Each day of ministry in Nepal is totally different from the day before. We have done everything from, hiking a mountain and praying over the city, to playing soccer with kids, going into the slums and ministering and even asking the Lord to put something on our hearts that we can paint for someone and then going into the city streets and asking God who He wants us to give the paintings to. It’s been a pretty cool month so far but I think today was my favorite day of ministry in Nepal.
Today our host told us to team up with one or two other people and go on a “Treasure Hunt.” He explained that after 30 minutes of prayer asking God what He had for us for the day with our partner(s) we would be going into the city and seeking out the opportunities that God put on our hearts.
Some people get pictures of colors or clothing items, some get things like “a red door” or “blue scarf” and maybe even “a smiley face” Today my partner was one of my squad mates Michelle, we prayed separately for 20 minutes, shared what we heard from the Lord and the prayed together.
I got a picture of a woman with yellow shoes, out front of a store, holding a little kid. And just us going around and praying for and encouraging people. Michelle saw us getting flowers and giving them to women, reminding them of their beauty and worth in Christ and praying for and encouraging them. Not only that but she heard God tell her that the flowers we would be giving away, we would not be praying for so we needed to trust in Him to provide.
So we set out on our 3 hour adventure, looking for the woman with yellow shoes and a kid and keeping our eyes open for a flower shop. We eventually found a flower shop and God hadn’t yet provided the flowers in any way so we just decided to boldly tell the owner what we were doing and ask him if He would be willing to give us any flowers for this. He said no, so we prayed and walked up to another flower shop. We got there, prayed again and went in to talk to the woman in the store. We tried explaining and asking about the flowers but she didn’t understand english at all so it was a bit of a struggle. She eventually went next door and got a guy who could speak english to translate for us, so we explained to him and asked once again if she would be willing to give us some flowers. She agreed to give us 3 flowers of our choice! We walked away squealing a little bit! We had to ask on our own but we honestly couldn’t believe it! We already had two women in mind that we could give the flowers to plus the woman with yellow shoes. The first girl is a young girl that works at a local restaurant that my team and I go to almost every night for dinner. It’s a very small place but they have great food at super cheap prices and the young girl that works there is so sweet! She is a Christian and in grade 12, we gave the flower to her and asked what we could be praying for and then prayed with her before she had to get back to work.
Then we went across the street to the craft store, the woman in the store didn’t speak English either so after we prayed for her and after attempting to explain the Gospel to her, we wrote out John 3:16 on a note card and left that there with a flower for her.
And the search for the woman with yellow shoes continued…
We walked for about 20-30 minutes looking for this woman and just could not find her, so we decided to go to the local coffee shop and write notes for the staff and the woman at the grocery store. We wrote notes and John 3:16 out for them as well and after a quick snack and a little chat set back out on our adventure.
With 15 minutes of time left before we were supposed to be back we stopped In the grocery store to give the woman her note. That woman had gold shoes on but I just didn’t think it was right so with our less than 5 minute walk home left I prayed and said “God I trust you. Bring me to this woman you showed me.” We ventured down the street and as we walked I started to see a woman ahead sitting on a stool in front of a store with a little boy in her lap, as we got closer guess what I saw?! You bet! Yellow on her shoes!!! I couldn’t believe it!!! I approached her and handed her the flower explaining the purpose behind it, she didn’t speak much english but she said thank you and so did her little boy.
Even though it literally took me 3 hours to find this woman, I trusted God. I knew He would bring her to me. She may not have spoken english and I have no idea what will happen to this woman but I know that Jesus loves her and He used me today to tell her that.
It’s funny too because in my quest time this morning I kept feeling like I was hearing the word Trust. And I didn’t understand because I’m going through something right now but trust isn’t what I’m missing in this struggle. So why trust? Well, I wrote it down in my Journal anyway. “Trust” and then God said “Do you trust me?” so I wrote that down too. and then I wrote underneath that “I do.” He asked me if I trusted Him today, I said I did and then He tested that trust.
All in all, it was a really cool experience!
I’m not sure that the things we said to the women today will have a long term effect but I know that I trusted and followed the Lord today and that’s what matters most.
