This is Austin, a 6’8” former professional baseball player turned warrior for the Kingdom. Not to say these are mutually exclusive callings, but I’ll save his story for him to share. You can read his blog here. In this case, all-American stud-ery and a heart for Jesus broke tremendous ground, and the entire team was in on it. This is how we met Jamie, Steven, Brad, and a few random guys at the basketball court.
Prayer
We begin our days praying as a team. Who starts and finishes the prayer changes daily, but it usually follows a pattern similar to this:
“Dear God, please guide us in the pursuit of your Kingdom; provide us with direction. We desire to serve you. Please bless the encounters we have today – that they may be filled with your Spirit and your love, and that we might shine the light of your Kingdom in all that we do.“
Once a few minutes of silence has passed, if anyone was spoken to, they share and we set out to pursue what God has given them. if not, we set out to pursue the Kingdom anyway and God directs as as we go. For example, Jewel led a few members of the team through Wuhan making seemingly random turn decisions until they found a city building with a scaled model of a development being constructed. They prayed over the development that it may be blessed and filled with the Spirit.
Being spoken to is a tremendous experience that I can’t really describe. We have six people on this team and each of us experiences it differently but it always requires a genuine and transparent relationship with God. You need to be able to invest your attention, passion and heart into a relationship with the Father much like you would with anyone else you love. A spouse, grandparent or child are all spoken to from the heart because for them, everything we do is out of love. If God the Father is Creator of all and Father to all, why do we so easily give Him lip-service instead of investing in our prayer life with Him? If you want to have intimacy with God, He deserves more than what we give each other, an ESPN commentator, or the oppositions Pundits.
How ever you choose to pray, whatever you choose to pray, and whichever circumstances leads you to prayer, it all really comes down to two categories:
1. Thank you
2. Help
No need to get fancy or academic with it, everyone does it differently and He knows it all anyway – I tend to pray in fragmented sentences because I’m not sure how to articulate myself. The way God speaks to me is usually by filling in my sentences and providing clarity. A lot of times, it’s not even close to what I set out to pray for.
Basketball
This day began like the rest, but brought us back to words we received days prior – university and basketball. Sam had a dream about Wuhan University so without question, the team got on a bus. One hour, 400 stops, 30 construction zones, and a dozen near-miss incidents later, we arrive on campus. It was gorgeous and we happened across a sports complex quickly. There was one person shooting baskets by himself. Easy in – asking to play one-on-one. We passed a group of five young people on our way to the court. This was Jamie and her friends. They were college age but not students at the university, only touring. Sam, Victoria and I stopped to talk to them while the rest went on. The conversation was typical but very friendly, until they asked where we were from.
“Where are you from?”
MURICA
”Okay, bye.”
Just kidding. Sam said “America”. They did leave though, so we joined Austin and the other girls. Austin was playing one-on-one and the girls were cheering for both players and taking pictures. Steven was a 15 year old basketball prodigy that attended a basketball school. We were thankful he was tired by the time we got there. He didn’t speak English. He didn’t need to.
Jamie and her friends made their way back, sat near by, and started taking pictures of their own. In no time, the group had closed the gap with Jamie and her friends and brought Steven into it. Phones were lit up with translators, trinkets were being traded, and laughter was everywhere. Then Brad and his friends showed up. They were a group of 4 college age kids that bumped into 3 other college age kids and all wanted to play but didn’t have a ball. They asked if they could join us (in English!). Brad spoke pretty strong English, the rest spoke basketball(ish) and that was good enough. We played for a a good couple hours. Before anyone left, we asked our counter-parts if and how we could pray for them. Not everyone had an answer, but no one met it with hostility or discontent. Actually, everyone was very pleasant and thankful for our international friendship and kindness toward them.
The next day, Sam was continuing conversation with Jamie through texting. Sam returned to the topic of faith and her love for Jesus. I’ll spare the details because you can read Sam‘s blog here. The conversation ended with Jamie asking to read the Bible and us figuring out how to move Heaven on earth to get it to her. We had a Chinese Bible, but they only had a few hours left in Wuhan and it was already 11pm.
The plan became that Sam and Hannah would wake up at 5am to get on a bus for an hour and a half to meet Jamie and her friends at the train station to deliver an inconspicuously packaged Bible (after we prayed over it as a team). This wasn’t strictly legal (thats why only two went while the rest of us stayed behind to pray and monitor the phone). Everything went smoothly and Jamie was excited to receive her new Bible. Sam shared that it felt right when they found Jamie in front of a police department by the train station. The team had recently received from the Lord to be bold in how we share Him.
So Jamie has a Bible. And four of her friends now have access to a Bible. And conversations with Steven are on-going. And conversations with Brad are on-going. And our team is pursuing new relationships still. And do you know why?
Because God is good.
A couple days later, Jamie texted us. She’s reading John, just as we recommended. Amen.
*names have been changed.
