Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

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If you’ve ever doubted that God can respond immediately to our prayers then have I got an awesome story for you.  It’s a long story so I’m going to leave some detail out but the joy of the story is in the detail….so here goes…

It was our last day at training camp and we had been settling into our new teams for a couple of days now.  That morning we were allowed to sleep in a little bit, have breakfast and then we were asked to all meet at 9:30am or so.  So, as a squad we met at our designated location and leadership began to inform us that today was going to be “a day of ministry.”  They were not going to tell us where to go, who to see or what to do…the Lord was.  So, we were then instructed to get into our small teams, start praying and that as we were praying we were encouraged to just share whatever showed up in our minds.  I have to admit…I was a teeny weeny bit skeptical….ok a lot skeptical.  I don’t doubt that God answers prayer but this felt like such a stretch.  I silently thought, “Say what?  We’re going to do ministry and you’re not going to help us out?  Everyone on my team is from out of state.  We are in the middle of nowhere.  So, we’re going to pray and God is just going to show us what to do?  Hmph.” 

So, my team proceeded to huddle in a circle and I (probably because of my skepticism) offered to jot down notes of our prayers.  We asked the Lord for “eyes to see” and that He would be very present in our midst.  One by one we began sharing “stuff” from our minds. One girl said, “I just see the number 46.”  Another said, “I see us circled around an older black man with a greying beard.”  At the end we opened up our eyes and another girl said, “We are going to Atlanta.”  (Atlanta was about an hour south of us).  So, we all pile into a car, GPS downtown Atlanta and start heading south.  Because I have my little notebook, I jot down the time…10:17am.

We turn on the radio and the chorus of the first song playing is “let us have eyes to see.”  I mention that I wrote this down during our time of prayer.  Pretty cool.  It definitely feels like we are on the right road.  As we get nearer to Atlanta we look at the GPS and it says we should get off at exit 250.  I half jokingly ask, “Why don’t we get off on exit 246?  I mean 46 was mentioned during prayer.”  We agree and pass exit 250 and keep heading south.  As we get off on exit 246 I glance at the clock, 11:03am.  Quickly I do the math and say, “Umm girls, it took us exactly 46 minutes to get here.”  An eerie quiet comes over us and I think, “This ain’t no joke.  God’s totally leading us somewhere.”

 
So, we park the car in what seems like a remote area with lots of buildings.  There are no stores around or anything that I think is inviting. We walk out of the parking area and say, “Right or left Lord?”  A few of us unanimously respond, “Right.”  We arrive at another major intersection, “Lord, right or left?”  Again we unanimously answer, “Left.”  We walk for few minutes and then see this building. The Atlanta Union
Mission

 

Other than that, it’s a pretty non-descript building.  Luckily Chelsea H. has an iPhone and she Googles the place. And the results immediately reveal “With your help we have been serving the homeless in the city of Atlanta with the love of Christ since 1938.”  Awesome.

So, we walk up to the main door and it’s locked and noone seems to be inside.  Hmm.  Just as we are turning around to re-group and talk an F150 pulls up to the parking space 3 feet from us.  And a young guy comes out of the driver’s seat and asks if there is something he can help us with.  We nervously say we are with the World Race and are trying to find somewhere to serve today and we feel like the Lord has led us here.  He then introduces himself, “Oh hmm wow.  I’m the head of the volunteer department for the mission and we weren’t expecting you. I was just stopping by to drop off some paperwork. Let me see what I can do.”  And, he unlocks the door and goes inside.  So, let me reiterate…he was the head of the volunteer  department and he just HAPPENED to stop by right at that moment!  Awesome.
 
He comes back outside and he asks, “Would you want to clean?”  “Sure” we all answer.  So, he then introduces us to a black man named Kenneth that is going to show us where we are to clean.  We then proceeded to deep clean 4 lobby areas.  We did windows, floors, polished furniture and dusted.
After we were done Kenneth gave us a tour of the facility.  He showed us where the homeless ate and lived.  He showed us the chapel and offices.  During our tour there was loud Gospel music playing…it gave me chills.  Here’s a short clip of that:
After we were done he escorted us outside and proceeded to share a little of his life story with us.  He had been a heavy drug user and almost died as a result of it.  So, in the last few years he had devoted himself to helping others and was trying to live a righteous life.  He taught at the mission chapel sometimes and said he loved the Lord.  He also said, “I almost died from doing bad so now I want to die doing good.” 
He then asked us if we would pray for him.  “Of course we will.”  He then stretched out his hands and we instantly formed a circle around him and we prayed.  When we were done he had a tear in his eye and thanked us for coming.  As we walked away we realized he was our “black man with a greying beard that we would surround.”  We did not initiate the prayer he did.  So, we never manipulated anything to be like what
we prayed for…it just happened.  As we were driving away a teammate said, “When we were praying back at camp I felt like we were going to a homeless shelter but just didn’t say.”  So, the Lord really was giving us each a piece of the ministry puzzle.
 
 
Isn’t God just too awesome?  And I am happy to say, although He totally did not need to, He turned my
skeptism into amazement in just a couple of hours.
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