The Treasure Hunt

Does God have a specific person that He wants us to talk to today? That was the question that Pastor Jim challenged us with this morning before we traveled to downtown Philly.  He led us in a time of listening to God to see if there was a specific word, image, or name that would lead us to a specific person.  God did indeed give us what seemed like random words, images and names.  We typed up the list, made 40 lunches, and headed to downtown Philly to spread God’s love to the homeless and see what God had in store!

We broke into groups of two, overcame our fears, and asked homeless people if we can share our lunch with them.  Many of them agreed and even let us pray for them! We learned their stories and showed that we cared.  Some people blessed us as much as we blessed them. We were all incredibly moved by being able to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

Meanwhile, we were on a “treasure hunt” for people that matched the words, images, and names that God gave us earlier.  One homeless man matched one name that we had written down.  Another was wearing a heart symbol that matched one that we had drawn.  Another person was wearing a batman symbol that we had seen.  Yet a lot of the items on the list went unmatched.  This led one group to go around to random people in the Reading Terminal Market asking strangers if they had the names that matched the names on our sheet.  That didn’t yield any results but it sure was fun! More on the treasure hunt later…

It is so apparent that Pastor Jim and Luis are completely engaged in serving and blessing Philadelphia.  They can hardly talk about anything else! They deeply want to help the neighborhoods know Jesus, love Him, and love each other.  They work hard at it.  So we sent Jim, Luis, and their spouses out on a date while we watched their kids!  After the kids went to bed, we watched the documentary http://www.letthefireburn.com/ and Pastor Jim came home and challenged us to think about what we can do in the Harrisburg area to foster racial reconciliation.  It was a tough question that we wrestled with.

We ended the night with an amazing discovery.  After affirming what God is doing in each of our lives, we circled back around to the treasure hunt.  We realized that a person matching about half of the words on the printed sheet was one of our own team members!  We took that as a sign from God that we should all circle around and pray specifically for that team member.  It was an awesome moment and a wonderful end to the day!