So here I go, stepping out of my comfort zone to do something I want to get better at: story-telling. Over the last two weeks there have been so many cool stories and awesome moments worth sharing. Our team has covered most of Medan by now. We’ve been to hospitals, schools, universities, and orphanages since we got here, but I want to bring it back to day one, to the very neighborhood we are staying in.
We started ministry at 5:30 pm on Saturday. It was a normal prayer meeting with members of the host church, Elim Christian Church. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but it definitely had a lot of power and an earnest spirit. I enjoyed spending an hour and a half praying and singing with 20 strangers. We shared our testimonies on the power of prayer in our lives, and after that, we ate a nice dinner. We were supposed to have a youth meeting (which still happened), but the pastor asked us guys to come with him to pray for some families around the church. At this point it was very dark outside, and we had no idea what we were about to go do.
We walked up to the first house across the street. The whole family was outside eating dinner on their porch, but they all got up to greet us. Then Pastor David told us we needed to pray for their 94-year-old grandma. That morning the hospital released her to be with the family once they knew nothing was going to work. The only thing she could do was breathe and listen. So we knelt down at her bed and prayed for peace, comfort, and grace over her. Coleman, a fellow teammate, felt lead to sing Amazing Grace. Slowly the family behind us joined in to sing with our voices. I know that everyone in the room will remember that moment for the rest of our lives. Sadly, three hours later the woman passed away. Just a couple days later they had a funeral for her out of their house that lasted two full days, from morning until late into the night.
After we finished praying for the woman, the guys and I turned back toward the church thinking that we were done. My heart was heavy, we just started this journey, and we needed to go debrief this night already. But Pastor David told us there was still one more family to pray for about their legal trouble. So, we willingly followed him just across the street.
We walked into the house and sat down with a man and a couple of his boys. They started to explain the story to us. This man has been in a legal battle with his neighbors for the last 10 years. His neighbors sued him, claiming that his house is theirs and that he must move out. This man was at least 40 and he said he was born in the house after his parents bought it. There was so much pain and anger on his face. Trying to help, all of us wanted to encourage him. We prayed over him and his family. Then I talked about Jericho and how being in that army must have been so hard.
Think of it, walking around a whole city 7 times and how if we were a soldier in that army we would just be looking at the city and the wall and think why don’t we just attack from here right there and we can take the city easily. I mean do we really have to wait for God, we got this. But really God wants our patience and He wants the glory. That might mean you have to go through some hard times but just wait, God will take care of it. Right after I said that he thanked me for it. He said that in one week from then he was planning to use witchcraft to fix his problem. Ok so here is what is bad, this is kind of one of the first times I have had to speak through a translator, me and the guys got confused so we were not sure if I just talked a guy into going to use witchcraft or talked him out of it. We then stepped up and started to talk about forgiveness and how the bible tells us to forgive and how anger is not good, and how nothing good can come out of going to a witch doctor to solve your problems especially as a Christian. We then did all we could to talk him out of doing things he will regret. He thanked us for praying for him and giving him lots to think about and hopefully we encouraged him to make it through these legal battles. He shook our hand and he put his forehead on our hand out of respect and humility.
Our first night of ministry God put my team in it. In this city, spiritual battles are going on. It has been my prayer for a while now that I want to “play the game.” I have been living this Christian life, learning about God and Christianity for most of it, and I just really want to be in the mess surrounding the world and my home. I pray every day for this. I want to pray for the weak and the needy. God truly answered my prayer on the very first day. He quickly put me in a place of discomfort and messiness.
Thanks For reading
Lucas Hultgren
I want to thank everyone that has supported me on this missions trip. To be completely honest with you the hardest thing about this whole missions work thing so far is asking for help, and I have done things on this trip some of my very best friends would be like “you didn’t”. Like teach a sermon last Sunday, or sing for a class of kids. Asking for help is still harder to do then all that stuff but I need to ask and I have seen so many people want to help. Thanks everyone for that. So if you feel lead to please help me be able to finish this trip. I need $5000 to make sure I finish this awesome experience. Every dollar helps and maybe consider setting up monthly payments until I reach my goal. Thanks For the support.
