OUR FIRST HUNT

Excited and nervous about our first treasure hunt we had no idea what to expect. Seven of us meet together before the big hunt, we worshiped God, prayed and prophesied over one another and created our ‘treasure maps’.

Garden City shopping centre just near the church would be the ideal location for our very first ‘treasure hunt’. We broke up into 3 groups so the following account is my friend Nic and I. To start off Nic had the clue ‘rivers’ and we didn’t realise at first but remembered there is a shop in Garden City called ‘rivers’ so we went looking for it.

As soon as we arrived we saw a lady limping in front of the store. Nervously we walked up and introduced ourselves and tried to explain to her that we felt God say to us earlier that there would be someone outside of the ‘rivers’ store that we are to pray for. She was quick to answer ‘No, I’m busy’. So we said ‘bye, have a nice day’ and kept walking filled with encouragement, hahaha.

About 30 seconds after we left the lady we saw a sign which looked strangely similar to a picture that Nic drew as we were praying beforehand. We walked up to the sign and reliased right next to it was another store called ‘waves’ which someone in the other group had written down. So as soon as we got to the front of the ‘waves’ store we saw a lady moving towards us on crutches, she had a broken ankle. Again we introduced ourselves and asked to pray for her, she thought we were joking. After trying to explain that it wasn’t a joke and we were from a church youth group she agreed to let us pray. After praying for her 2 or 3 times her ankle felt a lot better, she could put weight on it and move it. She is going to the doctor this week and is gonna call me if its all good, awesome stuff.

After that our confidence was a lot higher so we almost forgot about the clues and we were just looking for sick people. We found a South African lady who just had a knee recon and had restricted movement and after we prayed she had much more movement.

We continued on looking for clues on our treasure map, we walked into ‘Myers’ in the perfume section and Nic felt God say He wants to release the fragrance of heaven in this store. Another clue Nic had was ‘red’, remembering there is a perfume with the word ‘red’ we looked for it intently. After a while the storeperson came up to us and asked us if we need help. Nic said ‘yeah we are looking for this perfume, she led us to the perfume and began talking about it lol. Nic replied ‘actually we are not looking to buy the perfume but God gave it to me as a clue, and he went on to explain that he felt God wants to release his fragrance in this shop. He then asked her if she needed prayer for anything, she responded uneasily ‘no, there is nothing’ and quickly moved away. Not realising at the time I guess because we felt a little rejected and wrong but another clue that Nic had was the word ‘nothing’.

On our treasure map we also had the name ‘Will’, ‘golden’ and ‘eggs’ so as we continued on we came across a sign which had a picture of a golden easter egg, we quickly scanned the area…nothing. We continued on walking, then realised there was nothing much ahead so we turned back and started walking back the way we came. Soon after we came across a young guy on crutches. Found out he was a Christian also, he had a tumour on his leg which stopped him from being able to walk properly. We prayed for his leg, didn’t see any immediate result but still believe for the absolute restoration of his leg. Something we didn’t realise at first but the place we first came across him was right next to the golden egg sign that we had passed earlier. After we prayed he introduced us to his one of his friends and his name was Will, awesome!

Our treasure map also had the initials C.J. not sure what it meant, at the time. After we had searched for our treasures the groups met back together for lunch. During this time I received a phone call from a friend asking if I could do them a favour by picking up something from a shop there. So after we finished eating Nic and I went off to find this shop, we got there and picked up what was needed. Nic then over heard one of the other store people call out ‘Courtney’ to the girl serving us. Nic was quick to ask her ‘do you ever get called C.J?’ she responded ‘no, but that is my initials’ Wow! We didn’t end up getting to pray for her but it was just another awesome occasion of God just revealing his goodness to us, it was very encouraging.

When we were praying before I had a picture of a man called ‘Ben’ and above him was the McDonald’s sign, so we set off to find Macca’s. When we got there we saw a guy in a full body wheelchair, he was a paraplegic. He couldn’t move or even talk. Nic and myself were like ‘wooo man, that’s kind of a difficult one for us since this is our first hunt lol’. So then I said to Nic ‘alright if this guys name is Ben we are gonna pray for him’ So I asked the carer he was with (turned out to be his mum) ‘Is his name Ben?’ She said no! hahahaha. But then she began to talk to us and was incredibly friendly, Nic and I sat down and talked with her for like 25-30 minutes. We ended up praying for him, he had been in the wheelchair for 30 years after a horrific motorbike accident. We prayed that God would restore his youth. Was so cool, both of them left so happy. Actually the best thing about the whole time was everyone we prayed for left so happy even if they were not fully healed. But we look forward to the day when everybody we pray for is completely restored!

– Luke –