The MAD (Music, Arts and Dance) team from Brisbane came Tuesday afternoon  after a record 65+ hours of traveling! After they rested for a few days and had orientation, we jumped right into their “Vision Week”, or the week when they practice hearing from God. After watching “Finger of God” and “Furious Love” (They had watched “Father of Lights” at the base before they left), we put it into practice.  Part of “Finger of God” shows students from Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry doing “Treasure Hunts”, or prayer outreaches around Redding, CA.  Basically the students hear from God about who to look for, or where to go, or words for people and then they compare notes with each other. Then they go out into their city and it’s like “Blue’s Clues” with God because He shows you the clues you got beforehand.  So, we applied this same model with the team. Our Peruvian friend, Andres, joined us for the hunt.

 

We spent Saturday morning in prayer and worship and the Lord was releasing his freedom. People confessed, forgave, sang, danced and got rocked by the Holy Spirit. Awesome. Then we each went off to pray by ourselves and then came back to compare notes on what we heard. Common themes were: “blue hat”, “old man with kids”, “person by the fountain” (purple jacket), “brokenness”. There was more, but of course we leave it up to God to tell us in the moment too.  Once we got into town we split up into teams of 2-3 and here are some stories of what happened:

 

(Jen Carter, Amanda and Christian): Christian took his camera (film student) and began filming. Encounter #1: We went for the fountain in the Plaza de Armas and there we found a girl, Janelle, (who was obviously Muslim with a purple head scarf). She was also wearing a purple jacket. She was with 2 friends, Nadine and Rachel from the UK on holiday. Got to talk with all 3 and pray over them as a group; for traveling & protection, university graduation and jobs. God showed us that Janelle wasn’t offended (like I thought she would have been). They all left with JOY on their faces.

Encounter #2: Got a word for my friend Sandra (who works as a restaurant hostess next to our language school). Asked her if we could pray, but she couldn’t because she was working and didn’t want to cause trouble with her boss, but 2 girls that were offering massages (Sabrina and Reina) overheard our conversation and wanted prayer. They invited us to their massage parlor (literally, a closet) and wanted prayer for their families and business. They were curious about what we were doing and seemed like they were searching for more in their faith. God protect the truth that you’ve put in their hearts (someone had given them a tract from a cult and they were very curious as to how we were different from the tract. Didn’t bash the cult with words but tried to explain that the Bible is the ultimate truth. Go with that, not the pamphlet).

Encounter #3: We were sitting on the cathedral steps and lots of vendors came up to us. We got to talk and pray to a teenaged girl selling bracelets, Roberto (the charango player) and Endro (the artist) who thought they would walk away with money, but since we had none, they walked away knowing that God loves them and prayer for health and family issues.

 

(Andres and Jen T.): Found “old man with a kid” and were able to pray for them about blessing his family. A group of shoe shiner boys (one with a “blue hat”) came over and they started talking about how they were praying and hearing from God and the kids thought it was pretty cool. When Jen asked the kid in the blue hat what they could pray for him (since God had told her to find someone in a blue hat), he started crying and said that his mom was an alcoholic and he didn’t want to go home because she beat him. Then he asked if they had any Bibles (which they didn’t, because we don’t’ go with an agenda, but only to love) so they went to several stores (with the kid following them) and they bought him his first Bible (from a store that Andres said was never open, but today they just so happened to be open and they were selling Bibles). Praying that God will help this little boy understand what he is reading and keep him zealous and protected.

 

(Elizabeth, Misha and Johnny): Johnny prayed for a wooden saxophone vendor on the street (found out he was a Christian too) and then the guy started praying for Johnny. Then the man took him out for coffee to talk.  Misha found Pedro at a café and they struck up a conversation about how he was also a Christian and he used to go to church and found out that they both have a background going to a Presbyterian church. She was able to pray and encourage him. Before we went out, Elizabeth got a picture of “a woman with 3 braids” and later she found her on the street and even though she looked Peruvian, when E. asked her if she spoke any English the woman started speaking in GERMAN. (E. is from Germany!) So E. and Marta talked for an hour about her life and E. got to pray for her and her boyfriend, Cesar, who is an alcoholic and works in the mines. Marta lived in Germany with her first husband, but is now divorced but lives in Peru for half the year to be with her mom. E. told her about when they were in Australia they prayed for a man on the beach who was in a drunken, coma-like state to “get up in Jesus’ name” and the guy stood up and any indication of alcohol was out of his body. He could walk, talk and function normally.  God could do this same miracle for Cesar too. E. got to pray with her and got an invite to M.’s house to pray with her mom too.  At first M. didn’t want to pray because her friends were next to her (and believed in spirit worship/nature) and would be offended. E. told her that she respected her for that, but that she respected Jesus more (boom!) and that she could pray for her without her eyes closed and in German (just like a normal conversation), so M. loosened up and even wanted prayer a second time! Pray that Johnny, Elizabeth and Christian, who all speak German, can continue to build a relationship with Marta/her mom/Cesar.

 

Kale was able to talk to a guy from the UK, Tom, about his life and what he is doing in Cusco for holiday and love him as a friend for an hour. He got a wicked sunburn for it too.

 

David felt like he should be the intercessor while all of this was happening, so we put worship music on his iPhone and prayed in the Plaza. He said while he was sitting on a bench a bunch of kids (some selling stuff and some not) kept coming up to him wanted to talk to “this gringo” so that was encouraging for him. Also, he was able to encourage Kale to go sit with Tom at the beginning.

 

God really blew everyone’s opinions and expetations away this weekend (like he usually does)! It was such a joy to find people that God had highlighted earlier (if you try to rationalize why someone is wearing 3 braids, you can’t do it and then later you realize that God is making it VERY OBVIOUS who the person is). Praise be to God for all of the divine encounters we had. Praise be to him that this outreach team was bold and pushed through fear and awkwardness to love on people and to talk with them. Thank you Daddy that you love the people in Cusco so much that you would tell us, perfect strangers, to go tell them. Thank you for open hearts to receive the words of encouragement we had for them. Thank you for safety and fun! And we boldly ask for more next week! (The team was so pumped up that we want to do this every Saturday afternoon, if possible with the schedule). MORE LORD!!!!!!!