“I hope my testimony will not bore you. My name is Mark, I was a scam artist. I had boys working under me and I was considered a boss or “Chairman“ because of my scamming ideas and scam innovations.
I was big to the point that people older than me in the scam business surrendered to my ideas and became subordinate to me because each time they had problems with getting money from a client, when I stepped in my ideas would definitely get the client paying up—to their utmost surprise.
My encounter with Christ was strange. I met a pastor who ministered to me about Jesus and since then, I have not been the same. I started thinking differently; I was converted. I started fellowshipping with Christians and I was afraid of doing anything bad. I couldn’t talk to my paying clients anymore. I would panic and feeling like losing my breath each time I wanted to call them to ask for money. Someone said the Holy Spirit was restricting me.
But the scamming job was my only source of income. I am a young man with a wife and three beautiful children. I’ve got a family to take care of. All of a sudden, I had a passion to do good. I started up an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) registered and called CAAF (www.caafafrica.org) consolidated African Aged Foundation. My NGO was established to care for the less privileged including the orphans and the oppressed, but more focused on the aged in society.
We give the poor and less privileged elderly ones free food and health care services. But then I became sick. I had a strong, strange heaviness in my chest that usually spread to my head. I tried different hospitals and screening for treatment but the results always indicate that nothing is wrong with me. But I felt this heaviness almost every day. It is strong, strange and very painful. And I experienced it every day.
Because I was broke, I wanted to pick up my scamming ways again. But this time, after calling a client for money, I almost had a heart attack. So I stopped.
I started selling my properties. Everything I had was gone. The worst thing was that the pain on my chest and my head intensified. I knew it was an attack. In this condition my mind would go 360 degrees in one minute, thinking of all the negative things in the world. I would think this and that all at the same time—all negative things. I started thinking that maybe I was under a curse. Another mindset made me believe I had a spiritual sickness or even cancer. I was sad every day, and to top it all off my wife started disrespecting me.
She would talk to me as if she was talking to her house-girl because I could hardly feed them or pay my children’s school fees. I started thinking that my life had come to an end. I even thought about committing suicide. But then I would stop for a moment and remember the word of God that said, “even the lawful captive shall be delivered from the hands of the mighty.” The word of God became my solace and companion. I cried every day because of the pain in my head and chest.
Then I met this ministry, The Elijah Challenge. I had read some testimonies on their website, and I was motivated to contact them for healing.
Before I contacted them, the pain I was feeling began to increase. The night before I heard from them (Elijah Challenge co-workers Sarhonda and Gabriel) I thought I was going to die. But suddenly I received their email asking me to call them.
But strangely before I called them, I was feeling fine. I didn’t feel the heaviness. When I called them, the lady on the phone (Sarhonda) asked me how I was feeling. I told her I was feeling OK that day. She then asked me when did I started feeling well. I was surprised because at that moment I realized that I had started feeling well seven hours earlier. Then Sarhonda told me that her husband Gabriel had prayed over me seven hours before. I realized I had actually been healed at that moment exactly seven hours earlier in the day.
I am now HEALED. The heaviness and pain in the head and chest have now disappeared for the first time in two years. GLORY BE TO GOD.”
Sarhonda and Gabriel are also known as “Shar” and “Teddy.”