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She was sitting on the stairs reading her Bible as we stood around her listening.  She started to cry and said, “I came out here to meet God….” as she pointed to her Bible. Then she pointed to us and continued, “…and I did.”  And that’s why we were there.  We had asked God where He wanted us to go and who He wanted us to encourage, and then we went where we felt He was telling us.

 
Let me start at the beginning….The Kenya Initiative team meets on certain mornings to study the book of Acts together.  But yesterday we did something a little different.  Instead of reading about how the Holy Spirit works and discussing it, we decided we just needed to put the things into practice that we had been reading.  So we met that morning and started praying and asking God what He had in store for our morning.  Everyone had different pictures and words that they felt like God was telling them, so we shared them with each other and then wrote them down….

Red “L” shaped structure
Chickens
William
Boy with a green sweater/sweatshirt
Laundry
Chains/Bars

We all piled into a car and started driving towards an area in Gainesville called Little Mexico.  We didn’t know exactly where we were going or how it would work out, but we had faith that God had spoken and that He would guide us.  When we started getting closer to Little Mexico we noticed that a lot of the buildings had metal bars over the windows for protection…not that surprising. 
 
After driving around for a little while and visiting a laundry mat that didn’t have much potential, some yelled out, “We just passed a sign for Williams Street!”  So we turned around and went to check it out.  As soon as we turned down the road, there was a house on our left that had a handful of chickens in their front yard. By this point, we are all getting pretty excited.  We keep driving down the street really slowly and looking around trying not to draw too much attention to ourselves.  Outside one of the houses we notice an older woman reading outside her house and we have the thought that maybe we should go talk to her.  After we drive past we look back and notice a young boy running around the corner wearing a black and green sweater.
 
Alright, that was enough.  We parked the car and started walking.  As we approached the house we noticed the red flag on the mailbox that was upside down.  Are you serious God?  This is becoming ridiculous.  We initiate a conversation and find out that she only speaks Spanish but we are able to make do.  We end up talking for a bit and praying for their family.  When we finish she tells us about how encouraging it was to have us come and that she saw God in us.
 
You may be reading this and explaining away everything by how they could be coincidences.  And I am willing to confess that when it comes to skeptics, I’m usually looking for all the possible reasons something like this can be explained away.  But I’m not writing this blog to have this debate.  If you want to explain this one away, fine.  But to our team and to that family, God showed up.  Plain and simple.  And it was AWESOME!
 

So why am I so surprised when events like this happen?  The more things like this occur in my life, I’m less astounded at the shear fact that it happens and more taken back by the fact that I miss it too often.  I’m not always asking God what He wants me to do.  I’m not always listening.  And I’m not always willing to obey.  When God shows up though…it reminds me of who He is, of who I am, and re-awakens my soul to the fact that God is truly alive and active.  

 
…let’s start expecting God to show up more…