WHEN Lucifer left Manasa Bukasasa he left him with a 20-cent coin promising him that he would always be by his side.
Mr Bukasasa laughed at this and told Lucifer he was not God to be omnipresent.
Shortly after Lucifer departed at the Lovonivonu jetty, his presence was felt by Mr Bukasasa in his vehicle.
“As soon as I boarded my vehicle after seeing him off the Lovonivonu jetty, I smelt the same cigar he used to smoke and his cologne, so I turned back and told him that I thought he had left” claimed Mr Bukasasa.
“He told me he would be with me no matter where I went and he also gave me a gift giving me the ability to resurrect the dead and to discern those practising witchcraft and he commanded me to tell them to stop practising it because they and their demons were destined for hell.
“After this I automatically knew and sensed people practising witchcraft and I used to visit them passing to them the message that was given to me by their demon’s master.”
Gift
Mr Bukasasa once approached an old man in Taveuni who he claimed was practising witchcraft.
“I approached him and told him that I was there to tell him to stop what he was doing,” he claimed.
“The old man turned to me and said that he didn’t know what I was talking about but he added that people blamed him for practising the dark arts.
“Turning to the old man I told him if a stone was missing in the waters of Taveuni he would know its exact location and I also asked him who was responsible for pouring yaqona on a rock at the reef before the village calling on Dakuwaqa.
“He cried and turned to me asking me how I knew these things.”
Turning point, a ‘miracle’
Life seemed to be progressing smoothly for the Bukasasa family until one day when disaster struck.
“We were at home one day, when all of a sudden, my wife rushed past me wailing and shouting out that our youngest daughter had died,” said Mr Bukasasa.
“I ran out of the house straight to our farm which is a few kilometres from our house and called on Lucifer and the four winds seeking a miracle to return my daughter.
“Later in the evening when I returned home I saw my wife standing by our doorway and I expected her to be crying, but when I got closer she smiled and said that our daughter was playing inside the house with the children.
“I had to stop to rethink about what she said before I asked her how this happened.”
According to Mr Bukasasa’s wife, she was carrying on her daily chores while her daughter was awake in her bed that morning.
Ms Timaleti then later smelled a nasty stench that seemed to be coming from their room and upon investigation found out that it emanated from her daughter’s clothes bag.
While pouring out the bag’s content in the sitting room the first thing that came out was her mum’s picture so she thought it was an omen that her mother had passed on.
“At the same time I heard our baby girl crying and there was nothing in the bag to explain the stench so I rushed to attend to her,” she said.
“When I reached the bed her crying had ceased and she was silent. When I lifted her body, she was heavy and cold and I knew straightaway she was dead because while checking her vital signs I saw that she was not breathing.
“To make things worse I did not know where my husband had rushed off too because I saw him running out of the house so I carried my daughter and told my children to stay at home because I was taking her to a church group who were praying a few metres away from home.”
She claimed: “When we reached the home the group prayed over our baby and after a while she began this guttural sound while she later vomited blood and to my relief she was breathing again, a miracle I will never forget until I die.”
After hearing his wife’s story about their daughter, Mr Bukasasa promised his wife that things were going to change and they were turning back to God.
“I threw away the 20 cents I was given by Lucifer because I was getting things for my family through a miracle originating from the devil and this in itself was witchcraft because I was following his ways,” he said.
“From then on I stopped getting aromas of cigars at home or the farm and the whistling incidents at our farm, which is a deserted area, all stopped from that day on.”
And so came to an end an experience most of us will say is not at all possible but to some extent might still resonate with us.
* Sunday: What do the churches say?
