Nepal has thankfully continued to expand my perspective on ministry. We sat eagerly listening to our host to find out what we were doing for the day he told us we were going on a treasure hunt . . . with a long pause for effect (and also probably to see who thought he meant scavenger hunt); followed by, “you will be going on a supernatural treasure hunt”.
A what?!
He explained that we will be searching for people as treasures from the Spirit. Jesus sent people out 2 by 2 so thats how we would be going out. We were instructed to pray, see what God is showing us, make a spiritual map, and then head out with our partner to find our treasure.
“Don’t rejoice you did all these miracles. Rejoice that your names are written in Heaven. Some people make healing their goal, some make deliverance their goal, but Jesus says people are the treasure, therefore make people the goal.”
– Brian’s spin on Luke 10:20
My partner Alison and I sat quietly for sometime with the Holy Spirit and this is what we got:
- Alison was told she would find the women from her prophetic painting the day before (a women with a prominent nose, red scarf, and braided black hair); a fruit stand; and tea.
- I got an overwhelming smell of oily Chinese food (don’t ask, its still strange to me that every time I practice listening prayer I get smells).
We didn’t have much and we were super confused but, we were excited so we headed out. We were told to search till 4pm and if we found our treasure with a lot of time to spare to pray and draw another map. One of the things God is walking me through currently is patience so go figure we didn’t find our treasure until 3:58pm! However, our day was a fun adventure that pushed us both out of our comfort zones.
We decided to head toward the fruit stand at a main intersection we walk past often and go from there. We stood on the corner and prayed to see where we should go next and a women with a red scarf walked to the right – this started a long few hours of basically stalking women in red scarves all around the city. Laughing at ourselves up and down the streets we ended up in a small Chinese restaurant drinking tea and talking about what we think we are supposed to do next. So we decided to show this painting of a women we had no idea if she even existed to the owner of the restaurant to see if he saw anyone who looked like her that day. Confused in general and even more so with the language barrier he awkwardly just smiled and gave us our bill. We stalked several more red scarf’d women, half because we thought maybe it would lead us to another clue and half because neither of us could see if their hair was braided so we needed to get closer.
We decided ice cream was a great pit-stop and ended up asking the owner of the shop the same question about the women in the painting; a customer in the store asked us with such concern if this women was missing. We laughed, said no, tried our best to explain realizing how crazy we looked, and then went on our merry way with our ice cream. A few random things and a tub of ice cream later we were starting to give up. Acknowledging that our “treasure” simply could be the experience, pushing us out of our comfort zones, and the deep conversations; we headed over to check out the hours of a coffee shop we wanted to try the next day. Running into other people on the squad and hearing their stories and seeing the time we were already mentally checked out from the treasure hunt. Silly us; with that Alison’s face lit up she tapped my arm, pointed across the street, and asked if I thought that was her. With out a doubt the women crossing the street heading directly towards us with black braided hair, a red scarf, and a prominent nose was the women she painted the day before.
We awkwardly met her on our side of the street and did our best to communicate to her how we’d been searching for her all day, that God placed her on our hearts and to seek her out to tell her she is loved and beautiful. She was super confused but, realized we were trying to give her the picture and smiled staring at it unaware of what was actually happening. When we made a prayer gesture with our hands and asked if we could pray for her she responded “God is with me always, thank you” and walked away.
Even though we didn’t have this super cool WOW moment or story we left so excited. Maybe we missed a few clues and drew out the search or maybe the day went exactly how the Lord intended it too. All I know is that no matter what steps it takes to get there, the treasure is always God ordained, and that in itself is worth the hunt.
