After about four hours, Ana was still thrashing around and had be held down by 6-8 people at a time to keep her from running to the river to throw herself in. She didn’t seem to get tired, but the people holding her down did, and so they would switch off, taking turns and rubbing their scratches and bruises that happened as a result of them trying to keep Ana in the house. Her eyes remained tightly shut. It was kind of neat to see that everyone stayed awake and sat in a circle around her, wanting to help her and protect her from the thing that wanted to take her away. It was also neat to see the community of Christ responding like that with a determination to not give up on her, even if she was determined to escape them. ​

​Sometime after midnight, Selmira, the first believer from this area, who came to faith over 10 years ago, came over to where we were all sitting. She had been praying while lying in her mosquito net because she was feeling ill the whole time. She came over and knelt down by Ana and started talking to Ana. I was surprised because it hadn’t occurred to me to be persistent in trying to talk to Ana since she didn’t really seem to hear what we were saying the majority of the time, but Selmira started reminding Ana of her faith in Jesus Christ (Ana is a professing believer and was baptized in the last year). She reminded her that she is never alone, and that Jesus is always with her. She reminded her of Jesus’ great love and care for her, and that Jesus is stronger than anything that might want to harm her, that she just needed to look to and hold on to Jesus. After Selmira started talking to her and praying intermediately over her, Ana stopped thrashing around and lay still for the first time. Selmira even put Ana’s head in her lap and stroked her hair as she was talking to her. Just this act would have been impossible minutes before, since Ana had been trying to bite anyone close to her. The group who had been holding her down gradually let go of her when they saw her relax. With the context of Ana having said over and over again that there were two men at the door waiting to take her (two men that no one could see except Ana, even while her eyes were tightly closed the whole time), Selmira asked Ana if she could see Jesus. At that point, Ana nodded yes. 
 
Selmira kept talking to her, reminding Ana of who she is in Christ and how He can help if we just focus our eyes on Him and trust in Him. After about a half-hour of Selmira talking and praying over her, Ana opened her eyes for the first time since the whole ordeal started and actually seemed lucid. Eventually with Ana being back to her normal self, everyone gradually started nodding off as we were all exhausted. The next morning Ana was super sore and bashful. She couldn’t remember anything after getting out of the canoe, but she asked forgiveness, especially to those she had hit or kicked from the night before. 

The other two girls who had said that someone had touched them during the last meeting ended up dreaming of the same merman and his helper. He told them that he had been looking for another girl (Ana), and that he had touched them by mistake. Their separate, but eerily similar accounts of their dreams left little doubt that they had really dreamed with the mermen. 
 
This situation caused the team to remember the writings of Paul Hiebert on “the Excluded Middle” in missions (click here to read his article on "The Flaw of the Excluded Middle"). This “excluded middle” is talking about where this physical world and the spiritual world interact and intersect in our experiences here on earth. So many daily fears and concerns of tribal people fall into this “middle” that is so often not addressed, and sadly, very often excluded in Western missions, because we, as Westerners, rarely if ever experience or witness these kinds of “spiritual encounters.” We’re so quick to say that these kinds of things “don’t exists” or that people’s imagination “is getting the better of them.” But doesn’t Scripture teach us that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces in the heavenly realms?” (Ephesians 6:12) Is it not very plausible in the case of Ana and the many others who report having had the exact same experience as she, that our spiritual enemy is crafty, deceptive, fear-producing, and can present themselves in whatever form they would like to trick us and cause us harm? Like even pink dolphins and mermaids? Considering John 10:10, if the enemy in some cases can’t possess, perhaps they try to deceive and manipulate people so as to cause them to harm themselves or even try and drown themselves…? I’m so thankful that there is story after story throughout Scripture of the power of Jesus over all things: physical AND spiritual beings! His power is supreme in these things, and He rarely if ever is seen in His healings separating the physical body from the person’s spiritual needs. 
 
This is not the whole story of everything that happened; it’s just a small part really. But this blog post is already longer than should be allowed, haha. In the end, watching all this unfold was definitely a sober reminder not to take lightly or dismiss comments made by the people, even when they talk about encounters with mermaids, and to never miss the opportunity to point people to our Hope and Peace in the midst of fear and turmoil and call them to trust Him.

Dolphins are a common sight on the river during our travels! It’s a little bizarre at first seeing grey and even pink dolphins in freshwater, but we see them so frequently, it doesn’t take long to get used to them. What is quite a bit harder to get used to is the role pink dolphins play in the worldview of the people on the river. 
 
Did you know that pink dolphins are actually mermaids in the worldview of the people? They are often called “yakuruna” – the water people or the people who live in the water. They are described as enchantingly beautiful “gringos” believe it or not. The women mermaids are generally described as bewitchingly beautiful with white skin, blond hair, and blue or green eyes. The mermen are equally as beautiful with the same white skin and light-colored eyes. While the mermaids are always described this way, they aren’t the type of people or “beings” you want to run into. They are kind of like body and/or soul snatchers. They steal people and take them to their world under the water. 
 
Enchanted is a word that is often used for the world that the people on the river live in. By enchanted we mean a world that is much more than what it appears on the surface or physical plane, a world where a dolphin is a dolphin, but sometimes it’s also a devilishly beautiful white person trying to lure you to your death. 

​When first hearing about these fairy-tale-like stories, it’s easy to dismiss them as an overactive imagination or just fear without real experiences with these beings. But, a little over a week ago, we got to see in person what an encounter with these beings looks like.
 
All week we were in a discipleship workshop with all the believers from the 3 main villages where we serve. This is always an amazing time of worship, praying together, encouragement, and discipleship. Early on, we noticed that this particular week was a little different from normal. There were a lot of spiritual encounters.
 
– I’m using “encounters” and not “spiritual attacks” because it’s too easy to assume that “spiritual attacks” are logistical or health problems...etc. that we can indirectly account for as being ways the enemy is trying to distract or keep people from knowing or growing in their walk with Jesus Christ. But when I say “encounters” here in this blog post, I’m talking about direct spiritual manifestations.
 
Right after the workshop kicked off, the people began to mention on a daily basis little spiritual manifestations that they were noticing. One of these that one of the teenage girls mentioned in passing was that she had been visited by a merman in a dream after traveling from her home village to the village where all the believers were meeting. This merman appeared to her, exquisitely beautiful, and told her that he was coming for her, and that he would take her before the end of the week, before she got back to her home village. 

​This was actually the first time I had heard of the mermen or mermaids appearing in dreams, so while it made my skin crawl when the people nonchalantly committed on the subject, the days of the week passed without the dream becoming a reality, and so I didn’t think it was actually going to happen… little did I know. 
 
The night before everyone was going back to their home village, we meet up at one of the believer’s houses for one last time of worship and sharing from the week. Three teenage girls, from three different villages, seated in different areas of the house, mentioned that someone touched them from behind at different moments in the house, and when they looked to see who was touching them, there was no one. Again, most westerners, even worse – missionaries, would say, “you have an overactive imagination!” and immediately discredit any and all possibility that there is any truth or reality in what the people are saying they have just experienced. While we were all more than a little puzzled, thankfully none of the team responded in a way to doubt the girls’ testimonies about what they had felt. 
 
After the evening meeting was done, everyone loaded up in canoes and headed to the homes of the hosting church members. Nem and I were in the canoe with the girl who had dreamed earlier in the week with the merman, and she was also one of the girls who said someone was touching them while they were in the meeting. Let’s refer to her as Ana. We all unloaded from the canoe and eagerly headed up to the house for some much-needed shuteye. After getting back to Cristobal’s (one of the believers from the hosting village) house, the 25+ believers staying in the house were busy hanging up their mosquito nets and getting ready for bed. What we didn’t realize is that after everyone had quickly filed out of the canoe and up to the house, Ana had quietly stayed behind. She is one of 4 teenage girls from the village downriver, and they are always together. Her friends tried to talk her into coming up to the house, but she refused to go willingly, and so her 3 friends, when they couldn’t get her to come up to the house willingly, they forcefully dragged her from the canoe up to the house, to which she smartly replied that when they were asleep she would just sneak away. Now, let me assure you Ana is not a smart-Alec or a drama queen or a problem waiting to happen. She’s actually quiet, shy, attentive, kind, and hates being the center of attention – really she avoids it at all costs like most of the teenage girls on the river, so her weird, abrupt change in behavior was puzzling and scary for her friends. 

Since we had gone ahead of the girls back to the house, we didn’t know that all of that had taken place. We were on the other side of the room, which was now full of mosquito nets blocking visibility from one side of the room to the other, and in the middle of getting ready for bed when one of the girls came to get us. Without really understanding what was happening, she led us over to Ana’s mosquito net and there we found Ana semi-unconscious, in a dream or trance-like state, mumbling & groaning, and thrashing about. Her friends were all literally on top of her trying to hold her down. 

​My first thought was that I was witnessing some kind of demonic possession, but it threw me that she appeared to be almost asleep with her eyes tightly closed and that she still appeared very much to be herself in some ways (i.e. her voice and expressions were her own). At first I thought the girls were playing around, so I got down on my knees and started talking to her and holding her hand, but she didn’t respond like I thought she would. She continued thrashing around, almost throwing off her three friends again and again, groaning, and mumbling with her eyes closed. While I didn’t understand initially what was happening, the people had sent for us to pray, so with 2 other leaders from the different villages, we all started praying. While we were praying, the pile of people trying to hold Ana down grew to 8 people as she almost managed to throw off the people several times in her attempts to run for the door. The group would quickly grow tired and groan whenever she would hit, knee, claw, or bite them.

After seeing that praying a quick, initial prayer wasn’t going to be enough, the Mark 9:29 passage came to mind, and I realized this wasn’t going to be a quick thing. In fact, the people in the house started getting ready to be awake all night and to take turns holding her down. Every once in a while Ana would say, “they’re coming,” or “they’re here to take me.” At one point, when her friends asked her “who? Who’s here?!” Little bit by little bit, asking her simple questions, Ana was able to communicate that the merman who had appeared in her dream was standing in the doorway with another man, wanting to take her with them, but they couldn’t come in the house. They were waiting for the people to sleep, so they could take her.” A little while later, she got more agitated and violent and said her mom was calling her and that she had to go to her mother. Her mom was far downriver in her home village, but Ana was sure that her mom was in the doorway. The people explained what was happening and told us of similar experiences that they had had or seen in the different villages. It was creepy that the phrases that Ana repeated as she thrashed around were word-for-word verbatim for what the people told us that people being stolen by yakurunas/mermaids generally say in these types of situations, especially the part of getting confused and thinking that their mother is calling them. Apparently, this type of thing is not uncommon. Most of the people had at least one story of someone “going crazy,” saying similar things to what Ana was saying, and trying to throw themselves into the river. In the cases where the person succeeded in throwing themselves in the water, the people said that the crazed-person would try to swim under water as if they were trying to drown themselves.
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To be continued in part 2....