For the last couple weeks a few of us have been playing basketball with our Pastor and a bunch of guys in town.
We found out Gregorio (our Pastor) wants to start doing basketball camps with them, so we went ahead and started teaching fundamentals before playing every day.
One morning, during a prayer walk, Peter and I went to the court to pray over it. And as we were there, pacing the lines, pleading with the Lord to use it change lives for His glory…God spoke so clearly to me….
“Take off your shoes, for the place you are standing is holy ground.”
(Acts 7:33)
So I did. I took off my shoes. And I began to cry….tears of joy, awe and gratitude.
For this was the same place God redeemed my own life….on the court….through the influence of a couple teammates and a coach.
Then I continued to cry…tears of hope this time. Because I was reminded of the power of the Holy Spirit to transform lives!
We continued to pray…and at the same time, God put one of the guys we play with, Marvin, on both mine and Peter’s hearts. We lifted him up for a long time…knowing that God’s plans for him were huuuuuuge, and that He was going to use him to change that community.
We played ball again that night, and I wanted to talk to Marvin and tell him what God had laid on my heart since it was our last night. But I was mid conversation with someone else when we split ways, so it was just a quick goodbye.
I was so upset, because I really felt like I needed to share this word with him. So Katy and I prayed that somehow I would run into him before we left Arroyo Cano the next day. It was pretty unlikely, since I had never seen him out in town before.
But yesterday afternoon, as Katy and I were walking to the store to say goodbye to one of the clerks, I saw him sitting on the side of the road with a couple friends. At the same time I noticed him, Katy turned to me to remind me to be on the lookout for him. I chickened out, because I figured it would be awkward to tell him all this in front of his friends. haha 🙂
Katy gave me a good talking to, and we decided he would be there when we walked back from the store. And he was. And yes, it was awkward at first. 🙂 I shook everyone’s hand that was with him, and stood there for a second. Then finally let the Spirit speak.
I knelt down and said this (in broken Spanish):
“Yesterday, Peter and I were praying at the court, and God put you on both of our hearts. He wants to raise you up to be a strong man of God here in this community. He wants to make you a different man…Johnny and Alejandro too. Kids are going to look to you to know how to be. He has a great purpose for you. I know you need to hear this because we were praying to run into you again, and we leave in 30 minutes.”
Then he said:
“I really like that you just said that. Thank you so much. I used to be in church and walking with the Lord but I left. Now I’m going to start going back. Thanks so much.”
“Take off your shoes, for the place you are standing is Holy ‘Court’.”
