Look, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy, and you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them. Nothing will injure you. Look, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy, and you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them. Nothing will injure you.
Luke 10:19
Mark Gillette had never cast out a demon before.
For more than a dozen years, he’d been ministering in Haiti, making frequent trips back and forth from his home in Pennsylvania. On this particular morning, Mark had been invited to speak at a church service in Haiti’s capital city of Port-au-Prince.
The worship ended, and the pastor began the announcements. And then a woman came forward and said, “I’m being plagued by a demon and I can’t get rid of it.”
The pastor stopped reciting the announcements and turned to Mark. “Brother Mark, you cast out the demon.” Then he turned back to making the announcements.
Mark had been raised in a church that taught that miracles, signs, and wonders were relics of the past. “I’d never really been able to swallow that type of religious fare, but it’s what I’d been served.” Though he’d studied healing and the power we have by God’s Spirit, he’d never encountered this.
But he remembered John 14:12, where Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father” (NLT). He also knew that Jesus had promised his followers the authority to trample on the powers of darkness (Luke 10:19).
The lady knelt in front of Mark.
“I’m not sure if my eyes were open or closed.” Mark says, “But I saw a vision of a stone well with reptilian hands hanging onto the side. I shouted at it to leave in the name of Jesus. Those hands slid down, clawing through the stone, and then were gone.”
The lady jumped up. “I’m healed. He’s gone!”
Mark elaborated, “I just used the power of Jesus’ name. In the finished work of Christ on the cross, I’m releasing something He’s already provided. There is no disease or illness that has power over Jesus’ name. We are joint-heirs with Christ. Whatever belongs to Jesus belongs to us.”
It can be difficult to remember these truths when looking at Haiti’s current conditions.
Mark in Haiti
Infamous for its witchcraft, violence, political corruption, and extreme poverty, the nation once known as the “Pearl of the Caribbean” descended into even deeper chaos after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021 and the “takeover” by gangs beginning in 2022. There is now a transitional team of seven persons with an assigned prime minister, but it is impossible to hold elections. There is no army, and the gangs outnumber the police.
Yet the power and authority of Jesus are at work in this deeply oppressed nation. Healings and deliverance are common there. “We have a front row seat to watch God at work,” Mark says. “I see dead people rise, diseases healed, cancers drop away.”
Mark had been making monthly trips to Haiti, beginning in 2008 and ending in November of 2024, until a fresh outbreak of gang violence made returning unsafe. During a short-term mission trip, his involvement began when he and his son met a young man named Daniel Jean at a Christ for the Nations Bible College in Montego Bay, Jamaica. An orphan at two months, Daniel Jean felt God’s call to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a pastor. Someone funded his training, and he intended to return to Haiti and reach the street kids with the gospel.
Mark committed to support Daniel financially, but when the financial needs became too great, Mark got others involved. In 2008, he established TEAMONE27 based on James 1:27: “Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you” (NLT). Today, the orphanage houses, feeds, and educates about 75 children in Les Cayes. Besides overseeing 140 churches, they established a Bible College in April of 2024 in cooperation with All Nations Association of Bible Schools.
One can imagine the immensity of practical needs and opportunities for spiritual ministry. And as it turns out, command over the demonic realm is not the only manifestation of the power of Jesus’ name that Mark has experienced.
Healing Miracles
During an evening service at the boy’s orphanage in Diquini, a suburb of Port-au-Prince, parents brought their ten-year-old daughter to Mark for prayer. They carried her to him; her withered leg prevented her from walking.
“I laid my hands on her leg and commanded it to be healed in Jesus’ name,” remembers Mark. “[Then] I asked her to try walking on the leg. “
“I can’t. It doesn’t work.”
“Just try it.”
She took one step and then just began walking. (Healed!!!)
An elderly lady stepped forward and lifted her hand, curled together and useless. Mark commanded the hand to be healed.
“Now try using it,” he urged.
“I can’t. It doesn’t work.”
“Just try it.”
She flexed her hand. Her eyes grew wide as it uncurled, and she started praising God.
At a crusade in Thiotte led by Daniel Jean, Mark mentioned he’d never had anyone ask him for prayer to be healed of blindness.
“Brother Mark, you’re going to see that very soon,” Daniel Jean assured him.
Before the evening was over, Mark had prayed for and seen three blind people receive their sight!
Daniel Jean’s assurances seemed to be a premonition, not just of blindness, but even greater works to come.
Authority Even Over Death
A desperate mother had brought her child to the crusade where Mark and Pastor Daniel ministered. The baby had screamed continually the previous week, sick with diarrhea and vomiting. But now, she lay limp and silent. With no money for medical care, the mother needed God to show up.
Mark took the child in his arms and unwrapped her blanket. By his best estimates, she was three to four months old, and her unresponsiveness left no doubt in his mind that she was dead. “The [Holy] Spirit led me to kiss the baby, to speak peace over her,” says Mark. With Jesus’s authority, Mark told the child, “You’re going to sleep through the night and wake up in the morning totally healed and hungry.” He handed the baby back to the mother.
The next day, the ministry team went out into the local community to spread the news about the crusade; that night would be the last of the crusade. Pastor Daniel and Mark came upon the mother who’d brought the dead baby to the service. She was sitting on her front porch and peacefully rocking.
Pastor Daniel asked her, “How’s your baby?”
“She is taking a nap. She slept through the night and woke up hungry. Everything is fine.”
t another time, Daniel Jean’s mother, who had dealt with heart trouble for years, one day had to be rushed to the hospital in Port-au-Prince with a massive heart attack. The doctors worked on her all night trying to revive her, but pronounced her dead at 7:00 a.m.
Daniel Jean came to Mark, “My mother is dead.”
“Great!” Mark said. “Let’s go to the hospital and pray for her.” Mark’s son Bryn came along. All three went down to the hospital where they prayed over Daniel Jean’s mother. In Jesus’ name, they commanded her to “come back,” spoke health and life, and complete healing over her. However, the medical staff told them to leave before seeing any results.
Twenty minutes later, Daniel came to Mark and announced, “Mom’s sitting up eating breakfast.”
Daniel called in her doctor to witness this jaw-dropping moment, and Daniel told him, “We just commanded her to come alive in Jesus’ name.”
Hope for Haiti
The Haitian nation may have no effective human government, but the church knows who the real authority is–the King of kings. Thousands are coming to Christ. According to a July 2025 blog from TEAMONE27’s website, twenty-five new believers attending the Divine Ministries church in Les Cayes were baptized on the day before Easter.
“Worship services and preaching can go from 6 a.m. (when it’s cooler) till 11 a.m.,” Mark says.
Friday night worship services can last until early the next morning. Older children at Divine Ministries orphanage might get up at midnight to have additional prayer.
Although Mark points out that the poverty in Haiti is demonic in origin, he says, “[You can] be joyous when you have nothing because you know God is going to show up, because you know who you are in Christ. . . you know you’ve been given authority over all the power of the devil [and that] you’ve been chosen to bring forth much fruit.”
Mark reminds us that as children of God through Christ Jesus, we are ordained. Whatever we put our hand to, whether as a housewife, a teacher, or wherever God has placed us, we are ordained and called to bring forth fruit, (John 15:16, Ephesians 2:10), to know who we are in Christ, and to go out in the authority of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit gives us (Matthew 28:18-20, John 14:12).
Tags: prayer, faith, power, resurrection, hope, authority, demons, deliverance, spiritual warfare, action, haiti, jesus, healing, miracles
