Seriously? What a night.

Here she comes, barefoot, three single cigarettes squeezed tightly in her left hand, a sack of cold beer weighing down her right arm and shoulder… steadily, she is limping closer to me. I start to squint out the darkness of the night, to get a better look at her right foot. Pointed at a 90degree angle and trying to catch up with the left leg, here she comes. (my thoughts) “God if you want me to do something about this make her sit down in a chair” (i don’t flatter myself when I tell God what to do, but we are still working on communication)

So I take my eyes off of her and try to fake that I was mentally “in” the conversation which I drifted from…” this is husband Greg, he didn’t go to hospital… to surgery, he have bad lung. ” 

Greg, in his drunken slur-between puffs on his nearly wasted cig, ” my lung is bad, surgery, my lung bad, bad”.

.

The two of us were told to go and recruit people to come to church, so here we go on fire to see God move in the community of Bagot. Bagot is a community funded by the government for the Aborigines here in Darwin. 

Walking curiously, peeking into houses to glimpse a shadow of life then shouting “church tonight guys! See ya there won’t we? We better see ya’ll!! Bring your family, we are going to be singing! Come to church! Byeeee!!”

But mostly we just creep up on the small clusters sitting outside their houses, usually a few drinks in and cig-smoke clouding their faces.

After a few cluster invites he catches my eye, then Chelsea’s, or it might have been the other way around. Anyhow we migrate his direction. Sitting alone, shirtless, cross-legged.. skinny ol legs, starring deeply into the cement driveway, beer can to the front and cig loosely gripped between his fingers. “Hey!!” (maybe to much voice for this one ol man)

“Hey we are having church tonight up at the Bagot Community Church, wanna come with us?” Still getting closer to him, we reach a good enough distance to see the blood shot eyes and get a good whiff of the alcohol potent air which has made a 4 foot radius around him. 

We squat to seem intimate and personal with him. “What’s your name?”

“My name is Greg”.

“Would ya like to come up to the service tonight?”

“Can you pray me, lung is bad”, He takes his left hand, still loosely holding his dear cigarette, drags his arm slowly over his right ribcage. 

“Of course, are you in pain? can we lay our hands on you? God is a healing, loving God, He can take all your pain away. “

“We are going to ask God to take your pain away”

In the midst of praying Ann Marie comes strolling up, couple of cigs and couple of beers.

“My husband, lung is bad, surgery didn’t get… was yesterday but still hurt, pray… oh God… Jesus.” Now, we think after a night of a couple beers maybe the stench of alcohol would fade… but this smell seemed to be weeks old. Ann Marie was stumbling to stay a stand. Stepping all over her own feet, just barely able to keep her eyes from closing completely… trying to convince us she was fully able to communicate that her husband needs prayer  for healing of his lung. Making no sense with her words or his own we begin to pray again… healing, miracles, the powerful-changing Presence of our God to invade the children whom he loves and created for a great purpose. 

“Jesus, in frame for Greg, bedroom, oh Jesus… Lord, bad lung, this is my husband Greg, bad lung.. needs surgery ..yesterday” (this scrambled phrase was repeated and re-scrambled multiple times during our encounter)

My eyes wide open, praying earnestly and fervently to the God who heals and  loves… I see her, limping my direction. Michele. Who we later find out is Ann Marie’s mom. 

After coming back to Greg and our conversation and prayers with the two of them I notice Michele (the mom) pulled up a chair from the front lawn and onto the sidewalk in which she came. Sitting a safe distance away she chooses her words between shouts of curses and mumbles of who knows what.

Ann Marie says to us “do not listen to her”, which gives me the clue she does not like us praying or even being near her daughter… 

So here we go again, my thoughts. “Ok, Father… what do I do, obviously this woman is too drunk and oblivious to understand anything, if I were… just if I were to pray or talk with her” 

Instantly I turn my gaze once more off of Greg and Ann Marie and squint again in the direction of Michele in her chair, her hand reaches out for me. “Ok really, God.. really? Really, like you want me to go to her… I’m praying here and you want… ok”

So I get over myself and realize in a flash moment the atmosphere around her changed from cursing us to wanting what we have to offer. Seriously, in an INSTANT she was cursing us then asking for me to come and pray with her.  Actually calling to me to come and extending her hand out as far in my direction as she could… so I ease up from my catchers squat and walk the half dozen steps to the shadow she is sitting in. 

Thoughts.. “She pulled up a chair like I asked you, she is begging for prayer, she chose ME to come to her… ok I guess this is divine, right?”

“Hey gorgeous, I’m Sage, what is your name?” “Michele… my daughter Ann Marie, my daughter.” (that breath, oh that breath, yikes)

I take her hand which is trying earnestly to find mine. I squat once more at her feet, placing my free hand on her left knee, which I noticed had a good sized scar about 7 inches long.

“Had operation, (pointing from her left hip running her fingers all the way down to my hand which was on her left knee), can you pray for me?”

Overjoyed with the privilege to speak the words of God over this new friend I immediately began to pray the presence of God over Michele, even telling her that she would FEEL God. She did, she said her leg had been numb and now she could feel it. Thank God for being awesome all the time!

That isn’t the end. Now what I can remember is in snags and bits.

I remember Greg saying he felt MUCH better with no pain.

I remember seeing Michele’s tears run down her face as we sat hand in hand talking to our Father.

I remember the moment in which she looked into my eyes and I was able to see her tired, weary, lonely-eyes and she said “i love you”

I remember the way it made me feel, I couldn’t control the way it made me feel, like this was good enough for me, this moment right here in the middle of a random community in a random city, so many miles away from what I call home… this moment was enough to last me a life-time. 

“Michele, i love you.” We sat for such a brief and swift moment right there and two million thoughts sprinted through my head. But one thing mattered, God. He placed us here together for this time. For this moment He wanted us to feel the love together. He wanted a beautiful experience of two completely different people from different cultures and different lives.. He designed us to FEEL love together. And that was enough for me. That was everything to me. 

I remember the exuberant praises we gave our Father ALL night long for such an honor it was to experience that night.