Mission: LOVE

I have been back from our mission trip to a church in a town down south for 24 hours now and have spent a very lazy day - apart from getting some shopping in. Hubs indulged in Supernoodles and sausage, I think, whilst I was away with a bowl of cereal thrown in last evening - this latter is our usual fallback.

SO! As promised, a bit of a report as to how it all went.

I think everything that took place over the time could be summed up in the picture here to the left - a shower of love all over the town!

Our 10-strong team stayed for four days, each lodging in one of the church family's homes, which would have been worth going for alone, such was the each-way blessing of my own stay with one of my team in the home of a wonderful family.

Our mission time was spent:-

- Opening and being present in the new church cafe

- Treasure Hunting on the local streets

- Free hugging outside the church

- Just asking God to open up any sort of conversation around where we were 

- Giving prophetic words to members of the church, leaving encouragement and expectation in hearts and spirits

- Other random bits and bobs

Each one of these encounters brought tangible changes to the atmosphere in this town - a town others warned me was dead but I found it a great place to be and a really open community to having the  love of God poured out over them - even if they didn't quite know that that is what it was. Our team, together with members of the church congregation, were Love Guerillas in that place

Overall, we saw 3 or 4 people come into a living, saving relationship with God either in the streets or in the cafe - two of those came into church for the Sunday service; numerous people had a touch from God in their lives that was either obviously significant or just one of the steps on a journey towards knowing God's love for them

My own personal favourite meeting was with two elderly ladies as we set out on a Treasure Hunt (I will give an explanation of this at the end of the post in case any reader is interested) One of my clues, 'red shopping trolley', prompted me to run over the road to these lovely ladies - Jean, and Joan who was pulling the trolley. To cut a long story short, we had a lovely conversation, a couple of hugs each from myself and my hunting buddy and prayed God's blessing on them. To our delight, we bumped into them a little later as they had found their way to the cafe we had alerted them to, and spent another lovely half hour or so, hearing more of their stories and savouring with them a whole bunch of extra hugs. It was such a joyful encounter - for us as much as them.

Another Treasure Hunt with my buddies got us into a conversation with a mum, who was out with her daughter and two grandchildren. She had no money for food as her benefits had been unexpectedly stopped and she had had no luck finding a job in 174 applications. We prayed for her and suggested they go down to the church Cafe in this freezing weather for a cuppa and a cake (free until the shop gained some legally required certification). Later, not only did we see them still there but the mum had been given some supplies, allowed the pastor to pray for the little girl's eyes and a short while later, this mum prayed to ask Jesus into her life! WOW!

The church Cafe is an amazing opportunity - right outside the bus stops and a short walk to the main shopping street. Inside, not only will people get food and drink refreshment, but also refreshment of spirit and emotions. It will be staffed by church members whose heart is to love people in kindness and service - not just by serving but just talking, listening and encouraging folk who drop in.

The 'Free Hugs' times were WONDERFUL - just standing on the steps of the church with our signs, giving free hugs to all and any who passed and would brave us :D Here is a YouTube clip compiled by Ben Alldis from the church. Though it was a COLD day, we had the best time - the BEST! and you could just feeeeel the place change atmosphere...Keep it up ACF hahaha! As for me - I may just shove a 'Free Hug' sign in my bag and do it anyway - anywhere!!

SOOOoooooooo many conversations. SO many opportunities to show God's love in different ways! 

If I may, I will end with a wee story of an encounter I had, pinching the idea from Bill Johnson who told a similar story about his wife, Beni.

I had popped into the art shop just up the road from the church. I had a beautiful, green velvet handbag, very similar to this picture, that I had rescued. One of my daughters was 'throwing it out'! (I KNOW! I KNOW! What sacrilege!!) ...well, giving it away to a local charity shop. She wouldn't let me have it because I have enough bags!!  BUT I snook it out and have been using it. As I rooted through my bag looking for my specs, the assistant exclaimed, 'Oh! What a lovely bag!' and I thanked her and told her how I came by it. She was equally incredulous as I was! I wandered around the shop and into my mind came the Beni story (patience, readers!) I bought a couple of things and asked where the original lady was and found out her name. Then, before I went off to find her, I took out a carrier bag and emptied the contents of my beautiful green velvet bag into it. Finding my lady, I approached her and said, 'Excuse me. I would really love to give you this.' and offered her the bag. She protested that she couldn't possibly take it. I replied with a big smile that I would really love to bless her with it. 'God loves to bless us with surprises and I would really love you to have it - then when you use it, remember that God loves you and thinks you are wonderful.' She took it very gratefully and let me give her a big hug.

As I went off, smiling broadly and joy-filled to myself, I was amazed that I didn't have even the slightest flicker of regret over the bag. I don't miss it but know someone else loves it and hopefully through it, will be reminded of Someone who loves HER.

I did suggest to Hubs, when telling him the story, that I could go out and buy more beautiful bags that I could eventually give away. Strangely, that suggestion was not met with any enthusiasm at all!!

FINALLY...Ok Treasure Hunting....we go out in twos or threes. To start with, we have 5 categories: - Names; - Location; - Appearance; - Needs; - Other. We ask God to give us 'clues' in each category and personally, I put down whatever comes into my head, trusting that my spirit is always open to God. So I will put down a couple of male and female names, location can be an actual place/shop in the area we are in or a landmark eg clock - anything relating to location. Appearance - again anything..hair, clothes, accessories etc; Needs could be physical, financial, practical...eg new job, healing, family troubles, loneliness - just ANYTHING; and other might be anything that doesn't fit into the other categories...eg rainbow, dog, shopping trolley....then we go out and look for clues. I usually head for one of my locations and look for someone with something from my 'appearance' list then go to them, explain we are on a treasure hunt and have asked God for clues..they meet one of the clues and maybe show them the list to see if they fit anything else (though I did once go around occasionally shouting ' Joyce!' to see if anyone would turn   ) Whether they do or not, we tell them that they are God's treasure and He wants to bless them. We ask if there is anything we can pray for and if not, I say well, thanks for stopping but do know that you are a treasure to God and He loves you. 

Most people will stop; some run away as you are talking and say not interested; others are really touched and may even have a conversation but in any case, they go with that mention of God's love over them and we can then leave it to the Holy Spirit to carry on in whatever ways He wants to. Whilst 'no hits' can seem discouraging, we never know what God may have started in their journey and sometimes it is AMAZING how God leads.