One of the most terrifying fight, flight, or freeze moments happened a couple weeks ago. Face to face with a spitting cobra, I stupidly froze.
It was a Saturday morning and all the kids were in our multipurpose building (MP) for dance class. I had been going to and from my house to the MP a couple times. This time I asked Ben to come back to the house with me to grab something. I’m not actually sure why I even asked Benji to come; it was a weird ask, but I’m thankful I did. I unlocked the front door, not seeing something curled up at my feet. I opened the door and stepped in, leaving the door open for Ben and was about to kick my shoes off when he screamed behind me, “Mom, snake!” I spun around to meet the face of a cobra who raised up, flaring it’s upper body, and began to spit.
For whatever crazy reason, I froze: Benji’s still outside, I don’t want to move to scare the snake into attack mode, I’ve never actually seen one before, my door is wide open, and this deadly thing is less than two feet away from me.
For those who don’t know much about cobras, they can spit (the velocity of a water pistol) reaching from 6 - 8 feet, and they aim for the eyes of their enemies. This cobra and I were both frozen in position – oh, and cobras are far too fast for a human to evade it – then it started spitting…
But not blasting like a water pistol. In fact, the venom never even reached me – not even a drop on my toe (though it could have sprayed directly my eyes, blinding me, and also my body and legs). It was like there was a shield about my body and the venom couldn’t touch it. It was like the snake almost wasn’t sure if it should spray me; like it was thinking, “I’m supposed to spray you… but I don’t really want to…” So the spray came out in like a half-hearted dribble, then a longer dribble, dropping just before my toe. Like, what a miracle! WOW! Less than two feet a way, looking into this deadly thing’s eyes that could poison me and blind me – but not a drop of harm done.
When I finally had my senses, I calmly told Ben to run for help and slammed the door as quickly as I could in the snake’s face: You’re not welcome in my house! Ben yelled to everyone that there’s a snake, and all the girls and house moms came running to help kill it.
When they came around the corner to see it’s a cobra, some screamed and ran back. Others stayed and plotted how they were gonna kill it (while I was staring through the windows, locked inside), and the house moms told me in my ignorance, “Um MK, close the windows!” One of the girls who came to help immediately saw it was a spitting cobra sitting in the crook of my door, and she screamed in terror, dropped to the ground, and began sobbing hysterically. Another girl escorted her away from my house but she cried and cried for a solid half hour as the girls and house moms successfully killed the snake (by first dousing it from afar with some petrol, as it makes it dizzy enough to hit it with a rock or stick – they threw rocks at it and then killed it with a huge stick).
When we cleaned up the snake guts from my doorway, the house mom pulled me aside and said the girl who was crying hysterically said she was visited by demons the night before and was told basically if she didn’t want to cooperate and be a satan worshipper, she would see his power a different way. They (demons) told her, “We will show you and send something to attack Mama Kate.” So when she saw the snake, it was real – she saw it as the weapon sent to kill me, the mission of Satan ever since I started this mission.
These attacks are real and demons are real. This girl comes from a family of witchcraft and Satanic assignments, a past she had turned away from when she chose Jesus. Some times she gets revisited by these evil spirits at night to terrify her back into Satanic cult worship. Thankfully, this girl wants nothing to do with Satan. But Satan does not play nice; he is like the bully that only picks on kids half his size, or even more accurately, he’s the one that will hit you when you’re already down, or will incite someone to rape a 70 year old woman or a 2 year old child, etc. That’s how disgustingly evil satan is. So in order to try to get this girl back to servitude to him, what does he attack? What the child loves. This girl truly has taken me in her heart as Mom. She has bonded and connected to me in a way she hasn’t to another adult and it’s natural then that satan would try to attack or harm the one she loves so as to keep her trapped to him. Too bad for him that I have WAY too many prayer warriors – thank you and thank you, Jesus!
I went to the sobbing girl after the snake mess was cleaned up and hugged her in excitement saying, “You just got to SEE the hand of God, my child! You got to SEE it with your own eyes!!!”
She stopped sniffling and looked up, “Really? You weren’t scared?”
I laughed. “I was terrified. But look what God did for me and for you! There is no other way to explain this; it was a miracle! Not a way for satan to show you his power, but a way for God to show us WHO HE IS! AHHH WHAT A WONDERFUL GOD WE SERVE!” I couldn’t stop singing and dancing, so the fun atmosphere returned and the girl joined the rest of everyone at dance class again.
A few days later, though, it hit me – and it hit me hard. Revisioning the snake, attack mode, and hearing that Satan continues to “send” things to attack me. My first year in Swazi, when I had one of my first encounters with demonic manifestations and deliverances, the girl revealed that it is Satan’s mission to kill me and that the child had been told to do so herself. It has recurred in other girls in the past years, girls who also have similar experiences with being dedicated as children to Satan or involved in witchcraft, etc. for them to also be assigned to kill me. In a manifestation earlier this year, I was physically attacked and bitten – a bite that was going for my bone, a mark that is still on my leg, a battle scar. And others previously, when the girls got out and confessed everything that had been done in the dark underground, revealed that since nothing has been successful in killing me, then he wants to hurt me and I was told exactly this, “We are supposed to crush Mama Kate with disappointment so she will leave and never come back.”
All of this can be really discouraging, and if I’m honest, there are some days when I think I can’t go on. There are some nights I can’t fall asleep because I’m alone in the dark in my room and I’m scared – so I turn a light on, even at 35. I start wearing away little by little as Satan tries to make me tired because there’s no other thing he can do. I had another girl who was also in the cult tell me directly, “That’s not the first snake that was sent to you. I was supposed to put some in your room!” She is in her deliverance journey and has chosen Jesus but she still doesn’t understand love. “Why are you still here?” she asked after the snake incident. “Aren’t you sick of all this?” And I responded, “I’m here because of Love. And Love wins. Every time.”
The kind of love that you spend your life on – or give your life up. The kind of love that led martyrs to their horrific deaths, yet they embraced it with grace and peace in such a way that it converted even the murderers! If they can willingly walk to their deaths, refusing to deny their belief in Jesus, then I can walk in obedience, refusing to give up.
And really, if I perish? I perish. My physical death means nothing compared to the glory yet to come! And I am not afraid of death – I’m afraid of many other things – but not death. Because the greatest miracle of all is Love conquered even death. Our Savior Wins – every time.
And the “happy ending” for the girl who was told I’d be attacked? Later that week, I went into the houses and into the bedrooms and I prayed over every soul and touched every bed. The next day she came running up to me, “Mom, did you put something on my bed?!” When I told her no she pressed, “Then what did you do in our rooms yesterday evening?”
“I put my hand on your bed and I prayed for you,” I smiled.
“Wow! That was the best night of sleep I’ve ever had in all my life!”
Yes, that is the power of the Love of Jesus Christ. Everything else, even life at stake with a snake, pales in comparison. <3
P.S. Benji is very proud of saving my life and being not just my current man of the house, but man of the ministry. ;) Look how much he's grown!
