“If you want to see things happen that you’ve never seen before,” someone said to me recently, “You have to be willing to do things you’ve never done before.”

I immediately thought, “Rodrigue must really want to see things happen.”

Rodrigue, one of our fourth-year students at Emmaus Biblical Seminary, wanted to see Haiti come to know Jesus more than anyone we knew. He wanted to experience God moving in ways he’d never seen, and, as he told me once, would do anything to tell his lost countrymen about what Jesus had done in his life.

Each weekend, Rodrigue would leave campus to work in his village preaching, teaching, doing door-to-door evangelism and ministering to the community. 

Then, he would share with us on Mondays about what God was doing. Our first year in Haiti, Rodrigue spoke to dozens of people every weekend about coming to know Jesus. He led literally hundreds of people to the Lord.

But it wasn’t until the (2007 -08) school year had almost ended when his constant study of Scripture and a series my husband Matt, his professor, had taught about the power of God over the power of Satan led Rodrigue to do something he’d never done before. 

It was Easter break, and he had three extra days off school to work in his community. On his second day home, he walked door-to-door, talking to people about Jesus. When the day was almost finished, he saw five men entering the house next door. One of them lay paralyzed on a mat, and the other four carried him through the door.

Curious, Rodrigue asked the paralyzed man what had happened to him. The man quickly introduced himself as a witch doctor and told Rodrigue that he had been unable to walk or move the right side of his body for almost six months. 

First, the witch doctor had attempted to heal himself, practicing the voodoo he had practiced on others throughout the many years of his work. Unchanged, the withered man then went to a more powerful witch doctor, spending many months and a lot of money to find healing.

When this also proved to be a waste of time and money, his friends carried him to the most powerful witch doctor they knew. They spent the money of friends, family and members of the community and several more months seeking healing from Satan, the one he had served so faithfully.

“And now,” the old man said, the result of his experiences obvious, “I have been brought home to die.”

Earlier that week, a classmate of Rodrigue’s had asked Matt a key question, “Satan really has no power, does he?”

“Our God has ALL the power,” Matt had told them.

And so, Rodrigue bent over the crippled man and asked God to show His power over Satan’s in this man’s life. Immediately, God healed him. 

In front of the community, the Mark 2:12 experience happened to this man. “And he got up, picked up the pallet, and walked in the sight of everyone, so that they were all amazed, and glorifying God, saying ‘We have NEVER seen anything like this!’”

Over the next three days, Rodrigue continued to meet with the man, telling him about the God who had healed him. The witch doctor’s body continued to grow stronger. 

Sunday, as Rodrigue stood behind the pulpit of the dark, packed-out church that he pastors, he was interrupted by a skinny old man, once lame, bounding like a child down the center aisle, begging to make Jesus his Lord. 

“I knew God would do it,” Rodrigue said as he finished. “I knew He could do it, and I knew that He would, because I believed.”