Alright ya'll... this is crazy! Ok so I googled the Vegetarian Festival and this is what I got:
The Phuket Vegetarian Festival is an annual event held during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar. It is believed that the vegetarian festival and its accompanying sacred rituals bestow good fortune upon those who religiously observe this rite. During this time, local residents of Chinese ancestry strictly observe a 10-day vegetarian or vegan diet for the purposes of spiritual cleansing and merit-making. Sacred rituals are performed at various Chinese shrines and temples and aesthetic displays such as walking barefooted over hot coals and ascending ladders with bladed rungs are performed by entranced devotees known as "Ma Song".
So when we were at the SHE house they had warned us about the vegetarian festival and how spiritually heavy it was around that time in Phuket. I am not sure if we really understood how dark it actually could get. I have never been this aware of the crazy things that can happen to people who come to a dark place, trying to spreading the light. It is dark enough being in the red light district offering a way out... but during the vegetarian festival... we were in for a treat!
During the vegetarian festival there are tons of people who are dressed in all white and they walk from temple to temple and end up in Phuket Town. At the temple they are inviting these spirits to come into their bodies and pretty much take over.. what I'm trying to say is, they were inviting spirits to possess them. And that they did.
We had the privilege of actually witnessing this event.. I was not expecting that at all. Me (Colleen), Steph, Lauren, Julianne, and Tiffany (a SHE volunteer), were hanging out at the house and Mark (the owner of SHE) came upstairs and said "Lets go to a shin dig down the street." So we said ok, we thought that there was a band playing at our restaurant down the street. We piled into the car and Mark drove... we passed the restaurant, and he said "There's a bunch of people all in white down at the temple." We were all a little thrown off, but were like ok.. we'll just watch from the car. Nope. We got there, got out, walked across the street and walked straight into the gate of the temple. That was close enough. Nope. One of the guys in all white came up to us and said "You come inside, take picture." Mark went.. so we followed.
When we got closer to the temple there was this guy who was jumping around like crazy and ran out of the temple and started puking something up. There were others that were just jumping around and shaking, their eyes were rolling into the back of their heads.. you know.. that kind of stuff :) . The guys who were being possessed had tattoo's all over their bodies representing the spirit they were inviting into their bodies, so you knew which ones were the chosen ones. We all stayed close together, it was really spiritually heavy there. It got hard to breathe, a few of us were shaking really bad, some were scared, some felt scared in their heads but calm in their hearts.. feelings that are just unnatural.
There was one of the guys that was jumping around in the beginning that started to get more intense so the brought him a chair. He sat down a few feet from us, and a few seconds after he sat down the chair began to jump. Not even kidding... the chair seriously was jumping! We got video to prove it. There were a few others who's eyes were rolling back in their heads and some people who had scars on their cheeks from previous years. Sometimes when people are possessed they take HUGE swords, like 2 1/2 inches wide and 2 feet long, and stick them through their cheeks. Supposedly when they take the swords out there were no marks, but we saw people the next day with bandages on their cheeks, so Im just guessing it probably didn't work out the way they planned. There was a story that Mark told me that one year there was a guy who didn't believe everything that was going on, but he was watching from the sidelines and one of the possessed guys could sense that he didn't believe so he stopped what he was doing, came towards the man who didn't believe and did something, and the man began to flop around on the street and foam at the mouth. That story was about someone he knew i believe, but it was also to let us know that it is not something to take lightly.
Having heard that story, and being in the middle of the Chinese temple during the demon possessions, and not being harmed... actually we were being respected by these people. I had one guy who was being possessed tap me on the shoulder so I would move out of his way, then he ran through and began to shake and run around. It was awesome so see the authority we had because we had God on our side. We had the protection of God, and authority of any evil spirit that was surrounding us during this crazy few minutes!
After all the possessions they lit fireworks and picked up the "idols" and walked down the street towards Phuket Town. It was interesting to see them all leave, and the traffic that followed. There were scared little kids, people bouncing around in the bed of their trucks, young boys carrying the idols with hundreds of fireworks popping in their faces because the fireworks are supposed to ward off any evil spirits.... doesn't really make sense, I know.
I would not recommend that experience to everyone, but Im glad I got to experience it because I got to feel the amazing protection of God even in that situation. Also, I would have never believed that any of that could be real if I didn't experience it myself. All of that to say, God is good, and he is with us in this journey for sure! If we ever doubt it, all we have to do is look back at our "shin dig."
No comments:
Post a Comment