After an awesome few days in Ongole with the squad, the other SQL’s and I headed back to Hyderabad for a couple of days to rest and prepare for the squad to come to Hyderabad for an event called the Awakening.
The morning that we were supposed to meet back up with the squad..
Patrick and I walked down the street to an ATM. We walked up to the door of the ATM and the security guard smiled at us.. Patrick went on in to withdraw money and I stood with the guard. I asked his name and he replied, “Joseph”. He then asked my name. When I told him that my name was Soloman his face lit up and he said pointedly, “you are a Christian.” this was a bit of a surprise because most people I meet out in the world ask me if I’m Muslim when they hear my name.
I asked him if he was a Catholic and he adamantly replied, “No, Jesus!” He then went on a rant about how Catholics worship Mary. We stood and smiled at each other for a minute and I felt like the Lord was saying he had pain in his back.
So, I asked Joseph if he had back pain and if Patrick and I could pray and he told me that he did in fact have pain in his back and that it would be great if we could pray for it. So, we stood out front of the ATM and thanked God for Joseph’s boldness and his joy. Then we prayed healing over his back and….boom, the Lord healed his back pain.
Joseph’s face lit up like a fireworks display on the fourth of July and he said thank you to Jesus and then told us that he was thankful. I looked at him and told him to make sure that he went and told everyone about what Jesus had done for his back and he smiled as Patrick and I walked next door to get snacks at the supermarket.
We laughed about how awesome that whole encounter with Joseph was. God is so good that even as we are walking to get cash and snacks he shows up and heals one of his beloved kids.
Earlier that morning, I had been reading in John 1 about how Jesus had met Andrew and Simon Peter on the banks of the Jordan and how Jesus had told them to follow Him. Immediately, Andrew and Simon Peter dropped their nets and took off walking with Jesus.
About 10 minutes later we walked back by the ATM to go get a taxi on the main road, we looked over…. thinking we would see Joseph and smile and wave excitedly at him….. But he wasn’t there.
Chances are, Joseph had left his post to go to the bathroom or something like that…. But, I got a good laugh thinking about Joseph throwing down his nets by leaving his post at the ATM to go tell everyone about what Jesus had just done for him.
