How witchdoctor Clément became a witness of Christ

“I was always afraid,” Clément recalls. “Afraid that the evil spirit would punish me for doing something wrong.”

Clément comes from Maharavoandriana, a small rural place in central Madagascar. He was born in 1972, and he used to be the village’s witch doctor.

“As a child, I was already possessed,” he says.

“It was like a generational curse. All my ancestors were possessed, and when they died, they transmitted the spirit. In 1992, I started to care for people spiritually. Not in a godly way, but as a witch doctor.”

Clément has a dark complexion, brown eyes, and short, greyish hair. There’s always a pensive expression on his face.

In a soft voice, he talks about his life as a witch doctor.

“I had to comply with the rules of that spirit, bringing it sacrifices like chicken, alcohol, and sweets,” he recalls.

“When people consulted me, I would invoke the spirit, and then it would answer me and tell me the source and the solution to the problem. The power I possessed made people fear me.”

Clément sits in the shade of Maharavoandriana’s church, leaning slightly forward.

Many memories seem to cross his mind, but he struggles to express them. He often remains silent, thinking long, staring in the distance.

“I was always afraid,” he continues. “Afraid that the evil spirit I served would punish me for doing something wrong.”

The witchcraft practices were slowly destroying Clément’s life.

One time, he couldn’t sleep at all for two weeks in a row. An intense desire for change overwhelmed him.

“I decided to pray to God,” he says, almost in a whisper.

“Actually, I didn’t know anything about the Christian religion. I was even persecuting Christians at that time, so it must have been the Holy Spirit leading me. He told me to fast and pray, and I heard God calling me. That was in 2005. I joined the local church and received Christ.”

The former witch doctor says it didn’t take much struggle cutting the ties with his occultic practices.

“The Word of God says, if you are in Christ, you become a new creation,” he explains. “God delivered me from every chain the spirit tried to put on me.”

When Bible League introduced its Bible study program in Maharavoandriana, Clément was among the first to be trained as a group leader.

“The program taught me so many lessons,” he says. “It has helped me to be more comfortable and motivated to serve God.”

The power of the Holy Spirit broke the generational curse in Clément’s family.

Instead of transmitting the evil spirit to his children, he educated them to follow Christ.

Together with his family, Clément is now preaching the Gospel to the same people that once feared him.