By Susan Akyeampong
When Richard Morris was asked to help write a training resource for SIM workers who may engage with women who had been subjected to ritual oaths in their exploitation in trafficking situations, he knew it would be a significant undertaking.
Richard, based in France, is a long-time SIM mission worker and a trusted voice within SIM on spiritual warfare. He was asked to help develop this resource for For Freedom, SIM International’s anti-trafficking and exploitation ministry, which equips SIM workers, churches and partners to prevent trafficking and support those at risk.
“Because there’s tonnes of Christians, even missionaries, who have no clue of the spiritual authority they have.”
As Christians, we long to share the good news that Jesus saves. We believe His power can bring freedom and new life to people and communities, and break through darkness. But if we believe there is a spiritual reality to the gospel, then we also have to recognise that there can be spiritual opposition to the work of making Christ known.
Many mission workers see this spiritual reality in the places where they serve. Alongside poverty, conflict and exploitation, they may meet people whose lives have been impacted by fear, or by spiritual powers.
“Addressing human trafficking brings significant spiritual opposition, and at times we have needed guidance in how to navigate this well.”
Richard first experienced this reality for himself soon after arriving in Benin in 1988. He moved to northern Benin to help a church that was struggling to survive, and within his first week had an experience that would stay with him for the rest of his ministry. He woke in the night with a sense of evil approaching his house.
“I could hear the steps coming right in front of my vision,” he recalls.
The doors rattled and footsteps moved around the compound. He responded by declaring aloud that, in Jesus’ name and by His authority, any worker of evil on the compound had to leave. The presence fled at once.
The following day, local Christians told him that a sorcerer had come to “check” him.
“Welcome to spiritual warfare,” Richard remembers thinking.
For Richard and his wife Valérie, this was one of many experiences that shaped their understanding of the spiritual realities mission workers can face. Valérie serves with SIM France-Belgium, and since they married, they have served in different mission contexts together, pastoring churches, mentoring others and supporting mission workers across SIM through mentorship, education, prayer and intercession.
Some of the women and girls several SIM ministries work with in West Africa have experienced these spiritual realities in a very different context. Before being trafficked, some have been subjected to juju ceremonies involving curses, threats and promises of terrible consequences if they try to leave. Even after they have been freed from trafficking, the fear created by these experiences can remain very real, making it difficult to believe that they are truly free.“Sometimes at some of the ceremonies, they put their trafficked person in a coffin,”
Richard says. “And saying, this is what’s going to happen to you if you try to leave.” For Richard and Valérie, this is one example of how fear can be used to exert control. Their decades of mission experience have taught them that responding to these situations requires more than an understanding of the practical circumstances people are facing. It also requires an understanding of the spiritual authority believers have in Christ.
“His willingness to support mission workers as they face spiritual opposition has been deeply valued.”
The resource that Richard and a SIM mission worker in Africa, are developing for For Freedom aims to help Christians in mission understand that authority.
“Because there’s tonnes of Christians, even missionaries, who have no clue of the spiritual authority they have,” Richard says.
The power to face evil and overcome it, is available to every follower of Jesus.
“You have as much spiritual authority and power as I do,” he says. “Because it’s from Jesus.”
Scripture tells us that the gospel will meet resistance. “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12).
Mission is about proclaiming Jesus, whose authority is greater than every power that tries to hold people captive. Sometimes that freedom comes through deliverance. Richard explains that deliverance is about much more than what is often understood as exorcism.
“[Exorcism] can be part of it, there is much more. For us, it means a believer enters, either progressively or rapidly, a spiritual and physical state in which the enemy no longer holds power or influence over their body, mind, or life. Obstacles to spiritual growth and barriers to an intimate relationship with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are exposed and broken. The believer can then grow more freely toward spiritual maturity and serve in the Church or on the mission field with joy and love.”
Richard and Valérie saw what this could look like in the life of Pascaline, a woman Richard met when he worked in Benin and Valérie met years later.
She was involved in divination when her partner Pascal, who had been saved by Jesus through a young Christian Richard was discipling, suggested she might be interested in hearing about Him. The two men decided to have Richard share the Gospel with Pascaline. After a conversation lasting several hours with the couple, she decided to follow Christ.
A few weeks later, the Christians in the church plant that Richard was pastoring met to pray with her to cast out any demons remaining in her. During the time of prayer, Richard heard a demonic spirit say, “I don’t want to go.” He proclaimed again, “You have to go.” Then there was silence, and Pascaline said it had left.
From that moment, Pascaline gathered the objects connected to her life as a priestess of divination for the false god, “Fa,” including bones and cowrie shells, and threw them into the ocean. Those practices had been part of her previous livelihood, but through Jesus she had repented and chosen to trust Him.
What God had begun in Pascaline’s life didn’t stop with her. Her neighbours began to notice the change in her. One of them, herself a former voodoo priestess, became a Christian too, and others soon followed.
Over eight months, Richard counted around 20 conversions, three exorcisms and three healings in the neighbourhood. Years later, the couple learned that Pascaline and her husband had gone on to plant more than a dozen churches.
Again and again, Richard and Valérie have seen what the gospel can do: move into the darkest places, set people free from evil, and lead them into the freedom and fullness of life found in Christ.
Much of their work now is about helping others understand these realities. Through theological education and resources for SIM, they help mission workers prepare in prayer and understand what they may face, both spiritually and practically. Over the years, the couple have taught on spiritual warfare alongside grace, the Holy Spirit, forgiveness, intercession, Christian community and discipleship.
For Freedom has seen the benefit of that teaching firsthand.
The power to face evil and overcome it, is available to every follower of Jesus.
“Addressing human trafficking brings significant spiritual opposition, and at times we have needed guidance in how to navigate this well,” say Karine and Sarah, co-leads of For Freedom.
They describe Richard as “a valuable and trusted resource to the For Freedom team and wider network over many years”. Together with Valérie, they say, he has faithfully supported the work through “ongoing intercession, training and consultation”.
“His teaching on spiritual warfare is practical, effective and easy to understand, equipping SIM workers and partners in the For Freedom network with valuable tools to recognise and respond to the spiritual realities they face.”
For Karine and Sarah, one of the most valuable aspects of Richard’s approach is that it is “firmly grounded in knowing who we are in Christ and living from that place of security and authority”.
“His willingness to support mission workers as they face spiritual opposition has been deeply valued,” they say.
“Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12).
Richard and Valérie’s work has increasingly become about handing this over.
They want mission workers to recognise what they may be up against, to pray with confidence, and to walk into difficult situations knowing that the authority they carry comes not from themselves, but from Jesus.
