NAGAMMA

A HINDU SERPENT GODDESS GIVES HER LIFE TO THE LORD JESUS

In southern India, some missionaries visited the home of a young Hindu considered by all to be the goddess of serpents. They shared the Gospel with her. Later, the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to her. After recognizing Him as the One the Christians have spoken about, she accepted Him as her personal Savior and Lord.

In Hindu belief, the serpent is considered a divine creature worthy of worship in temples dedicated to it or in their natural habitat, says Bibles for Mideast, an organization dedicated to church planting in the Middle East that reports this testimony.

For the young Nagamma, raised in a family of the Dalit class (still called “untouchable”) one of the categories located on the lowest rung of the social scale of India, life was far from easy. Without a job, her father decided to devote himself to black magic and taught her daughter witchcraft from an early age.

Nagamma, a first name meaning "mother of serpents" had been used to worshiping snakes and caring for them very early on. As a child, she fed the local snakes by carrying milk to the edge of their borough. She also joined members of her community in the border area between the states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu to worship this animal in a special temple dedicated to snakes.

As time went on, her love for many idols, and in particular the snake gods, only increased.

One day, when she was 12, a cobra lifted its head and bit her as she tried to bring milk to it. Her parents took her to a local non-traditional doctor who was unable to completely remove the poison from her body.

After three days, her health improved but some side effects appeared. Nagamma began to act strangely. Her body has transformed to the point that her skin took on a bluish tint. Her mind itself was affected as she began to act like a snake. Soon all she wanted to do was sit in the temple dedicated to snakes. The worshipers at the temple then began to treat her like a serpent goddess, and her father told her that indeed, she had become one.

As her fame grew, people in her community and beyond began to offer her offerings of milk, fruit and flowers. They gave her money, bowed down to her, and believed that if she touched them, they would be blessed.

“I asked if I could visit them in their homes,” she explains. In return for financial consideration, she invoked her father's black magic for the destruction of the enemies of the families she met and therefore hoped to bring blessings to them.

When Bibles for Mideast missionaries visited Nagamma and her family, they gave them pamphlets on Christianity and the Bible and shared the Good News of Jesus. Her father argued that since her daughter was a goddess, Christians should follow her. It was not for Nagamma to follow Jesus.

After the Christians from Bibles for Mideast left, Nagamma visited a family to once again perform rites of black magic.

“Something unusual happened there,” she recalls. "Satan instructed me that there was a treasure of gold in this house and that I should sacrifice the child under three months old to find the treasure."

Nagamma then had to face an intense spiritual struggle that she had never faced before. She was unable to "complete the dark magic for this house and the baby's life was saved after she ran away."

The prayers of the missionaries of Bibles for Mideast had had an effect in the heavenly places.

In her room that evening, she had a remarkable visit which she reported to this underground organization:

“A handsome Man in white came to my house and sat down next to me,” she said in wonder.

Her room was filled with a brilliant light like she had never seen. When the Man showed her His hands, she could see what looked like nail injuries.

This Man said to her, “Daughter, you are valuable to Me. I am Your Lord and Your God. I give you the treasure of peace and eternal life. I am the Door. Those who come to Me will be saved; They will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came for you to have life. Life in all its fullness!"

Nagamma had heard these words from the Christian visitors to her home. Nagamma then recognized the Man in her dream as being Jesus Christ! Overwhelmed with emotion, she knelt before Him and accepted Him as her personal Savior and Lord.

In the days that followed, her heart changed to the point of leading her to perform daring deeds.

“I broke all the idols in the snake temple myself,” she said. “My parents and those who believed in me as the serpent goddess didn't like it. They told me I was angry. They tied me to a tree and beat me. I had to face a lot of other persecution. But I did not lose my faith in Jesus and I wanted to be baptized.”

Nagamma therefore contacted Bibles for Mideast and asked to be baptized. Her parents and brothers all joined her in the faith. A prayer tent for Christian worship now stands on the very spot where the Temple of the Snakes was previously erected.

SOURCE: Chretiens2000