As a little girl, Abeba had never met a true follower of Christ. Growing up in central Ethiopia, where traditional spiritist rituals are commonly mixed with Islamic and Orthodox beliefs, Abeba’s family worshiped a live cobra that they believed held great power. The cobra had its own small house inside their home, and Abeba’s parents regularly presented it with offerings of milk and food, hoping it would bless them. “They would bow down before the snake, the cobra, and worship,” Abeba said.

But the cobra did not bless their family. Instead, Abeba’s mother began to act strange and soon developed debilitating symptoms. Eventually, her mother died. Later, her father died in his sleep, and she said her three younger siblings also died under mysterious circumstances. She blamed the cobra’s spirit for their deaths. “I was the eldest child in the family,” she said, “so I was the one who had the responsibility to give food and take care of the cobra’s needs.”