Testimony
Benjamin’s Unfaithful Heart
The story of Benjamin and Jeannette Ella
Yaoundé, Cameroon
For Benjamin Ella’s wife, Jeannette, there was only one response to her husband’s infidelity: she decided to murder him.
“When my wife finally realized that I was having an affair, she went wild. She grabbed a machete and tried to kill me. I had to wrestle it from her hand,” Benjamin told CfaN.
Benjamin Ella of Cameroon was a proud man with a distinguished military career. He entered the army at age twenty-two, and then began an immoral lifestyle. He married Jeannette a decade later, but his pattern of immorality continued. “Each time I had sex with a woman, I would not be satisfied,”said Benjamin. “Lust drove me to find the next woman. But it was never enough.”
Benjamin became bolder and bolder as he planned his meetings with women. After his wife attacked him, he simply stopped trying to hide the affairs. “I was living a terrible life. I would go out with other women. I would bring women into my own home, even when my wife was in the house. I was only thinking of what was best for me.”
“That became the hardest thing for me – the way he would bring women home and sleep with them right here in our house,” Jeannette told us. “I was devastated. I kept thinking maybe I should leave him. But I couldn’t because I had no way to provide for my children.”
The couple lived like strangers in the same house. They rarely spoke to each other, and hardly ever made eye contact. After a while, Benjamin began to realize that he was living a very lonely, empty existence.
One night he decided to go to the Christ for all Nations Gospel campaign in Cameroon near his home. He said that as he walked onto the parade grounds that night, he felt like something good was going to happen. Then he heard Reinhard Bonnke begin to preach the Gospel.
“Something extraordinary did happen to me that night!” said Benjamin. “As he preached from the Bible, it was different than I heard in the past. I saw power in the way Reinhard Bonnke preached!” After hearing the Gospel preached for the very first time, Benjamin repented of his sins and prayed to receive Jesus as his Savior!
“I know Jesus forgave me for my sins that night!” he said. “That night I turned away from my sin, and found a new way to live.”
Jeannette couldn’t believe the difference either! “That night when he came home from the campaign, I noticed a change in him – a big change!”
The next night Benjamin took Jeannette and his children back to the meeting! During the invitation to pray for salvation, the entire family surrendered their lives to Jesus Christ! Things began to change for the couple. They started talking to one another, and began attending a church. Soon Benjamin took the important step of reconciling with his wife.
“After we came to the Lord, we went into a room, and I confessed my sins to my wife and she confessed things to me that she had done – and we forgave each other,” Benjamin said.
“He has changed so much,” added Jeannette. “The horrible things he used to do are gone! And I have forgiven him for everything. God has restored our marriage!”
In fact, the family’s salvation and marriage restoration happened more than seventeen years ago at the 1997 CfaN Gospel Campaign. They have been walking with the Lord ever since!
“God restored ‘normal’ to my home!” said Benjamin. “There is no way I will ever go back to my mess. All is well with us now.”
“I love him now,” said Jeanette. “Jesus has done something in his life.Jesus Christ has stepped in, and that makes me love him more than ever.”
Benjamin now has this advice for anyone who is willing to listen: “The only answer is Jesus Christ, the love that takes away the sin of the world!”
“The Evangelist's message finally changed me. I discovered true life.
He talked in an extraordinary way about the love of God. He explained that Jesus died on the cross for my sin.
He explained that
− by his death, I am set free.
− by his death, I am saved.
− by his death, my family is delivered.
− by his death, evil has no hold on me.
His message differed from everything I'd heard before. It was full of life!”
