Saturday’s prayer walk was amazing!! Friday night Nebosja (he’s one of the locals that works at my favorite pizza joint) and I went out together, afterwards we just walked and talked for another hour plus. He showed me this well spring thing about two blocks from the church in the opposite direction as the main square. This morning when I started my prayer walk I cued up my play list on my phone and started to head to the main square to go to the ATM and get some money for my team and pray along the way. God had other plans. I heard him say “Go to the Well”. I simply said “Well okay then” and as I turned the corner to go back towards the well I got increasingly excited. I knew that God had instructed me to go to the well, and I knew he had a plan but I didn’t know what it was but I was hyped by the suspense. As I came to the first street corner I saw a lady carrying heavy grocery bags and I said to myself “AH! Thats it!” So I went to catch up to her and by the time I did she was about 10 feet in front of me when she laid down the bags, took out her keys and went into her house which was now just to our left. Onward I go. When I finally reach the well I saw another lady carrying water jugs and looked strained by the weight. Once again I thought that was it. It wasn’t because by the time I got to the well she was no where to be seen. As I was about 50 feet from the well I saw an older gentlemen roll into the area on his bike to fill his reused Sprite 2-liter bottle with clean water. I asked him if he needed help because he seemed to be struggling. He said no in Serbian. It was obvious he didn’t know any English. I asked him if I could pray for him by making a hand motion and finger pointing to get the message across that I was trying to say. He agreed. I took a step toward him to possibly lay my hand on his shoulder and he stepped away and looked nervous. Seeing this I stopped. I simply held his hand and started to pray that God would transcend this language barrier and speak into this mans heart everything that he needed to hear. When I finished praying the smile on that man’s face was priceless. Through the course of the next 20 minutes we began speaking and understanding enough of each other to find out that his friend has stage 4 Cancer, he is going to church with me tomorrow. He asked me what my headphones were and I explained “Music”. He then asked if he could listen. Heres the thing, my music was completely random by this point, meaning I had listened to all my songs that I had selected. And as I approached him at first my last picked song was finishing up. So I let him listen. I don’t know what he heard, but the song “Count on Me” by NEEDTOBREATHE was playing. He just stood there with a smile, arms open wide, singing along with tears rolling down his face. As I said im not sure what he heard but I know what the song was. God is so good and everything is possible with Him at your side. He eventually showed me his watch which he had broken the day before, so without thinking I took mine off and gave it to him. He was so excited that he could go swimming with it and that it was water proof up to 100 meters. Yes folks, he understood what I was talking about when I was showing him everything. And he didn’t know hardly any English before we started. God is the only reason that that conversation was possible. Now he has a new watch, a new perspective, and a new church home because I know that he is going to show up.
So Steve showed up to Church last night and through translation I found out that when I prayed for him, he said he felt something in him change. He also told me that he felt like I was sent to him by God because he really needed prayer that morning. I wanted to say “well yeah! I heard him tell me to go!” but I didn’t get a chance before the conversation shifted. Steve has committed to coming back next week for Church and I plan on plugging him in with my host so that he has someone to connect with after I leave. God works in the most simple and mysterious of ways.
