Remember when you were little and you would go on pirate treasure hunts? “X” marks the spot. It was real, we entered an imaginative world and searched for the treasure following the clues and map.
What if treasure hunts were real? What if someone could give you clues and the treasure found would be more satisfying than riches?
All of us from K-squad were sitting in a session at debrief, here in Nepal, when Dan says we are going on a treasure hunt. I looked around thinking does anyone know what the heck he is talking about. There appeared to be some excited people and then, like myself, some very confused people. Dan explained that we were going to circle up in groups of 5 and ask the Holy Spirit for clues. Whatever came to our minds, regardless of how crazy it seemed, we would write it down and make a treasure hunt clues list. Then, we would take that list and go out into the streets of Nepal and look for our clues. These clues would lead us to who the Lord wanted us to meet, pray for, bless, etc.
This was a real treasure hunt! And I was quite skeptical…
Jenna, Rebecca, Joni, Hannah and myself circled up and dove into some listening prayer. Asking the Father for clues, whether that be a word, image, person, anything. After about 5 minutes we all shared our lists and made one big one.
The List of Clues:
(Jenna)
color yellow
(Rebecca)
timothy
hat, red
pocketknife
excelsior
Hard Rock Cafe
Potatoes
Dreams
Intentionality
(Joni)
hair scrunchies
baby clothing, blue/purple stripes
(Hannah)
red sari
(Teagan)
elephant and waterfall, possibly picture
dark hair
glasses
red hair clip
With our final list, we headed out.
The first thing we did was pray when we exited the hotel. Then we began to walk… The first person I saw was a woman with a red sari and red hair clip. Said nothing. I could hear the Lord saying “Why not? Speak up, you said you’d take the step of courage. You can do it, trust me in this.” Second person I made eye contact with was a woman with glasses. Said nothing again. The Lord’s words were stirring in my head, I knew I needed to speak up, but the nerves of what would happen next were muting me. We had taken some turns at this point and as we came around a corner, I saw the one. I saw another clue and I knew I had to speak up. A woman stood there in a red sari, with a red hair clip and a pocket knife in her hand. That’s THREE clues from the Lord. I stopped my team and said we need to stop and pray. I explained the woman had three of our clues and also that I had no idea what to do next haha
Rebecca led the way since she had done this before. We started up conversation. Her name was Roma, her husband was Krishna. We explained why we stopped to talk to her, all through her husband translating since she spoke no english. We eventually found out she had upper abdomen pain and laid hands to pray. Immediately after praying a man asked if we had been praying and if we could come to his shop and pray for his friend with back pain. Krishna said to come back after. We agreed to.
We followed the other man down a side alley to the shop without a second thought. I kept praising the Father. Thinking you are so so good! We arrived at the shop, and GUESS WHAT?! It was a tourist excursion shop, pictures of elephants and waterfalls covered the shop walls and the store owner’s desk. My mind is blown and I am all in at this point. Jesus showed me the “proof” I needed to quit the skepticism and trust deeply. Rona, the man with back pain talked and encouraged us in the way of life we are pursuing. I am sorry what?! We are here to pray for him right now, but no he was giving us encouragement. How incredible and what a blessing. When he was done, he told us we could pray for his back now. We laid hands and prayed for his back pain, he still felt it some. We explained that in choosing Jesus as his ONLY Lord and Savior he too could pray healing in the name of Jesus over himself. We challenged and encouraged him to choose Christ and keep praying over himself as well.
Afterwards, we walked back to see Krishna’s store, talked a little more, bought coffee and we blessed the shop. Rebecca also gave him a New Testament bible.
On we went, off to find a place to eat. As we walked, a man was trying to sell us his little trinkets. We had pretty much all said no to him at least once at this point. The first of us walking stopped to look at a menu. Hannah at the back of the group was tired of saying no to the man and started conversation. Telling him about Christ and asking if he needed prayer. The man’s name was PJ, a sweet man with warm eyes. He felt much pain. We prayed healing head to toe over him. He felt better, we thanked the Lord and prayed again. He smiled after the second prayer and walked away, with joy and a smile on his face. We decided not to eat there and continued on.
We were walking down a new street and popped into a store with bags. Leaving there we walked past a man in all yellow clothing and a painted face, possibly a witch-doctor. Reba felt a sharp pain in her left shoulder, turned right around, and I asked if we were praying. She said yep, I hollered at the girls walking ahead, and we went back. He spoke no English, but we prayed over him. He smiled and bowed his head after. Two steps later we saw a shop and the t-shirt hanging that said Hard Rock Cafe and there were so many knifes! We entered the store and started talking to the man who owned the shop. We asked him about his life and if there was anything on the list he related to, he said no and that he didn’t need prayer for anything. We asked if we could pray and bless the shop anyways and he agreed that would be okay, and so we prayed. Leaving the shop we noticed a plain red ball cap as well.
Next, we found a restaurant, sat down, laughed and enjoyed a meal together. Time was up and a couple of us had to be back and so we paid the bill and started heading back. Hannah and Jenna went back for their meeting. The remaining three of us left decided to get some shopping in.
I popped into a store with a purse I wanted, Reba stayed with me. Joni headed to get her pillow and we’d head that way after I got my purse. As we were walking up to meet Joni we met Joseph. He was standing in front of a store where the woman working wore glasses and of course it was the only shop we have seen yet with hair scrunchies. We started talking with him. He is a man from Hungary, with a wife and two girls. He has passions for trekking mountains and dreams for his family. He also fell three days prior and really messed up his knee, to the point of needing a three procedure surgery and missing the rest of the trek. We both started talking at the same time, looked at each other smiled and giggled. Turned to him and said can we pray for your knee, that in the authority of Jesus’s name it would be healed? He said yes, with a smile. We squatted down in the street and laid hands together praying over his knee for healing and over his life and family.
Shortly after we found Joni, we were delighted to share and to praise the Lord for His goodness. The treasure hunt didn’t stop there and this treasure hunt never will.
