Wanda Barzizza

3 yrs

"For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." Philippians 1:21

I was born and brought up in an orthodox Hindu family, where we worshiped idols and gave priority to goddesses. We were very zealous about status or caste; we used to ridicule people of lower castes and also tribal people. We even thought that Christians were also of the lower caste. This is why we never allowed any Christians or lower caste people into our home, let alone touch them. We had our own isolated puja (prayer) room in our house, which contained 27 pictures of various idols. Twenty years ago our entire family was attacked by witchcraft, performed by our neighbor. Consequently, my mother and I were possessed by evil spirits. For example, while we were sat to eat our food, the cooked rice turned into worms! Many nights we struggled to sleep because we heard somebody knocking at our door, but when we opened the door no one was there. In the morning, we would wake up to see all our things scattered about.

We approached many magicians and spent a lot of money to try and rid us of these problems and demons. We also visited many Hindu temples and offered money and materials. We couldn’t find any deliverance, rather the problems actually got worse. After much suffering, one Sunday all eight of our family members decided to commit suicide. Fortunately a lady who was serving in a Catholic Church behind our home passed by our house. She asked us, "Why do you look very sad?" As she was talking to my grandmother, the lady entered our home and looked into our puja (prayer) room. Then she said, "In this puja (prayer) room you are keeping many gods, pictures and idols. Did any of these gods die for your sins, as Jesus Christ did?" Though we had read books about Hinduism, we had never found any god like Jesus, who died on the cross and was resurrected.

After some time, we confessed that Jesus is the only God, who died for our sins. Then we shared our problems with the lady and she invited us to attend church. Miraculously, our family escaped suicide; we obtained peace of mind but as we later discovered, not full deliverance from the demons. After some time, one of my mother’s colleagues invited us to an all-night prayer meeting at the Church of South India (Madras), which, by that point, we had attended for seven months. On that seventh month the demons attacked my mother and me, even more aggressively than before. The pastor told us about confession of sin and salvation through Christ. Within days my mother was delivered, but I was yet to receive any deliverance. My parents sincerely repented and were baptized. We returned home and burned all our idols, pictures, anything that represented false gods.

Three months after my parents` conversion, I was yet again attacked by the demons and laid in bed unconscious for days. Even my parents lost hope that I would regain consciousness. The pastor from the Pentecostal Church prayed solidly, without taking a drop of water, for seven days and I awoke on the seventh day. On account of this, the rest of our family came to the Lord, and since that time our entire family have been devoted only to Christ. All of this occurred in 1979.

Being well, I went on to further study. While I was completing my degree the Lord called me to serve him full time. He confirmed my call through Luke 6:13; And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles. I had the privilege of studying the word of God for three years in a seminary (B.D) school at Dehra Dun Uttranchel in North India. There I received the burden for Punjabis to share the love of Jesus Christ and, in 1993, I became a pioneer missionary along with my family. I worked as Project Manager under World Vision in Dehra Dun in the state of Utter Pradesh. I was promoted as Coordinator and transferred to Chandigarh when the Lord spoke to me in 1993 to be a church planter.

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