Have you ever done a treasure hunt before? It’s pretty cool. Especially when there’s an awesome prize at the end.
Well, have you ever done a treasure hunt for a person before??? IT’S SUPER COOL!
It was our first day of ministry in eSwatini and we were doing market ministry. I had never done that before so I wasn’t sure what exactly we should do. My group included Josh, Liv and Grace. 3 of my teammates. We decided we wanted to pray and see what the Lord wanted to say to us.
We went to a quite room and played some worship music and just sat there and listened. What we heard, we wrote down. After about 10-15 minutes we shared what we had heard. I wrote down RED&BLUE, water and cane. Well it had rained earlier that day so water was everywhere. Not very helpful.
Liv said she got “a woman weaving”, white mug and dog tattoo, just to name a few. Grace had a soccer ball and blue bird and Josh had “leave the 99 for the ONE”.
After that we got back together and had one more group prayer. Then we headed to the market.
Because of the rain earlier, the market was kinda slow. People were still setting up and unpacking. As soon as we walk in, Grace says to me “that’s some bright RED&BLUE she’s wearing”. So as a group we walk over to a lady who is wearing a red shirt and is also wearing a blue scarf. Crazy right??
Her name is Maria and she has a little shop in the market. She’s a single mother and has and 18 month old. We got to help her set up and got to talk with her. After about 10-15 minutes of talking, we prayed for her and got on with our treasure hunt.
We walk down a ramp and what do we see?? A woman weaving baskets/bags. We had the opportunity to talk with her and I even bought one of her lovely bags. Liv took the lead on that one and asked her questions to get to know her. As we were standing there, Grace looks at me and says “there’s a cane!!!”. So we follow this old lady with a cane. We wanted to talk with her but the timing was never right, but that was okay. She lead us to a young lady who was working at a chicken restaurant in the market.
We got to talk with her and got to know a little about her life and what she believes in. She’s a Christian too so we got to talk about who God is to us. She had questions for us but mainly wanted to hear us talk. After some time we took her to the store and told her that we wanted to buy her anything she needed (within our price limit). It was such a cool experience. After we went back to the restaurant we shared a coke and got to pray with her as well.
As for Josh, he was talking with all the ONEs. He would leave the 99 and find the men sitting alone and go and make friends and conversations with them.
We didn’t find everything on our lists that day but we were intentionally looking for people and seeing how we could help them and how we can pray for them.
If you’ve never done a treasure hunt before I recommend doing it some day. It’s amazing how God will give you random words or pictures and send you to the exact person or place that you need to be at.
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Matthew 6:19-21 NIV
