Tag: Treasure Hunt

Testimony Thursday: Praying for Muslims at Disneyland

On By CaitlynIn Ministry Life6 Comments
Prayer buddies!
Prayer buddies!

(Posted a little bit belated on Friday because I had to get Taylor’s permission to publish this first.)

Last week, I made plans to meet up with a friend of mine at Disneyland. This was a very special meeting because Taylor and I had never met in person, but we had been good friends through Facebook for years, and he was going to be in town with his family as a last hoorah before he started college. I only live about 50 minutes away, so we planned to hang out at Downtown Disney for just a couple hours (since I don’t have an annual pass and I already had an evening commitment). We were both super excited.

That morning, he texted me to ask if I believe in praying for healing. Um, YES!! I assumed he was just doing some study or something on it, and texted back two long paragraphs of theology explaining why I believe this can and should be a normal practice for Christians.

Then he texted back– and nope, turns out he wanted to actually go DO it that day!
We agreed to both spend some time asking God who He had in store for us to meet that day, and we both wrote down several “clues” that we sensed that would hopefully lead us to certain people God was highlighting. One of Taylor’s was “white hat,” and one of mine was “little girl in a Minnie Mouse dress”. We also decided that anyone with evidence of injury was fair game too.

We knew our number one goal was simply to create an opportunity for God to touch people with His love. We weren’t there to pressure anyone; we just wanted to pray, bless, love, and invite God to move.

I was so proud of Taylor. He stepped out with so much boldness and gentleness, and we prayed for a lot of people with canes, etc. We didn’t see anyone get dramatically healed, but everyone we prayed for seemed genuinely grateful, and we believe that God is still moving in their lives and bodies!

Sure enough, Taylor found his white hat! It was worn by a woman coming out of a shop with her husband and kids. We asked if we could pray for her, and she was enthusiastically receptive and her husband even laid his hand on her along with us and agreed out loud with our prayer as I gave her a word I was feeling for her out of John 12:24.

We also met a man who was a deacon at his church and was about to have surgery. We both prayed for healing and he was really touched. Seeing his faith and joy really blessed us too!

I spent most of the afternoon looking for my Minnie Mouse dress. I even went in and out of several kids’ stores. I saw several teenage girls with Minnie ears or t-shirts, but I knew I was looking for a very small girl with short dark hair and a full Minnie Mouse dress.

Finally, I saw her, almost exactly as I had pictured her that morning. She was with a woman wearing a long dress and a hijab, walking toward the security checkpoint.
To be honest, the prospect of approaching a Muslim and asking if I could pray for her in the name of Jesus kind of freaked me out. I’ve only ever done something like that once before. I didn’t know if there would be a language barrier or if she would be receptive.

“She’s going in the gate. I don’t have a pass,” I told Taylor, with some mixture of disappointment and relief.

“She’s only going through security right now. You can go there without a pass,” Taylor pointed out.

Crap, he’s right.

I probably wouldn’t have done it if I wasn’t with Taylor, but with his encouragement I followed her and the mini Minnie through the security line, pausing to chat with and pray for the cast member.

Dangit/good, they’re still in range.

By this time, the woman had joined a larger family, all very definitely Muslim.
I started marching after them, muttering something like “Frick, really, Jesus? Of all the…. Taylor, I have no plan, I HAVE NO PLAN okay come on Jesus…”

I knew I could claim their attention for only a brief minute before they entered the gates of the Happiest Place on Earth, so I got the attention of the woman I had first seen and tried to explain that I had been praying that morning and God had shown me her little girl and I’d been looking for her all day. I showed them the list of clues I had written on my phone earlier and asked to pray for them.

“Yes, of course, we pray all the time, you can pray anytime!” the woman responded.

“Yes! May I pray for you right now?” I asked.

“Uh, how will you pray?” she asked. By this time I had the entire family’s attention.

“I’m a Christian, and I will pray in the name of Jesus,” I responded with more strength in my voice than I felt.

They paused a moment, but agreed to let me pray. I asked if they had any specific needs, and they requested prayers for good health for the family.

So I prayed for health, and blessing, and revelation of Jesus, and for the love of God to touch their hearts. They walked away with smiles and gratitude. I walked away feeling glad I had obeyed and done what God had laid before me, but wondering if our prayers had made a difference at all to them.

My mom later told me a story of a Muslim who reported that after years of living in the US, she’d never experienced an American’s hospitality, and conflating America and Christianity, before being saved she had never imagined Jesus reaching out to her. I was encouraged that maybe my short, weak, awkward prayer stirred up a little bit of curiosity about the Jesus who would show an American girl a Minnie Mouse dress and send her to pray blessings over a Muslim family.

Overall, I call this day a success. Taylor and I didn’t see the miracles we imagined, but we did get to bless and pray for many people and plant seeds of grace in their lives. We got to encourage each other and stir up our faith. We got to practice a lifestyle that we both want to walk in more– not just the healing, but of seeing the people around us through God’s eyes, and saying “yes” when He asks us to move.

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Pasadena Ministry Trip part 2: USC Outreach and PIHOP Prayer Room

On By CaitlynIn IHOPKC Life

The continuing saga of my IHOPU ministry trip to Pasadena, April 10-20.

Tara and I love PIHOP.
Tara and I love PIHOP.

Monday was our first full day in Pasadena. We ate breakfast together and had our morning briefing at 7:00, as would become our tradition. We then spent 8:00-10:00 in the prayer room at PIHOP (Pasadena House of Prayer).

PIHOP is not in any way directly affiliated with IHOPKC, but they are inspired by some of the same vision and use some of the same format. PIHOP’s prayer room is located in the historic Mott Auditorium on the Frontier Ventures campus and is open nearly 24 hours, 6 days a week. They have chosen to close on Sundays so people can participate in their own local churches. It was a real treat for our team to see how another house of prayer functions. As it turns out, their style and format is nearly identical to the harp and bowl model we use at IHOPKC. Since their community is smaller and is not on such a global stage, they have the freedom to be a little less structured at times, which was a fun treat for us to experience.

The prayer room at PIHOP
Some of our team serving with PIHOP’s team in the prayer room later in the week

In the afternoon, we piled in our vans and drove to the USC (University of Southern California) to meet up with the leaders of United House of Prayer on the USC campus (they have an AWESOME VIDEO you should watch!) and also of a recent church plant for USC students called The Warehouse. Wesley Hall, the pastor of the Warehouse, gave us a briefing on doing outreach on campus, and then we headed out to worship and to meet some students.

Briefing with Wes at UHOP
Briefing with Wes at the UHOP prayer room

Our outreach strategy was simple: We ate a lot of pizza (hallelujah) and established a central beachhead of ongoing worship and prayer at one of the fountains on campus. We had one guitar, a trash can which served as a drum (our class has actually gotten really good at this technique during our UMKC prayer meetings), and our own voices, which we had to project to be heard over the fountain. From there, we broke up into two-person teams to spread out around the campus and engage people in conversation to pray for them, prophesy over them, heal them, and ultimately and share the gospel as the Holy Spirit led.

Worship and intercession at USC
Worship and prayer at USC

The atmosphere on campus posed a challenge for us because everyone was in such a dang hurry! It seemed every other person was on a bike whizzing past us, and those who weren’t had earbuds in and were walking like they were on a mission. USC is a very driven and competitive school; many students are taking a heavy classload and two or even three majors!

Even with all the bustle, a number of people were able to have really good conversations and get to pray with osme of the students. My partner and I met a Jewish girl named Cava. The only reason she stopped to talk to us is that we had been asking God to show us who He wanted us to talk to, and He told us to look for someone with red hair. Cava was the first readhead we saw, and she was pretty tripped out that she was on our “treasure hunt” list! She allowed us to pray for her and she really got touched, and I know Jesus is continuing to pursue her heart. Especially since she’s a daughter of Israel– she has a legacy and a destiny that she can’t even imagine!

Another awesome testimony from that afternoon came from a few of our girls who had the chance to talk with and pray for a guy by the fountain who happened to be a Christian. They prophesied over him (by which I mean they spoke the impressions that God was putting on their hearts for him, which described him perfectly and was exactly what he needed to hear) and he was blown away! He said he had studied what the Bible says about the gift of prophecy in the church,* but had never seen it in action. They explained to him how simple it is to hear the voice of God for another person, and invited him to try it. He and one of the girls started praying for the other girl, and as he was praying he did indeed start feeling a word from the Lord for her! He spoke it out, and it was dead accurate and actually moved her to tears. He was thrilled that he could actually hear God’s voice and God would use him to speak His heart to others, and she was personally encouraged and so excited to see God teach him to prophesy like that!

That night we were served dinner by an Armenian church that one of our IHOPU friends not on the trip belonged to, and they were incredibly generous and hospitable. Connecting with our spiritual family from around the world was one of the great honours of this trip.

We wrapped up the evening with an intercession set in the PIHOP prayer room. We prayed for kids in the Los Angeles foster system. I was so proud of my team, that even for those of us who had never before thought to pray for this issue, we knew it was on God’s heart, and we had been sent there to pray, so pray we did.

This is how we pray.
This is how we pray.

That night was our trip coach’s (the main staff leader) birthday, so we decorated the courtyard of our dorm building and hosted a (good-neighbourly quiet) little surprise birthday celebration for him! Matt Kossler has poured out so much for this trip and he is truly one of the kindest, strongest, most encouraging human beings I know. We were all blessed to get to serve with him.

And that was our Monday. Stay tuned for more Pasadena adventures coming soon! Tuesday was possibly the craziest day of all…

*Since I mentioned prophecy… here are a few highlights, from 1 Corinthians 14 (read it ALL!) and others:

“Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy…. the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation… if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you… For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged.”
(1 Corinthians 14:1, 3, 24-25, 31)

“I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy…”
(Acts 2:17)

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”
(John 10:27)

“…For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
(Revelation 19:10)

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Testimony Thursday: University of Missouri Kansas City

On By CaitlynIn IHOPKC Life1 Comment

Today our outreach group consisted of five interns and two leaders. It was a way smaller group than normal, but God wasn’t a bit intimidated. We went to the University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC) to heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, and preach the gospel of the Kingdom. Well, no corpses or demons turned up, but we did see a number of healings and did plenty of preaching.

We split into a few small groups to head out over the campus. I was with the same girl I was with last week, and we headed out with very little direction at all. I’m totally fine with talking to people and praying for them, but straight up “preaching the gospel” is NOT normal for me. I was praying hard for opportunity and boldness, etc. The first girl we talked to was a very friendly freshman who told us she believes in some sort of higher power but mostly just believes in the good in humanity. We talked to her for fifteen minutes or so, praying for her and sharing the gospel a bit.
We went into a building looking for a water fountain, and I immediately saw a girl wearing red sandals. As it happened, “red sandals” was the first item on my treasure hunt list. I showed her the list and she got excited and said I could pray for her. I did, and afterwards she and her friend (they were both Muslims, although the first girl was pretty secular and agnostic) started asking us questions about hearing God’s voice and the difference between Muslim and Christian beliefs, etc. They actually mentioned Isa the prophet (their view of Jesus) before we did. We stood there talking for about thirty minutes, then they invited us to sit down and we talked for another thirty minutes. We covered everything from justification to the Trinity to prophecy. It was a really good conversation. At one point one of our leaders walked by, then came back and asked if he could demonstrate that Jesus is God by growing out the first girl’s leg. She claimed her legs were just fine, but he sat her down, and we could clearly see the difference in length. He commanded the leg to grow – and it did – but the girl still denied that it happened and said it was all psychological. Overall, though, it was a really good conversation, and God’s definitely after their hearts. The leader who joined our conversation said that talking for an hour to Muslims is an unusual kind of favour. I’m pretty in awe at how that happened too, and I’m definitely going to keep praying for them.

The other groups in our team saw three legs grow out, a toothache healed, and had several awesome conversations with students. They met two guys who were passing out flyers together; one was a Christian and the other was a Muslim. The Muslim guy didn’t want to listen to them, but they talked to the Christian guy and encouraged him to share the gospel with his friends on campus, because their salvation may depend on it. Pray for him. He’s there for such a time as this.

I love UMKC. I really hope we can go back more often. College students are very willing to have these kinds of conversations, and it’s easier for me to talk to people who are basically my peers. God is doing big things on that campus, and one of these days all heaven is going to break loose there. 🙂

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Testimony Thursday: Healings, Prophecies, and Security Guards

On By CaitlynIn IHOPKC Life

I know it’s really bad form to start a series called Testimony Thursday on a Sunday, but these stories really did happen on Thursday and I just haven’t been able to get online since then. I did write this up on Friday morning, though, and I expect to usually be able to post regularly on Thursday nights. So there.

As I said in my last blog, we’ve started doing outreaches every Thursday afternoon on our day off. Yesterday about forty of us went to two malls to heal the sick, prophesy, and share the gospel. Within five minutes of getting out of the shuttle, still just standing in the parking lot, we saw the leg of one of our interns grow out and we prophesied over this random curious guy we met. And that was only the beginning.

Once inside the mall, my group almost immediately saw a woman wearing a blue dress with her ankle wrapped in a bandage, and two of the prophetic items on our lists were “blue” and “broken ankle.” We prayed for her and the man she was with, and her ankle got HEALED! As we were praying I got a word that she has a mother’s heart—turns out that although she has no kids of her own, she’s been (as I understood it) a foster mom to many and the theme of mothering has marked her life for years. So I got to bless and encourage her in that. The man she was with had “irreparable” back pain, so we declared that nothing is irreparable with God and we are still believing for his healing.

We also met an Orthodox Jewish girl from Israel, a rapper whose baseball cap was on my list, two Muslim women I prayed for in JESUS’ name (even though I was more nervous than I’ve ever been), and a believer from West Africa with whom we had a great conversation throwing Scripture back and forth.  Some of our other groups saw a lot of healings and connected with a girl who is so hungry for God and they’re keeping in touch with her, and the group that our two leaders were in actually got escorted out of the mall!

That story was pretty crazy. As I remember it, they were praying/healing/prophesying over someone working at a kiosk, when one of the leaders recognised a girl walking by. After talking, they realised that he’d prayed for her leg to grow out (it did) the previous week at a different mall. At the leader’s encouragement, the girl told her two friends about it, and he was about to pray for healings for the two of them right there but they were asked to leave the store they were in. So he prayed for both girls outside the store, and one of the girls had her torn ACL healed, and as she was freaking out and jumping around, a security guard came to ask all three of our people who were there to leave the mall.

So as they were being escorted out, they started prophesying over the guard, who turned out to be a Catholic believer and theoretically supported evangelism but not in his mall. He believed he was obeying God by making them honour the authorities, etc. So our people shared some stuff from Acts with him about preaching the gospel anywhere and everywhere no matter how many times they get shut down. They encouraged him to boldly share the gospel even in his own workplace, and his theology was getting pretty blown up. He still made them leave, though, and so they went and healed/prophesied/prayed/preached in Target and Chik-Fil-A instead.

So that was my Thursday.

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Prep Rooms and Thursday Outreach

On By CaitlynIn IHOPKC Life1 Comment

Hey, guys! I’ve got a few more fun little updates for y’all!

As an internship, we’ve added a couple new optional things to our schedule that are really challenging but really amazing. One of them is “prep rooms.” Every night during our first hour in the prayer room, we set aside a couple of the small side rooms to crowd into and pray in tongues for an hour straight to prepare ourselves to go into the main prayer room. Almost all of the interns have their prayer language (and the ones that don’t will be getting one soon!) and we are being encouraged to put it to use, to really align our spirits with God’s Spirit. It really is a pretty beautiful and amazing gift; I don’t know what I did before I got the gift of tongues in 2009. Actually, I do know what I did—I continually hit a wall of where I couldn’t sustain prayer and would just run out of words. I LOVE being able to pray in the Spirit!

One of the other things we’ve added is regular outreach every Thursday afternoon on our day off. Some of the guys started doing this on their own early on, and in the past few weeks it’s grown to be an official IHOPKC*/OTI scheduled thing for whoever wants to come, headed up by a guy from IHOPU who works with the outreach department an is really anointed for evangelism and healing. I went for the first time last week, and it was pretty amazing. We did it “Treasure Hunt” style, which means on the way there we were all asking God to give us pictures of things to be on the lookout for, ie specific clothes, locations, etc. We went to a local mall and broke up into groups of two or three, so I was with a guy and another girl wandering with purpose around the mall looking for people to pray for. We got to pray for a lot of people, and although we didn’t see any healings or salvations, we definitely got to see God touch a lot of people.

The girl who was with us had “leather sandals” and “pretzel” on her list, so when we saw a woman with leather sandals standing in line at an Annie’s Pretzel shop, we stopped to pray for her. We decided to wait until she had made her purchase, so as we were standing there leaning over a railing on the second floor, I saw a girl below wearing yellow flip-flops. “Yellow sandals” were one on the items on my list, so I left my partners and hurried downstairs to find her. By the time I got there she had disappeared, so I walked around the corner praying for God to show me what to do, and right there was a different girl wearing pink and yellow sandals standing in line at a different Annie’s Pretzel shop! The “coincidence” was too much to pass up, so I waited for her to get her pretzel, then explained that she had been highlighted on our treasure hunt and asked to pray for her. She was pretty excited and asked me to pray for guidance for her. I did, and we were both blessed as I went back upstairs to discover that in my absence my two partners had prayed for the woman in the leather sandals, her back had gotten partially healed, and they received a prophetic word for her which brought her to tears! God is so good. I am so excited to go back next week and be even bolder in praying for healing and in preaching the gospel. I never have shared the gospel with a stranger before, and maybe this is finally my time.

*I’ve been trying to refer to IHOP as IHOPKC now, because since they recently settled the lawsuit from the International House of Pancakes, part of the agreement was that they transition to a new acronym. One of the interesting tidbits I learned in the full staff meeting last week–yes, I count as staff. I feel cool.

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