they face.
In the early 90s the Southern Baptist International Mission Board had a well drilling ministry in Haiti. The operation would travel out of Port au Prince to small towns and drill a well on the property of a church; giving the people of the village fresh water, and the church encouragment. They traveled, armed, with a lead Suburban, a large truck with the well drilling machine, and another support truck, and because of the risk of carjacking did not share the destination.
The missionary told me on one trip they had to slow down as they reached the compound of a Voodoo priestess. An old woman (the priestess), less than 5 feet tall, ran out of the compound gate, picked up a boulder, and threw it at the Suburban. The missionary was driving, and saw the boulder flying through the air directly toward the windshield, but just before hitting, flew up and over the trucks.
My Missions professor at Midwestern had been a long time IMB missionary in Brazil and had come back to K.C. for his wife to have surgery and treatment for her breast cancer, but they intended to return. He told me this story. A Journeyman (young adults, usually after college, who made a 2 year missionary commitment) was sent to another town to visit a Baptist school for the deaf. He was met at the bus station by the missionary school director. He spent a few days there, and when planning to leave he asked the director for directions back to the bus station. A young Brazilian girl, deaf and mute, was standing there and told him in perfect English how to get there, and the bus transfers he would need to make. He and the missionary prayed over the girl and he left. On reaching the bus station, a man approached him and told him, in English, “She’s one of ours. Leave her alone.”
A pastor friend in K.C. had joined a mission trip to reach homeless in Denver. They had taken water and sandwiches to a park frequented by homeless and the drug addicted, and had several conversations with street people. A young adult woman came up and said “Leave them alone. They’re with me.” He looked around, and the park was suddenly empty of people.
The Bible tells us: “Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) To steal (our joy) and kill (physically, emotionally & spiritually) and destroy (our testimony) (John 10:10) Lifeless and apathetic Christians are no threat to Satan...and no help to the lost. (The church in Sardis – Revelation 3:1-3)
But “The Son of God appeared to destroy the works of the devil.” (1 John 3:18) and “The Lord is faithful; He will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one.” (2 Thessalonians 3:3)
BTW I am very cautious about sharing these stories, and usually only with mature believers. Please exercise spiritual discernment in sharing also.