#30 Moccasin Telegraph Gets Message Out

    At Zion Kevin told us that he and Chris had spent the afternoon at Portage Place, and at one point they had a line-up of people who wanted healing.  Forty people in total arrived at Portage Place to minister.  The mall was fairly busy.  There were several people hanging around the back doors where most of the team members enter, and several team members were immediately engaged.  I wasn’t a team leader, and I wasn’t on a team – not sure how that happened – so I thought I would be a lone wolf and participate with different teams.

    As soon as I arrived near the back door the colourful character Shannon walked over to me.  She (he) had a story about how her friend Phil, was a diabetic and she needed $10 to buy his medicine (very convincing except I am a diabetic and I know there is no $10 medicine).  Caleb saw me with Shannon so he joined us.  We told her we had no money for her tonight, but we would pray for her, and Phil.  She was sketchy about where we could actually find Phil, but she welcomed the prayer.

   After praying another team member introduced me to a man named Alex (whom I recognized but couldn’t remember the circumstances of meeting him).  The story was that the team member was engaged with someone else and Alex wanted help finding Brad another one of our team members.  I knew Brad was in the mall somewhere so I agreed to take Alex to find him.  He had a piece of paper with Brad’s name on it.  After circling the mall we found him and Alex and Brad had a big embrace.  Not sure why he needed Brad, but later in the evening Alex told me he would be coming to Zion on Saturday night.

     I then noticed Martin, whom I had helped last week.  We walked over to Tim’s and I bought him a coffee and a do-nut.  He told me that Stephanie who had been with him last week was over at the Salvation Army, and he would go there to, but he had no bus fare.  I gave him $3 for the bus, and left him to enjoy his coffee.

     As I was leaving Martin, a lady walked-up to me and said, “Remember me – you prayed for my legs and they are healed.”  I told her I didn’t remember her.  She said, “Of course you do – it’s me Kansas – I had those braces on both my legs and they’re gone now – it was in the fall.”  That information helped, she would appear different without the braces, and my memory was vaguely remembering (but after praying for dozens of people over the past 8 months I honestly don’t remember everyone).  It also turned-out that she is Alex’s wife.  Anyway she was asking if I could help her again, she needed money for cigarettes, and for bus fare.  Mel had joined me and he and I gave her some money, and she hurried off to get to the store before it closed, except she ran into her husband and Brad and they were having a great visit – not sure if she ever got to the store.

    Immediately after that I noticed Martin was sitting with a guy who held out his hand toward me in a gesture to shake my hand.  I took a couple of steps toward him, and shook his hand.  He said, “Martin tells me that you are kind people, and that you help people on Thursday nights.”  (That’s the moccasin telegraph at work – one person tells another person – and the word gets out about our ministry.)  I was just about to ask his name, and ask how I could help him when suddenly I was surrounded by security.  They looked at Martin’s friend and pointed to the door.  He protested saying, “But I’m just sitting here talking to this nice Christian man.”   They just said, “Let’s go”, and escorted him out.

     I had this ladies hat and a scarf, that my wife had given me to give away, and I noticed a lady at the next table with no hat and scarf.  I walked over to her and said, “Where is your hat and scarf?”  She said, “I don’t have any – do you want to give me some?”  I said, “I do”, and I wrapped the scarf around her neck, and she put on the hat.  At that moment other team members came along and said I see you have met (? – can’t remember her name).  They said she had damaged ribs, a damaged hip, and a broken leg, and Jesus healed her.  She got-up and walked around to demonstrate her healing, and that’s when I noticed she still had a Fiberglas boot on.  Mukluk on her left foot, and boot on her right.  I asked jokingly, if she had kept the other mukluk.  She said she had, but it was at home, so she couldn’t take the boot off until she got home.  Pretty exciting to watch her celebrate her healing.

    Right while this is going on a young man with a hoodie partially hiding his face, walks up to us, and says, “Can anybody feed me?”  I told him I could.  I took him to A&W and bought him 2 Mama burgers.  His name was RJ, and he had just been released (probably from prison).  He told me he was a bad guy.  He said to me there is something about your face, I don’t know why I am telling you all these things.  I asked him how I could help him.  He said he needed a place to live, some furniture and some clothing.  I gave him a name and number of a person that could help him.  I asked him how I could pray for him.  He said he didn’t want Prayer.  While we waited for the burgers, I asked him different ways about praying for him.  He got agitated and said, “Look, you can keep the money, or eat the burgers yourself, but I don’t want any prayers.”  I said, “No you are hungry, I would sooner you ate the burgers.”  He got-up and moved over to the kiosk to get his food, and I left him alone.  I saw him again in the mall about 10 minutes later, and he thanked me, and gave me a hug. He said he had been really hungry.

    Shortly after I saw security remove another First Nations man that I knew, and I went and talked to them.  They told me he had gotten into a fight with another First Nations man, and when security came to break it up, he called one of them an effing paki.  They said he is not banned for life but that kind of racial slur would be cause to keep him out for a long time.  They added, “These people are really nice people when they are sober, but can be very difficult when they are drunk – we are just doing our job.”  I responded that we are here to help people in anyway we can, and didn’t want to interfere with their jobs.  I said with a smile, “We appreciate the work you do – keep doing what you do, and we will keep doing what we do.”  They nodded and smiled as they walked away.

    We often have people come out to minister for the first time, and they are very impacted by what they experience.  Here is part of an e-mail I received from someone who was out for the first time: