On the Friday before I returned home
from training camp, the team migrated to Atlanta for street ministry.
We dropped our things off at a place called Safe House, listened to
our instructions, and in small teams we prayed.
Our ministry was unique. I have heard
of this before but never experienced it first hand. The mission was
for each team to come together and in silence ask the Lord for
visions and words. These details would be our focus for the night. As
my team, Joholo, 
sat and listened, we began writing down everything
God was showing us. In the end, we came out with names, images,
colors, and prayer requests. All of these became part of our “hunt.”
My amazing team member, David, has done this before and was our
guide throughout the exercise. Here are a few things God gave us
before we left Safe House: Yellow Shirt (two people had this written
down), Mercedes car, McDonald’s, a pine tree, Fish and Chips Restaurant, Corner Cafe’, the
color Purple, someone would be hungry, the number 321, the names:
Carl, Keith and Jones, and Anger. These are not all the things we
were given but these stand out to me the most. Here are their ties:
-
David was extremely adamant about
speaking to every person with a yellow shirt on. He and I bumped
into a man, as we were grabbing a bite to eat, with a yellow shirt
on just outside McDonald’s and David started talking. He asked if any of the names on our
list meant anything to him. On the list was Keith and Jones. He told
us he knew a man named Keith Jones and that he owed him some money.
So David and I prayed with him that Keith Jones would return his
money soon. We also asked if there were any other things on our list that connected to him and he said he recently planted a pine tree in his back yard.
-
We were looking for something to
eat for dinner and everything was closed. Saturday night, around 7
o’clock and not a place open. We
walked in search for food and David spotted a sign that read “24
Hours” at the bottom of it. Turns out it was a 24 Hour Diner. We
decided to eat their considering nothing else was open. We thought
we were simply eating and taking a rest but God showed us otherwise. As
we flipped through the menu, the back page read “3-2-1 Special.”
We were amazed! The entire back page was filled with the number 321.
After we calmed down and ordered, I was looking around the Diner and
behind me was a man sitting alone eating. Instantly, God said “Feed
this man.” Without telling anyone, I walked to the clerk and told him
I would be paying for this man’s meal. Later when signing the receipt, can
you guess what color the ink was? Purple! I almost lost it. The pen
was purple along with the ink color. Just amazing! -
Here’s the whoa situation of the
night. As we left the Diner and walked no more than half a block, I
saw a Mercedes and we stopped. We were waiting for someone to pass
or claim the car to minister with. Julia, my teammate, turned around
and directly behind us was a Fish and Grits Restaurant. Across the
road, a Corner Cafe’. And before we could calm down from the
overwhelming excitement, a PURPLE dump truck drove by! Who has ever seen a
purple dump truck? And just after this, a man turns the corner
wearing a yellow shirt. We asked his name, Clair. Not exactly Carl
but sometimes we do not exactly hear what God is telling us, but we
have an idea. We prayed with him that he would find a job soon.
- We weren’t sure what we were looking for when He told us “Anger” but when it came, we knew it. There was a man in the middle of the city yelling. We went closer in curiosity and found he was preaching. It was a style of preaching we’d never heard before. This man was preaching in anger. He basically was saying God does not like the ways of the people in Atlanta and He will not help them either. It was strange to hear. David walked to the man with his usual smile and preached love to the man. We agreed as a team the God we serve is LOVE and the God this man served was anything but. David tried and tried but this man kept fighting. We never saw what part of the Bible he was preaching from and could not hear his words exactly because he was yelling so loud, but we prayed for him and moved on. It’s all we could do and I believe it was all God wanted from us. Later, a man asked for help financially to pay his rent. We were told not to give money to anyone without the consent of Safe House because there were so many cons. This man walked with us to Safe House in hopes of money, but when we asked about him we were told not to give anything. He was lying. After not receiving anything he became raged and yelled until he was out of sight. Both times we confronted anger, we came together as a team and prayed. We handed this anger to the Lord and showed only compassion for those that did not know what they were doing or saying. God Bless these men.
Can you believe this? Really, can we
comprehend His excellence and His Awesomeness? Sometimes it’s hard to
understand things that happen, but we must remember everything is in
His will and in His name. When we doubt or hear that little voice
saying “don’t believe this,” we have to know it’s the devil
attempting to steer us away from His holy plan. We cannot question
our God. We have to learn to accept and learn to trust. How else
could you explain seeing visions, hearing names and prayer requests
and then they come to life within hours? We can’t. It’s Him and it
always will be.
