Our planet is covered in demonic principalities. It would be completely accurate that for every wrong attitude, there is an evil spirit which feeds from the anger, pride, greed, and malaise.

The sky above us fairly sparkled with starry glory as the bus ground up the pavement into the dark evening

One week in Bolivia, my dad had suggested we young companeros accompany him in going camping in the mountains surrounding Cochabamba on a Friday evening. Preparing our gear the previous day, we packed up our kit into a passing colectivo buss and headed up the hills around 7pm.

The sky above us fairly sparkled with starry glory as the bus ground up the pavement into the dark evening. We'd never gone camping like this, climbing in the dark, but being in an adventurous mood, we joked on about school, the groaning bus engine and who else might have ever done what we were attempting.

Finally the bus clattered to a stop and we hustled back packs and bags, a tent and rope out the door. The driver was so tired, he just stared. Into the night we quickly faded, seeing the city lights dimly reflecting off the hills, nightfall descending on the scene like a large silent blanket.

We assaulted the rocky ravine before us, enthusiastic and energetically crossing the valley on our way into the heights and desert plants. Finally reaching the one cliff we had to ascend, we first sent one of our young members up with a rope, which he fastened rounded a stubby tree, wrapping it tightly.

One by one we tied off and sent our bags of equipment up the steep incline. Each went up with no problems in the gloom behind the shrouding hills. Every thing done by feel, we trusted young Orlando to retrieve our things at the top. Last came our gang of three, my dad, our friend Willy, and I. My dad became alarmed at the sudden realization HE had to climb this cliff too! Weaving a favorite Boy Scout knot around his waist, we signaled the slender youth at the top, who started hauling the older, bulky man up the incline, as my poor father grasped whatever he could to assist.

At the top, we clumsily erected our tent and fell into it, exhausted. The next morning we discovered we had camped four feet from a hundred foot drop! The darkness, so black in the foothills of the Andes, had obscured the danger. God had protected us, each of us working blind beneath the inky stillness!

Our lives are one step of faith after another beneath an invisible dark cloud of Satanic attacks. Only God will one day swallow up the duvetyne of evil over this earth.