Our team was assigned to the VA Hospital in Lake City, Florida, on Saturday, March 8. When we got to the VA, we found that the doors were closed there . . . they would not let us go into the rooms and pray with the people. The chaplain suggested that we go to the Domiciliary, a home for veteran’s, near the hospital. When we arrived there, we found that they, too, didn’t allow people to go room to room and pray for the people. However, we did speak and pray for an Activities Director there who was a Christian, and she said we could go to the Chapel, and that she would announce that people could come to the Chapel for prayer if they chose to do so.

We went and sat in the chapel and prayed and waited for people to come. The only one who initially came was a lady who “just happened” to be a friend of one of the men in our group. She had recently married a Jewish man, and she took her friend (a witness, and a relatively new Christian) down to her room to meet her new husband. So, the Jewish man received a witness, but didn’t accept the Lord that day. While they were in her room, one lady in our group mentioned the sense of horrible oppression and bondage in that place . . . it was as if the people weren’t free to talk to us, or even look at us. It was as if the enemy had bound them up to the point that they couldn’t even speak with us at all.

So, we prayed, took authority in Jesus mighty Name over all oppression, depression, and bondage over that place. We prayed that the Spirit of God would go down every hall, and into every room, setting people free, and allowing them to come and talk with us, be prayed for, and receive a witness. Shortly after we prayed, people started coming for prayer. We were sharing the Lord with them in the chapel, in the hall outside the chapel, and many of them were born again. Even some of the staff accepted the Lord.

As we were walking down the hall on the way out of the building, I met a man, and asked him how we could pray for him. He told me several requests, and I began to pray for him. Then, I asked him if he knew he was going to heaven. He wasn’t sure, but then said a very strange thing. He said, “I was possessed, but I’m not possessed any more”. I assumed that he had been visiting a church in the area a few weeks ago, and they prayed for him for deliverance, and he had been set free there. So I asked him to tell me about it. He said . . . “I was possessed till just a little while ago. I have been trying to get free of this thing . . . I couldn’t read my Bible, I couldn’t pray … but just a little while ago . . . after they announced that you all were here to pray for people, . . . I just got “un-possessed” . . . right there in my room. It left me. I’m free. I guess it was you all. I’m not sure. It’s just gone . . . I just got “un-possessed”.

I assured him that it was the Lord, and not us, and asked him to come down to the chapel and tell our group about what had just happened. He agreed, came and shared his testimony of being set free while in his room, and we prayed with him, and he invited Jesus into his heart. As we were about to leave, another man came out, and after we prayed with him, he wanted to pray for us. After his prayer for us, the Lord began giving him words of encouragement and words of knowledge and he began prophesying to each person in our group. He told us things that he couldn’t have known, had the Lord not revealed these things to him.

Each one of us left encouraged, excited about the Lord, and totally amazed at the power of the Lord to lift the oppression off an entire building, and go down the halls and into the rooms setting people free. I have been a Christian for a long time, and have done door-to-door and street witnessing before, but for the last few years have just stopped doing it. I’m not sure why . . . it was just easier to go to church and not get involved in people’s lives like you do when you go witnessing like that.

During the “Great Awakening Crusade” in Gainesville, I have truly been re-awakened not only to the responsibility, but the sheer joy and thrill of sharing the Lord with others. It’s as if the blinders were taken off my eyes, and now I see everyone as people needing to hear about the Lord. I plan to continue to share the Lord with people, and our church is gearing up to become part of the great army of harvesters. Praise the Lord for His Word, His Spirit, and His Power!

Eva A.