The weather was great so we decided to go straight from Portage Place to Central Park. From a distance, we could see the park was full of people. As we entered the park Quin, and Cyril, two First Nations men, approached us. Quin asked me what I was doing – it was clear that he wanted to engage in conversation. I told him we had come to the park to pray for people. He asked me at least 3 times, and I answered him the same each time. He then pointed to Cyril, and said that he needed prayer. Cyril was already engaged with other team members. He was very intoxicated, but his story was that his wife and daughter were in rehab and he really missed them. We consoled him and prayed for him. He then hugged each of us, thanking us, and they went on their way. Quin said he would get prayer for himself another time. In hindsight I recognize that Quin knew we were those ‘praying Christians’ and he had purposefully encountered us to get prayer for his friend.
We then encountered a man in a wheelchair, but he didn’t want to engage with us, and he scooted-off. That was followed by an encounter with 4 Eritreans. One of them, an elderly lady was in a wheelchair, and said she was in pain. We asked if we could prayer for her, but one of the men, told us, in broken English, they went to the Eritrean Church, and they could only pray in their church, in their language, on Sunday’s. You could tell the woman was disappointed that he wouldn’t give us permission to pray for her. We then encountered a First Nations lady sitting alone on a bench. She was easy to talk to, and she wanted prayer. Just as we were beginning to pray she said, “Here comes my boyfriend, you had better leave.” The boyfriend asked what the problem was, and what did we want. We told him we were just going to pray for his girlfriend. He responded by saying, “I don’t want to be belligerent but we needed to ¥£€#&@ leave.” So we did. (It isn’t just the Arab cultures where men control their women.)
There were a few other mini encounters as we journeyed back to Portage Place, but it is the first night on the streets that I never personally witnessed a miracle. Some of the other teams did witness miracles, but overall it was a quieter night than usual. Kevin’s team healed a man’s damaged knee. Andy’s team encountered a man, who had just been beaten-up, he confessed to them that he was about to buy a knife and kill the man who beat him. After spending a long time with him, he relented and decided not to kill him – that was a miracle in itself.
Update on Charlie (the Shaman who became a medicine man for Jesus)
I heard that Charlie has a job, a place to live, and is meeting with Kevin over at Shalom.