Nolan’s mom wasn’t just the children’s leader at church, she was involved in all kinds of things. They did home group on Wednesday’s and that was a lot of fun. Nolan got to run around in the yard and play with the other kids from church. These kids didn’t pick on him, they just played and had fun. Normally that was great but a few weeks back Nolan broke his arm playing at home group. He was playing on something and fell off. His elbow his the only metal object in the whole yard and the shockwave through his funny bone fractured his arm halfway up. The pain was ridiculous and now Nolan was in a cast.
This wasn’t the only time Nolan had been hurt in home group for that matter. The first time he remembered going to home group he got hurt. Nolan climbed his first tree outside at a home group when he was younger. He fell right out of that tree, onto his head, on the concrete. That hit on the top of the head knocked him out for a little while but he ended up fine once the adults got there. Nolan didn’t climb any more trees after that. It was years ago but he should have remembered not to climb on things. Now he didn’t get to play with the other kids during home group. He had to just sit inside with the adults and let his arm heal for what seemed like an eternity.
Home group with the adults was weird. They didn’t just read Bible stories like in kid church. After the potluck (Nolan loved potluck), the adults would talk about stuff Nolan didn’t know much about. They would gather around and pray about thing, they would pray for demons to come out of people. Nolan’s mom was on the pray demons out of people team and so that was the home group he went to. Nobody at school understood this stuff. They watch horror movies and thought demons were made up. At least his church friends could understand this part of his life. He had some shared experience with the children of the demon fighting team.
This was the year that the team had tried to help out the bride of Satan lady. She came to the church asking for help to escape her Satanism cult. They had dedicated her to be offered as a blood sacrifice from the time she was a baby. They raised her in Satanism until a certain age and then they would kill her. When she got close to the right age she ran away and asked the church to help her. She hid out at the houses of the people on the team. The houses would turn into horror movies. Blood in the sinks, pictures spinning on the walls, bats flying inside and of course the Satanists would show up. They were always driving by the houses. Wherever she hid out, they found out. When one would start driving by, they knew they had to move her quick. These people were dangerous.
One night Nolan had to get help move her from his friend’s house. He saw them driving by outside, but they got her away safely. He went up to the church one time while they tried to get the demon out of her too. The pastor would yell things like, ‘You foul devil!’ and ‘You have no power here in Jesus name!’. Nolan and his friend waited in the hall and listened. The door opened and the bride of Satan lady came floating in mid air on her back out into the hall. The kids were a little scared but the adults weren’t scared. Two of them walked up and grabbed her by the arms and snatched her back into the room! They said, ‘In Jesus name you cannot touch her!’ and then took her right out of the air.
You couldn’t tell kids at school stuff like this. You couldn’t tell anyone stuff like this. But mom taught Nolan how easy it was. She said demons were weak and so were Satanists. The kingdom of darkness was scared and weak and couldn’t stand against the name of Jesus. He told things to leave in Jesus name all the time at night. He would get attacked mercilessly in his sleep but when he woke up from the attacks he tried to remember to tell it to leave in Jesus name and pray. The nightmares would usually be over for the night when he remembered to do that. But most people would think he was crazy if he talked about it all, so he mostly kept to himself.
Practice Outlaw 