Bad Dreams

To Sabbath School teachers: This story is for Sabbath, October 28.

By Andrew McChesney

T

en-year-old Emmanuelle was sound asleep in bed in the African country of Cameroon. But the dream was like real life.

In the dream, Emmanuelle saw a woman speaking to men with long knives.

“Go,” the woman said to them.

Then she spoke directly to Emmanuelle.

“I’m sending my sons to get you,” she said.

Emmanuelle saw the men coming toward her. She felt a sharp pain.

Then she woke up. She was scared
and crying.

While she couldn’t see anything in the dark bedroom, she could still hear the voice of the woman saying, “I will send my sons to get you. I will send my sons to get you.”

Emmanuelle struggled to breathe.

Suddenly, Mother and Father were standing over her bed. They had heard her sobbing in the next room, where they were sleeping. They dropped onto their knees beside the bed.

“Our Lord, our God, we give You glory because You have allowed us to have this child,” Mother prayed. “Now we are presenting her to You. We pray that the enemy will be sent far away from her and that she will be restored. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.”

When Mother finished praying, Emmanuelle could breathe again. Her tears stopped, and she no longer felt afraid.

Emmanuelle told her parents about the scary dream. She thanked Mother for praying.

“I know that God will answer your prayer,” she said.

After her parents left, Emmanuelle prayed silently. She had learned to pray when she was little. But she had been so scared that she had forgotten to pray.

“Lord, I want You to help me,” she prayed. “I pray that you confuse those who want to destroy me. Fight for me forever and ever. Amen.”

She fell asleep.

But the next night, she had the same dream again. Again, she saw the woman, and she felt the pain. She woke up scared and crying. She couldn’t breathe. Mother and Father rushed to the bedroom. Mother prayed, and Emmanuelle could breathe.

The dream repeated the next night and the next. She had the same dream every night for two weeks. Emmanuelle became scared to go to bed at night.

Mother didn’t know what to do. So, she went to the church pastor. When the pastor heard about the dreams, he organized a special time of prayer for Emmanuelle. He and several church elders came to Emmanuelle’s home and prayed for her.

It was then that the bad dreams stopped.

Emmanuelle doesn’t understand why she kept having bad dreams after she prayed. She doesn’t understand why she kept having bad dreams after Mother prayed. She also doesn’t understand why the bad dreams stopped after the pastor and elders prayed. But she does understand that God heard all their prayers and that there is something special about intercessory prayer, when people are praying for someone else.

A year has passed since the last bad dream, and Emmanuelle is no longer afraid of going to bed. “I have the assurance that anytime I call upon the name of the Lord, He will be there to answer me,” Emmanuelle says. “We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and He helps us.”

Part of this quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath Offering will help open a Seventh-day Adventist school in Cameroon, where children will be able to learn about the God who takes away bad dreams.