Before we set out for village ministry we decided to spend some time in prayer. We prayed and asked the Lord to give us words and pictures of people we were supposed to talk with. As we sat down in prayer I got the color teal, so I asked the Lord what is teal? A teal shirt? No. A teal house? No. Okay, what is supposed to be teal. Finally, the Lord gave me my answer, a teal door. After the rest of the team shared we set off; as we wandered through the village my team pointed out everything teal—teal houses, teal shutters, teal doors. How am I supposed to know which teal door I am supposed to go to and talk with people? We eventually walked up to a teal door and started to talk with the family living there. We talked with them about their family and then prayed for them. After we prayed we went on to the next teal door, same story; we talked, we prayed, and we left. Again nothing special.
We continued to walk through out the village talking with everyone we meet. My team asked me if I felt like if we ended now would I be content about finding the teal door. I said yes because it gave our team a purpose, as we didn’t know which teal door would be the teal door. We didn’t see any more teal doors that morning. We came back for lunch and then set off again.
We walked to a different part of the village, but didn’t come across very many people who wanted to talk. We continued walking and eventually saw two little Honduran boys. We stopped to say high, but they were very shy. Their mother walked over to us and let us into their yard. I walked one of the boys back to the house. I walked him back because he was crippled; sometime during this boy’s life, he had lost his leg. I don’t know why or how. We walked to their front porch where the rest of my team talked with the mom while I played peek-a-boo around the house with the other boy. He would run around the house and I would cut him off. I would pick him up into the air and set him back down and he would take off running around the house. The crippled boy just stood there leaning against the wall. I tried to play with him but he didn’t want to play. I was glad that he let me walk him back to the house. Sometime during the conversation Will looked around at the house then he leaned over to me and said do you that the house has a teal door. I said no I didn’t.
We didn’t come to house because of the door, you can’t see the door from the road. We came because we saw the kids. We eventually prayed over the family and left to come back home. All I could think about was how God used this teal door as affirmation that we were at the right home. What impact we left on that family I don’t really know. Maybe it was loving on the boys, maybe it was the conversation the rest of my team had. It doesn’t really matter, we planted some kind of seed and only God knows what it will turn into.
I never found the teal door because there wasn’t just one. God used many teal doors to engage us in conversation by keeping our eyes looking for teal doors and as affirmation that we are where God wants us to be. What teal doors has God called you to look out for? Are you looking for the teal doors? Do you knock on them when you find them and engage with conversation with the people behind the door? Are there teal doors in your life that you can look back on and say, I am where God wants me to be?
