I was so nervous before training camp I thought I was going to throw up.
Before heading to the Adventures in Missions headquarters, I went to a coffee shop in Gainesville, Georgia where I met my friend Alice. Alice had just spent the week at her training camp, so I was glad to cross paths with her.
She had so much enthusiasm and told me as much as she could about what lay ahead. After an hour of chatting, I was getting ready to take off, but Alice asked if she could pray for me before I left. We held hands on the sofa, and I felt peace slowly come over as she spoke. As we said “Amen,” we looked up to see an older gentleman standing over us, waiting for us to finish our prayer.
“God bless you girls,” he said in a sweet, and shaky voice. “I had to come over and tell you how much it blesses me to see you praying here in public.”
He continued.
“A few months ago I was sitting right here,” he pointed to a nearby table, “when a young girl came over and sat down with me; she was a missionary, we talked, and she asked if she could pray for me about anything.”
He then told the girl a bit of his story: a few years back he was hit head on by a drunk driver. “I shouldn’t even be alive,” he said.
He told the girl that since the accident he’s suffered from severe tremors. “It was so bad, I couldn’t even pull a dollar bill out of my wallet.”
He said that sitting there in the coffee shop, the girl asked if she could pray for him.
“When I woke up the next day,” the man told us,—“the tremors were gone.”
Looking up at this sweet, kind man, I couldn’t stop smiling. Before the week had even started, the Lord was at work. In that moment He was showing me how real He is. How powerful He is. That He truly heals. He shows up. He does this stuff. Before this crazy, wild journey was even beginning, I believe the Lord wanted to show himself to me, to give me a quiet opportunity to acknowledge, “Hey God, You’re real. You’re alive. You’re here.” He wanted to reaffirm my faith. He wanted to give me a glimpse of what lie ahead.
I left that coffee shop giddy. I think I might have skipped out the door. My nerves were tossed aside because I knew without a doubt that God was going to keep showing up like this, over and over again.
The only thing I regretted was that I hadn’t offered to pray with the man. As I drove away I prayed out loud by myself in the car.
“God, please let me see that man again. Somehow. Please continue to heal him. And let our paths cross again if it’s in Your will.”
Flash forward five days.
After getting placed into our ministry teams, we went into town for some team bonding. We headed to the coffee shop. I walked in the door and guess who I saw in line?
Yep. My sweet friend.
As I sat down with my team to explain why I was so excited, I narrated the story to them of how I had met the man a few days earlier. I was explaining the part about the accident, the tremors, when suddenly, my friend Taylor gasped.
I was sitting in front of a mirror and she could see the man’s reflection behind me as I spoke. She said when I got to the part saying that the tremors were so bad he couldn’t even pull a dollar bill out of his wallet, the man was paying for his drink behind me, reaching for his wallet and pulling money out of it at the exact moment I spoke those words.
As my teammates and I were leaving we walked past the man outside on the patio. I reached for his hand and told him goodbye. This time, I asked if we could all pray for him. So the eight of us held hands right there on the sidewalk and said a prayer over him.
He smiled, and when we finished praying he told us something I’ll never forget. “Today,” he said, “is the four year anniversary of that car accident.”
My mind was blown. How cool that I was mad at myself for not praying the first time, but that God did cross our paths again, and used the interaction to bless my team—giving us our very first of many times we will get to do ministry together–and to bless that man, on the exact day that holds such a painful memory for him.
Funny enough, I went back to that coffee shop when camp ended to journal and rest, and I saw my friend there one more time. The first time we’d met his hands and voice were a little unsteady, and he apologized saying they were acting up that day. But this third time when I saw him he seemed completely smooth, calm and steady. Before I left town, God solidified for me one more time the power of His healing.
The story doesn’t even end there. God had more.
That Thursday night I heard one of my squad mates, Sulley telling a “God-story” from his day. I could tell how excited he was about it; I overheard him say the words, “car accident,” “coffee shop,” and “tremors,” so I asked what he was talking about.
He went on to share that at the same time Thursday afternoon, his team had gone into the coffee shop to hang out when they started talking to a young woman. She was a little shaky and was using something to help her walk. She told my friends that she had been in a terrible car accident, hit by a drunk driver, and now suffers from severe tremors and memory loss. Apparently, the memory loss is so bad she had set her debit card down on the table and moments later asked them whose it was. My friends were touched, spoke some encouragement over her, and asked if they could pray for her—right there in the coffee shop. As they prayed, Sulley silently asked the Holy Spirit to help this woman remember what was happening, to remember their prayer, remember their words. They said goodbye, and left.
Several hours later Sulley’s team was out getting dinner. They walked out the door of the restaurant when a car rode by heading to the drive through. The passenger window began to roll down and they heard a girl’s voice say, “Look mom, it’s my friends.”
And there was that young woman in the car smiling at them. And she remembered.
Neither of us could keep from geeking out. I told Sulley my similar story and encouraged him, you never know what difference y’all could have made in that woman’s life. Surely the girl who prayed over my friend in the coffee shop months before has no idea how God impacted that man’s life through her simple prayer.
I could go on to tell you so many things about training camp—how we took cold bucket showers, and slept outside; how 60 people who didn’t know each other a week ago now feel like a family; how everyone shared everything they had and had everything in common (not kidding: meals were…meager to say the least; one time someone had Sour Patch Kids and gave seven to our table of eight, I didn’t get one and every person broke off a piece of their’s to create an eighth Sour Patch Kid for me. Acts 2 lived out, people.); I could tell you about what God showed me, and how the Holy Spirit moved—but I think for today, this story sums up the important stuff pretty well.
The word God gave me, which I know will carry throughout the rest of the year was this: More.
“More,” He said. “I have more.”
I’m only beginning to realize how utterly true that is.
More, from me, to come soon.
Much love,
K
P.S. I not only ADORE the beautiful people on K Squad, but these six other people on my team! Please keep us in your prayers as we all prepare for departure, facing things at home, getting ready to leave, saying hard goodbyes, and praying for funds. We all need $7,500 in our accounts to leave in September. Thanks to YOU I have already met this goal. I am trusting to be fully funded by the time departure gets here—and I’m extremely close. If you’d like to help me push through to the end of support raising, please click here. If you want to hear more about training camp, I would love to talk to you. Please, feel so free to get in touch with me. There’s too much to put in this blog, but if you want to know more, I would love to share with you.
Hanging out with my awesome teammates! Jason & Sara, Nic, Me, Jessica, Taylor and Josef. (clicking everyone’s names will take you to their blogs!)
Taylor and I saying goodbye Saturday. I’m so excited to be this girl’s teammate. We had to share a tent together at the beginning of the week when my belongings were “lost in baggage claim” (#simulations)–I got my stuff back eventually but we didn’t sleep apart the rest of the week. Thank you Jesus for Taylor Hill!
