Page 102 - Unseen Hands by Nona Freeman

Unseen Hands
at least." Tekle's pleagained the pulpit for him the third time, the next night. The Lord allowed him to preach that time, and heavenly blessings rained on the hearers afterwards.
Agitated missionaries and elders confronted him after the service. "You are bringing division in our church. These who claim to have received the Holy Ghost, speak inginothertongues, stand against those who do not think it is necessary. You cannot preach here again, and you mustvacateat once the room we gave you. We beg you to leave our town and never return."
Tekle and Erkenesh had fasted two days before they came to Negele. With no offer of food at the mission, they continued to fast, but they had to find shelter for the night. (Men of this area proved their masculinity by either castrating or killing strange men.)
With darkness closing in upon them, they knelt beside their bundle of belongings on the roadside and cried to the Lord for help. He directed them to ask for a room at the best hotel in town and assured them that money for the bill would come in time.
Contrary to prevailing custom, the host gave them a room without asking for payment in advance. Neither did he pound on the door of their second floor room each evening at six o'clock demanding his fee for their stay ing another night. They lay on the floor praying and seek ing God's face for five nights and four days, still fasting.
"Since we can't pay, we will not sleep on the bed," Tekle said.
At night they wrestled with the powers of darkness that controlled the tovm, which appeared to them at times as giants armed with fiery spears. Often it seemed that
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