Its a Small World!

This was the second training and practical session for Treasure Hunting which I have run, and this time I was in a team with two lovely ladies, one who had been out once and it was the first time for the other one.  They were great and their clues were brilliant! There were three prominent Treasures in the morning, the first one was a lady called Phylis who had a Purple Coat and a black fur lined hat, Joyce and Vanessa were friends of hers and she suffered with Insomnia.  She was the most lovely lady and we were able to chat to her for a bit and then we offered to pray for her, she accepted but then her family turned up and she had to go, so it ended up being just a quick prayer for peace for her to be able to sleep.  But it was a real encouragement to the two with me who hadn't done a lot of Treasure Hunting. 

The second person who stood out from the morning was a lady called Barbara who was wearing a Purple Coat and was outside Boots.  We started a conversation with her only to find that her Husband was an Evangelist and that she was a Christian.  So we asked if there was anything we could pray for her about and to begin with she said no, but after a little while she told us about a situation with her Son which we were able to pray into and ask for wisdom for her.  We chatted for a little while longer and she said something about living in Lapford and the lady in my team who was taking the lead in talking to the lady said that she lived in Lapford as well!  As the conversation went on they found that they knew loads of the same people and that Barbara also knew the church leaders of the church which my team member went to!  Its a small world when you are Treasure Hunting.  

The third person was a real character of a man.  I had spotted him coming up the High Street and thought, before we had even seen if he matched our appearance clues, that he looked like Treasure and sure enough he was!  One of my team members smiled at the man and he stopped immediately which slightly took us aback and then we noticed that he had a thick gold chain around his neck.  He was so smiley and kind, with the most amazing teeth - it is strange the things you notice when you are talking to someone! We chatted to him for a while and found that he was Polish and that he hadn't been in Exeter long, but was there because his Wife had died and his Daughter and Grand Daughter lived here.  We went through the clues with him and he said that he suffered with depression at times, and that's when the misunderstanding began.  We asked him if we could pray for that and he said 'Why would you want to?'  which we thought was a bit of a strange response, especially as he had told us that he loved God and knew that Jesus had died on the cross for his sins.  He went on to say that he was OK really and then I noticed that he had hearing aids in both ears and I mentioned them and again offered to pray for them.  He gave us the same response again and said 'Why would you want to, I use the NHS?', it was then that I realise that he thought we had said PAY and not PRAY! Whoops - our accents let us down!  When he realised we meant pray and not pay he accepted, even though he wasn't sure it would do any good.  We prayed, but he wasn't keen to take out his hearing aids to test his ears but I hope he was surprised when he took them out when he went to bed. 

Well done you new Treasure Hunters - we had great fun with our Daddy God today and spoke his love to people.