As many of you know this month is ATL month, which means we are doing ministry by simply asking the lord what he has for us. So pretty much what we would do if we were back home, asking the lord to open our eyes to the divine appointments he has for us. With this each of our days have looked very differently. Forfive days my team and I went trekking through the Himalayas where we talked with other hikers, our guide, and shop owners. (If you want a peak into what this looked like go check out my teammate Saylah’s videos HERE) The lord blessed us with theses five days of bonding as a new team and challenging our bodies physically.
Our destination was Poon Hill were we hope to be able to look out and see all the beautiful mountains the Lord created. However, once we were at the top of Poon Hill it was so foggy we couldn’t see anything. Sadly we had walked up a lot of stairs for an hour to not see the beautiful view we thought we would. BUT the Lord is so good to us and even though we didn’t see the mountains that day on top of Poon Hill the Lord sent us some encouraging people. As we began to worship the Lord on the mountain we look over to see another group of young adults, one who had a bible out. They turn to us as the music begins and we end up worshiping the Lord together. We were able to talk with them, come to find out they are YWAMers (YWAM is a discipleship school.) and one of them had gone on the World Race a year or so earlier. Man the Lord knew my team and I needed to run into these spirit filled people. We were able to pray over each other and leave Poon Hill feeling rejuvenated and encouraged.
After our five days in the Himalayas my team and I headed back to Pokhara where we just did life. We walked the streets with open minds and hearts for whatever the Lord had for us that day. Most mornings we would pray and then go eat breakfast where we would run into just the people the Lord had for us that day. We meant shop owners, random people on the street, and people staying at our hostel who we were able to share the gospel with and pray over.
So you know how the Lord uses what we love to bring him glory, yeah well He totally did that through my love for ice cream. So I LOVE ice cream, I know surprise, but seriously even something as silly as this the Lord uses. My teammate Micaela wanted ice cream one evening after dinner. We went to a few different places looking for some good ice cream and we weren’t finding what we were looking for. I then remembered the place we had dinner had ice cream for a reasonable price. At this point she was kind of over looking, but me being me and ice cream being so amazing it was easy to convince her to try one more time. So as our last effort to find ice cream we headed back the way we came.
We stopped in and sadly they did not have ice cream cones only bowls, we were hoping to just grab and go, but instead we sat down at a table while Micaela ate her ice cream. As we went to pay for her ice cream our waiter, Zeb, began to talk with us. We were able to talk with him about the Lord and what we believe. He stated he is Hindi, but repeatedly stated he believed in himself. Zeb was asking what we were going to do tomorrow so we told him our plans. We are going to pray and ask God where He wants us to go and what He wants us to do. Zeb was intrigued by this and asked us to let him know where the Lord ends up taking us. After a while in our conversation he mentioned his head wasn’t feeling clear, he was felling tired and had a headache. We were then able to pray with Zeb and explain to him there is no ritual or certain way to pray to the Lord, but rather just open your soul to Him and talk. After we prayed for Zeb he said he felt a little better. We told Zeb that he could pray whenever and speak with the Lord as well. Zeb said he would try it tonigh. So I told Zeb that I wanted to hear about what the Lord says to him when we come in to tell him about our day, Zeb agreed. We did go back and follow up with Zeb. He was confused about prayer and what he needed to do, if he could speak in his native language and what not. We got to explain a little more about prayer to him. This was just a beautiful encounter of sharing the Lord with Zeb. I pray that the Lord speaks to him and he opens his heart to the Lord.
Then another evening after dinner I was hoping to find some good ice cream. On our way down the street our teammate Saylah stopped to pet a dog while the rest of us walked ahead a bit messing around. A man approach Saylah and began talking with her, eventually she walked up to us with this man by her side. He introduced himself as Joseph and we talked with him about the Lord. He was quite knowledgeable on God and spoke some valid truth, but also had a lot of things mixed up. Joseph informed us he had encountered God as a teenager and a lot had happened since then. He said before that encounter “Jesus was just a cuss word.” We ended up praying for him for quite sometime. Our prayers shifted to worship and praising God right there on the street. Even though when we left Joseph we were unsure of where his heart was we knew God had just moved.
There are so many people out there like Zeb and Joseph. People who think a relationship with the Lord is based off rituals or how you pray. Which leads to missing out on the relationship with the Lord because they only see religion. People who think the name of Jesus is just a cuss word and miss out on the power in His name.
Something as simple as going out for ice cream can become a divine encounter if you are interruptible and guided by the Holy Spirit. Please join my team and I as we pray for God to do a mighty work in Zebs, Josephs, and all the people we encountered lives.
Oh and by the way I have yet to find good ice cream in Nepal, sad days…
