Each month, one lucky team on my squad gets the opportunity to do ATL month. This team has no host and no place to go. They are to pick an area and listen for the Lord. No direction or instructions other than the airport they will arrive in. The teams job is to find other people relentlessly pursuing Jesus and fighting to make His name known, to encourage these individuals and try to help the WR partner with them in the future.
I was terrified.
How, in a place where talking to others about the Lord is so closely monitored, would we find others doing His work? Where would we stay? We are never going to have anyone share with us?
OH MY GEEE
I am so so incredibly blown away. I am having a hard time believing what JUST happened.
Back story: My mom contacted my churches Global outreach pastor who contacted this amazing man, Saul (ok, not his real name but for safety I’m going to call him Saul). Saul and his wife have traveled for years teaching new leaders in the church up and down V. Needless to say, the man knows his fair share of people.
Saul calls and says he has more friends for us to meet. With all of the divine meetings we had been having lately, it wouldn’t be incorrect to assume our schedule was a little busy. We decide that Emily and I would go with Saul to meet his friends so other teammates could meet with a few other contacts we had found. We follow this sweet old man down block after block, past guards and down strange, slightly sketchy, alleyways to a house. I am thinking , “Where in the world is he taking us.” But we follow…. And well….
GOOD GRIEF
Emily and I sit down in a small living room area. There are family pictures adorning the walls. Who ever this man is, goodness gracious does he have A LOT of children. Saul begins to translate and introduces us and why we are here. I begin the normal spiel about what ATL month is and what AIM would like to accomplish partnered with them. The conversation goes well and the man mentions that he has pull with many churches. I’m thinking, “Score 1 for RESTEDnROOTS, my job here is done.” FALSE. I begin to shake my knee up and down and wonder when we would leave. It was time to wrap our conversation up and get going. As I day dreamt about coffee and a good book I want to be reading I heard Saul translate, “I was in jail.” And I’m back! Wait what? Why? Why would someone take this sweet old man away from his humongous family and put him in jail. Well, our new friend was on the staff that created one of the first underground churches here. Apparently when their numbers grew from 40 to 5,000 people (excuse me?) they just couldn’t keep it hidden anymore. Names slipped through the crack and he spent 2 years in jail. Now he is the leader of church associations that can count hundreds of congregations to its numbers. And they want to partner with us.
Yup. You read that right.
He so humbly admitted to his extreme displays of faithfulness and I was wondering about a book I might read. Really? I would be lying to say I wasn’t at least a little ashamed of myself. I had been sitting in his home, pretending to sip his tea and focusing on all the wrong things. He then mentions that he has traveled with delegates here to meet Obama in the White house twice.
No big deal.
I’m thinking, how did I get into your house (1) and why are you the one serving me tea (2). I should have at least had to go through some type of metal detector or something. Let’s just say is was the slap I needed. And I thought God wouldn’t be able to open any doors here through ATL.
You see, I had put God in a box. Again.
And he blew it to smithereens.
What box have you put God in lately? What is He not big enough to handle? And do yourself a favor, give it to Him for a little bit. I double-dog-dare you. His answer may just be the smack in the face you needed too.
