One of the common activities we do on outreach is "Treasure Hunting."
We've all been taught on the subject of "Hearing God's Voice" - obviously, the Lord communicates with us through his written word (the Bible), and that source of gaining communication from God is what reveals to us the foundations of the character and nature of God. However, we also have the Holy Spirit - God's Spirit, 1/3 of the God-head - living inside of us, and Jesus called him "the comforter" and "the counselor." During lecture phase, we're taught to practice "tuning in" to the constant communication that the Holy Spirit is directing toward our internal ears. In truth, we've learned hearing God's voice is a lot more about silencing all the OTHER voices and listening to his "still, small voice."
Anyhow, when we Treasure Hunt, we essentially set aside some time to go out in twos or threes and meet people and pray for them, but first, we spend a few minutes asking the Holy Spirit to give us some clues or provide guidance and direction during our ministry time.
Often times, in our pairs or trios, one person will get a picture of someone wearing a certain color, or they'll get a sense for a particular place we should go to, or they might even hear a word that is some form of description for someone. It's always fun to share back what each of us got from the Holy Spirit and then head out in search of these clues to locate our "treasures."
Gabe and I were doing an afternoon treasure hunt one day in the second village that our team visited. The day before we had gone out to treasure hunt and honestly had a pretty discouraging day - not many people were around the village, and the few that were didn't seem interested in engaging (one guy saw us coming, responded "Hi" to our hello, and then turned and took off in the other direction... awkward!)
So we had a couple clues from the day before we were still holding on to - I'd gotten a picture of a big banyan tree, and I felt like we supposed to look for people under trees, and Gabe had a picture of a guy in a blue shirt.
We headed out and greeted some people, played with some kids, prayed for a woman with mastitis and prayed a blessing over her newborn daughter. But it was about an hour into our time that we finally saw someone under a big banyan tree - it was a guy named Leno that Gabe had met a few days prior, and he was limping slowly under the tree.
I greeted him and asked why he was limping. He relayed that he had twisted his ankle the day before and it was painful to walk on. We asked if we could pray for him, so we sat down on a rough bench under the tree and laid hands on his swollen ankle and prayed.
After we finished praying, I asked him to move his foot around and see if the ankle felt better. He said it did, so I asked if he could stand on it for me. He did, and the look of surprise on his face was super fun to see. I asked if it was better, and he said, "Yes." Then Gabe asked, "Is it a little better or a lot better?" And he grinned and said, "It's a lot better!" He was putting weight on it and not needing to wince or limp from the pain.
He told us, "I want to come to your youth meeting tomorrow night. I am very interested to hear what you say. I would like to come!" So we invited him, conversed a little more, and then headed on our way.
We were running out of time, and we decided to do one final walk up and down a street - prayer walking, while also looking for a guy in a blue shirt - before we headed back to our camp.
As we came around a corner, we saw a group of guys sitting under a big banyan tree, and one of them was wearing a blue shirt.
"Let's go!" I told Gabe, and we approached the guys and greeted them. The man in the blue shirt was named Romeo, and we shared how we were out walking around the village and praying for people and looking for him, because we felt God had said we were to pray for a man in a blue shirt, and he was the first man in a blue shirt we'd seen that day. So we asked if there was anything we could pray for.
He turned to his friends and talked for a few minutes, and then turned back to us.
"Yes," he said seriously. "I need prayer. We need prayer. This is my father, this is my father-in-law, this is my brother, this is my nephew, " - he introduced the guys around him - "and our grandfathers lived in this village and put a curse on us. They cursed us to not have hearts that are toward our families, good hearts for our families. So we want to have good hearts, but we are under this curse and cannot have good hearts. Can you pray for this?"
I was touched by his sincerity and his desire to experience freedom with his family members, so Gabe and I assured him that yes, indeed, we could pray for that.
I reminded him - this is a Catholic village and most people go to mass regularly - that the Bible says Jesus became a curse FOR us, so the work that Jesus did on the cross, dying for our sins and for the penalty of our sins, also means that Jesus's resurrection is an indication that all curses can be broken by the power that Jesus has. Since we, as God's children, have free access into the throne room of God, we can ask him to break this curse.
So we prayed and did that, and as we finished and I opened my eyes, Leno was sitting on the end of the bench. He had come up while we were praying.
Gabe and I said goodbye because we were going to be late back to our camp, but we were so excited as we left because we knew that if Leno started talking to these guys and shared what had happened to his ankle, it would be an encouragement to the guys that praying in Jesus's name has real power, and just as Leno was healed in the physical realm, perhaps it would inspire their faith that something had truly just happened in the spiritual realm as well.
