Sometimes, the work of the Lord absolutely amazes me. This week was one of those times.
Prologue: (Skip if you don’t want background info and want to make this incredibly long blog a little bit shorter for you to read).
So this month my team has been placed in one of the local schools. Our contact, Mark, said that our school is a “Christian” school, but that doesn’t mean they are told about Jesus. Apparently it just means that most of the students are sponsored by Americans to go to this Christian school. Mark also told us that they got a new director this year and since then the school has been a little closed to Christian Light Foundation. However, when we met with the director on Wednesday she was more than open to the idea of us coming in and helping out. She was very excited, told us it was a blessing that we were here, offered a time when we can do Bible lessons with the students, and also asked us to help teach English for the month. Mark said it was an answer to prayers, which is great! And I can’t wait to start ministry with them. However, the director told us to come back on Friday to meet the teachers and to get more information.
This meant that Thursday was now open. At this point, it had almost been 2 weeks since doing any ministry, and my team and I were itching to get back to it. So we let Thursday be our “Ask the Lord” (ATL) day. We decided we would do prayer walks to the three schools our squad would be working with this month, and then beyond that we’d be open to where the Lord would lead us. So we started off the morning by praying to God, asking Him to reveal to us what He desired of us. I don’t typically get visions from God. I’ve gotten one before, and it wasn’t until this week that I would actually admit that, because before this week I wasn’t sure how I felt about “visions.” I had doubts: what do you mean God shows you an image? What do you mean God gives you a word? How do you know that’s actually from God and you’re not just making it up? I don’t doubt anymore though. However, typically, I think I get “feelings” from the Spirit. He doesn’t direct my path with words or images, but just ideas and emotions He places on my heart. Anyway, some of my teammates do get words and visions from God.
The Story:
We started off the morning praying together, and then we decided to split off and just be silent. This way we could each individually listen to what God was trying to say to us. When we came back together, we found out we had a few things to be on the lookout for today. Craig had two different visions about certain people. One person was in a blue shirt with a tattoo on either the left side of his face, or the left side of his body. The other was about a mom in a pink shirt in a blue house. Brad had a vision of a guy in a light orange shirt with a limp on his right side. Brittany felt the word “park” but she wasn’t sure what that meant. God brought forth to me the idea that I had been reading about in Kingdom Journeys: that Jesus didn’t give His disciples a clear plan or direction, he just said “Go.”
So we did. We set off for the Sector 2 School first. On the way there we silently prayed over each house we passed until we made it to the front of the school. Once we got to the school, we stood in front of it and prayed over the school building, the teachers, the students, etc. Once we finished praying, we didn’t know the area so we turned around and started heading towards the Sector 3 School (my team’s school). However, almost as soon as we started walking back the way we came, a man passed us on our left side with a blue shirt and tattoos covering his body: face, arms, legs, everything. I turned to Craig and said, “Is that him?” Craig sorta paused, pulled out his notes from the morning and with shaking hands said, “Yeah. Yeah, that’s him.” At this point, the rest of the team had pulled ahead, so I holler to Brad and explain to him that we need to go talk to that guy. But also at this point, the man had obviously continued on his way, so we had a bit of catching up to do. Instead of having 6 gringos chase this tattooed man down an unknown street, Brad and Craig sped up to catch up with him and the woman he was walking with while the rest of us followed a little ways behind.
Once they caught up to the man, they explained that God had revealed him to us this morning and we were just wondering if there was anything we could pray about for him. He said that he didn’t really have time for prayer because he had somewhere to be, and that there was nothing we could pray for. However, throughout the short conversation, Christina made eye contact with the woman he was with a few times, and just felt a connection with her. As soon as the couple walked away, my teammates felt convinced we would see them again at some point. So even though we weren’t sure what to pray for, we still took the time to pray for the tattooed man and the woman. When we finished praying, I had the realization that we were now in a part of town we had never been in before since we had just followed the man down the road he had been walking. We knew some parts were more dangerous than others, but had no information about this part of the street. So I looked up, and was surprised/blown away/excited to see we were now about 30 yards away from a park. I turned to Brittany and said, “Park?”
So of course, what else do we do but go to the park. It was empty, and looked like kids probably never played there since it was covered in graffiti, there was nothing really to play on, and most of the concrete was cracked. But we spread out and started covering the park in prayer. Less than 2 minutes later, two brothers (age 14 and 4) walked up with a soccer ball. So of course, we did what anyone in our situation would do, and spent the next 20-30 minutes kicking the soccer ball around with these kids. It was clear that the older brother was trying to help his little brother practice. So we kicked the ball to the little boy and rejoiced when he scored a goal that his loving older brother “wasn’t quite fast enough” to block. We told them about Christian Life Foundation, how we’d love for them to come play and eat lunch any day between 11 and 1, and then moved on from the park. We headed back up the street we had just walked down and heading back towards the Sector 2 School. (Side note, we later asked about the danger of the area without explaining to our host where we had already been he responded with “You can go past the school, you’ll eventually see a park; don’t go past the park.” So once again, we had God on our side.)
When we walked by the school again, there was a pregnant woman in a pink shirt (so obviously a mom) standing in front of the school. It wasn’t a house, but the wall she was leaning on was the prettiest shade of blue. We stopped, explained to her why we’d like to pray over her, and asked about her baby. We learned that this was her first child, that she was very excited, due soon, and that the baby would be named Jonah. She gave us a few prayer requests, and then we each took turns praying over her. After walking away, my team was on fire. As in, we were amazed at what God was doing. We just couldn’t believe that we had already seen 3 visions from God come to life this morning. We were definitely walking in the Spirit as a team, and you could feel it.
I pulled my team aside and said, “Guys I have this feeling that the man in Brad’s vision is going to be over towards the sector 7 school. Unless anyone really feels the need to walk to our school, I vote we start walking towards sector 7 and just intercede for sector 3 on the way.” They agreed, and we headed toward sector 7. We are about to make the last turn into the school when we see him. Not the guy from Brad’s vision, but the tattooed man we had talked with earlier. Deciding that it would probably freak him out a little bit if we talked to him again so soon, we thanked God for affirming our calls from Him, and continued on to the school.
As we started to pray in front of the school, about 5 kids started shouting “GRINGOS!!” And running towards us. We found out 4 of them were family (2 brothers and 2 sisters) and the other girl was a friend. They told us their names, that this was their school, that they had the day off today. They asked where we are from, what we’re doing here, and if we wanted to come play with them. We were under a bit of a time crunch, so we couldn’t. But we talked with them for several minutes, told them about the organization we were working with, invited them to come to the finca for lunch any day between 11 and 1, and then parted ways with them. We get back on the main street and start heading down the hill towards the finca when we hear one of the little boys shout behind us, “BYYYEEEE!” (They get really excited when they get to use the two words they know: hello and bye.) So we turned around, waved goodbye, and watched as him and his 3 siblings disappeared into the tattooed man’s home.
Epilogue:
We have yet to find the guy from Brad’s vision, but I’m certain God will reveal him in His sovereign timing. We have spotted the tattooed man one more time since then, but we were on the bus as he stood on a balcony overlooking a corner we had been warned to stay away from. That time, his presence left a rather ominous feeling in the air. However, we are still praying daily for the next time we will get the chance to talk with him, and we are excited to see how God continues this story. Also, after talking with some squad mates, we believe the 4 siblings showed up for lunch at the finca the next day. So even if we don’t get the chance to minister directly to the tattooed man, we are hoping for the chance to continue ministering to his family, and hopefully make contact with the woman who was with him during our first encounter.
To see how the rest of the story ended, check out my blog “The Man in the Orange Shirt”
“Look, there on the mountains, the feet of one who brings good news, who proclaims peace!” – Nahum 1:15
