Recently, my small group utilized one of it’s Friday meetings to go out into the world and conduct a Treasure Hunt. I had never heard of this form of outreach before, and learned that through prayer, God reveals “clues” to assist with finding a person in the streets that he wants us to share a message of his existence and love with.
This was very intriguing, but a little incredible to me. I hear from the Lord regularly, but not usually in this manner. I typically receive spontaneous, in-the-moment communication from the Lord (reactive); but the idea of God telling me in advance (proactive) who He wants me to meet and pray for was a totally new concept, and something that I didn’t know if He’d bless me with. Nevertheless, I was committed to having an open mind and heart, and met up with the group early to pray. I asked the Lord to “surprise me” and to do a new thing.
Well, the Lord did not disappoint. He showed Himself faithful to Scripture that says: ”We have this confidence that if we ask anything in His name that is in accordance with His will, He will hear us, and we will have what we asked for!!!” Praise God!
God gave me the clues that I should go to a location where there was a (clue #1) “triangle” in the street, and I would meet (clue #2) someone wearing a long black raincoat, who was (clue#3) experiencing feelings of being disconnected, deep loneliness and sadness. He gave me just those three things — he didn’t say what gender the person was, what the person’s name was, nor any other unique feature. I realized that the location was two blocks down from the church on Broadway, at the corner of Justice Street — there is a triangle in the middle of a busy intersection. My team and I went there, and God also amazed me how he used every single one of our team members in the execution of this treasure hunt. He gave me the vision, but another team mate spotted a young man way across on the other side of the triangle wearing a long black coat (that turned out to be an exact match: trench-coat styled long leather coat!!). He seemed to be standing there on the corner, just waiting for us to find him. All of a sudden, the young man began to walk in our direction, and I asked for confirmation (since He hadn’t given me a name or gender) by sending him back towards us after he left the deli that he entered when he passed us by. Guess what? THE LORD SENT HIM BACK!! So, I approached him and began to share with him that we believed that the Lord wanted us to talk to him and share His love with him.
It turned out that he was originally from Burma and had lived in Malaysia. That’s when another team mate came into play who happened to also be from Malaysia, and began talking to him – helping to establish connection and comfortability. He had only been in the U.S. for 3 years, and struggled with English; but the Holy Spirit was helping us to communicate with him, and he was understanding us. It turned out that he was a Christian, and this is where the third clue came into place — his prayer needs. It turns out that he has a job, makes little money and sends money back home to his Mother, three brothers and two sisters, who depend on him. He desperately wished that he could make more money so that he could do more for them. Also, he hadn’t been able to travel to see his mother in several years. So he was indeed feeling disconnected from his family back home and lonely and sad about not being able to see them and provide better for them!! He lived nearby to the place where we encountered him with his brother who is a Pastor at a nearby church. His father, whom he said named him Steven, is also a Pastor. He is prophetically named because we all commented about such gentle face and sweet spirit that emanated from him – just like Steven in the bible was noted to have!
When we told him that the Lord wanted us to pray for him and to tell him that He loved him so much and remembers him, he was so receptive. He took off his knit hat in humility and held his hands in open acceptance as we laid hands on and prayed for him right on the very corner where the Lord gave us the clue that we’d find Him! God used the last member of our group by leading him to give him a certain monetary gift to get to his family. He was so grateful, and I imagine that he had quite a testimony to tell his Pastor brother when he got home! We left him with an invitation card to New Life Fellowship, told him that we offer ESL classes free of charge, and that we hoped he could visit us one day soon.
My spirits were so lifted by this experience. I praised God for hearing my prayer, giving me the “surprise” that I asked for, and showing me that it’s true what one of our group leaders, Chris, said: God is not looking for ability, just availability!! PRAISE GOD!! Now my prayer is that I hope that the Lord will enable us to see him again one day….
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