Testimony
Deliverance, Salvation and Healing
The story of Bella Marcella Benin, Cotonou
For more than twenty years, Bella Marcella suffered excruciating pain. Every part of her body hurt: legs, arms, lungs – even her fingernails. She described that time as her “twenty wasted years. I had a horrible stomachache and was spitting up blood. After every meal, I vomited. I was unable to eat even potatoes or rice. The sickness caused me to stop eating altogether. I was slowly turning into a nervous wreck while my system headed for total collapse.”
Bella said that, eventually, not a single relative was willing to take her in or help her except her adult daughter.
“I would move from place to place, wherever my legs would carry me. I went to juju priests (shamans) more times than I could count. I was just trying to get relief. Each time I went, they told me to bring things: chickens, candles, herbs. But it seemed like they used these things to harm me more!”
And when the voodoo priests couldn’t help her, she went to doctors and hospitals. In fact, she visited so often that everyone there – even the doctors – knew her by name. But she still found no help. It became almost impossible for her to sit or lie down to sleep.
“I came to the point where I told my daughter that I wanted to die. I asked her to pray that God would let me die,” said Bella.
That’s when God did something very special for her! “God sent Reinhard Bonnke to Cameroon for me — and me alone!” she said with a smile. “My son in law had come to me and said, ‘Mum, there is this guy who prays for people. I’ve been to one of his meetings before. The blind could see and the lame were able to walk again.’ He urged me to attend the meeting. Then my neighbors, who also believe in God, took me to the stadium.”
Bella did not know what to expect the first night of the Great Gospel Campaign. As the prayer time began, she fell to the ground. Someone told her later that, as she fell, demons inside of her began to speak. They screamed that there were many of them, and they would not come out. But as the CfaN prayer team prayed for her deliverance, the demonic spirits came out of Bella.
The next night when Bella came back to the Campaign with her daughter, both of them surrendered their lives to Jesus Christ and were born again.
“I had such joy that night! It was so amazing and wonderful that I can’t begin to describe how I felt,” Bella told us. And you could see from her face that it was true!
Then a few moments later, as the evangelist prayed for healing, Bella experienced a physical miracle. “Jesus healed me … every bone … every muscle … every pain was healed! No more sickness! And it has never come back – not once in the past 15 years!”
That miracle of deliverance and salvation happened more than 15 years ago at the Gospel Campaign in Benin. Bella came to the 2013 Campaign to tell us that she was still healed, still saved, and more in love with Jesus than ever.
“This is the power of Jesus Christ,” she said. “People thought I would be dead and buried, but God did a great miracle for me! I know that the devil is real, and that what I suffered came from him. But I also know now that Jesus is the supreme authority — far above every power!”
