Twenty-six people showed-up at Zion, and 5 more joined us at Portage Place, but my story this week begins before we got to Zion. I was in the city early to deliver a load of pumpkins to my son who teaches culinary arts at MIT, and Lorraine (who lives in Kleefeld not to far from St. Pierre) had caught a ride in with me. Because my son’s school is not too far from Trevor’s home I offered to pick him up after the delivery, and have him join us for supper on our way to Zion. Trevor had a new friend, James, with him. James is a young First Nations man, from North Winnipeg, who it turns out has been doing Street Ministry in Winnipeg. Until he met Trevor he thought he was the only one doing Street Ministry in Winnipeg. The way they met was interesting – a friend of Trevor’s in New Zealand was also a friend of James’, and he connected the two of them through the Internet. Isn’t that crazy?
At supper we learned more about James. Because he is blind in one eye, and almost blind in the other he was unable to find work. He wanted to spend his time doing something worthwhile so he decided to take the Gospel to the streets. He has no church connection, and was doing this all on his own. He told us he had seen some salvations and some healings, but he had never seen anyone delivered from a demon. Some of us have been asking the Lord to send us some First Nations people to work with us, and so James through these crazy circumstances is an answer to prayer.
At Zion we prayed for James’ eyes, but we didn’t see any immediate results. Kevin and Tom had just returned from Israel where they had been training a group to do Street Ministry, and they reported on several miracles of healing they had experienced. Lorraine and Iris had just returned from a First Nations Christian Conference in Oklahoma, and they reported on what they experienced there. We then more or less divided into teams, and headed to Portage Place. We arrived there later than usual at about 8 PM.
Our team’s first contact was with Rose who has sought us out for prayer the last few weeks. She is a big believer in prayer and this time she wanted prayer for a nephew, Chad, who was not living a good life. She also wanted prayer for her Northern Reservation, because she said the full-blooded natives were burning down the houses of the non full-blooded natives. What a crazy set of circumstances that is.
After praying for Rose, we were standing around the food court. It turns out that I thought Lorraine was the leader, and she thought I was the leader, so neither one of us were doing any leading. We could see other teams actively engaged with people, but none of our team members were getting any discernment. Robb and Tegan engaged a man who said he had already received prayer, but would welcome more prayer. After they finished we drifted down the mall towards Center Court. Claire (who was on another team) came and asked me if I would join their team in praying for Miles, an alcoholic. Miles was very interested in conversing with us, but didn’t want us to pray for him. He said we might curse him, and he wanted to keep drinking, because it felt so good. Nothing we said was impacting him. Then suddenly Gaylene, from even another team, came and pulled me away, saying they were talking to another alcoholic, and they wanted me to come and pray over him. I thought we were getting no where with Miles so I went with her to meet Hung. This Oriental gentleman told us he was a professional poker player, an alcoholic, and his doctor told him his liver was just about finished and if he didn’t quit drinking he would soon die. He said he wasn’t afraid of dying, but was afraid of suffering as he died. I firstly prayed binding the spirit of fear, I then commanded complete restoration to his liver, and then I prayed that he would be healed from his addiction to alcohol. I don’t know if he received any healing. After I prayed he engaged in a long discussion (argument about why God allows suffering) with Laney who eventually turned him over to Alyssa, and when I left the mall she was still talking to him.
There were several other reports of people being healed, and a couple of reports of salvations. Trevor’s team had a lot of encounters, including one where a man in a wheel chair was healed, and was able to walk and no longer needed his wheelchair.
At 9:45 I was leaving the mall to go home, and I asked Trevor and James, who were engaged with a man, if they needed a ride home. They both declined. James said he had just led Cody to the Lord, and he wanted to find a way to immediately baptize him, and then he was going to take him to Tim Horton’s to begin to disciple him. Trevor said he was going to stick with James. It wasn’t until today that I learned the rest of this crazy story from Iris. (By the way, in hindsight, I wish I had found a bottle of water and helped them baptize Cody.)
At the end of the evening Iris’s team joined Trevor’s team and James had just engaged Cody outside the doors of Portage Place. He had asked if he could use someone’s cell phone to text a friend. Iris said she knew immediately this was a Divine appointment and she said yes, but first asked him if he had any pain? He asked what this was about. James told him we pray for people who need healing, and we deliver people who are possessed. His crazy response surprised everyone. He said, “I have a demon, and she is very annoying”. So after more prayer, he was delivered from several demons by Trevor (James got to witness his first deliverance). James then led him in a prayer of salvation, about the time I came to ask them if they needed a ride home.
{Trevor’s words – “Cody had some demons that he needed to be freed from. When I saw his eyes they were pitch black and were evil but God used me to command Satan and his demons to leave Cody in Jesus Name. Cody suddenly laughed with joy during the time I was commanding fear, anxiety, and worry to come off him and I commanded joy love and peace to come and over take him. He had so much Joy come on him and he was feeling such peace when I commanded demons to leave him and he was delivered and for the first time in his life he was free.”}
[ Keep in mind I am giving you the very abbreviated version of this engagement. It may have been a total of 20 or 30 minutes long.]
Like I said it was a crazy night, and even though my team didn’t experience much action, other teams certainly did.