Wednesday, March 23, 2016

reno and a psychic fair

This weekend I had the privilege of going on another ministry trip to Reno, Nevada with a team of students from my school. We had SO many powerful testimonies from this trip, but I want to share just a few highlights.

We spent a lot of time on Friday doing outreach to the homeless in the city. My friend Helena and I got to sit awhile with one sweet homeless woman named Chance. Chance happily hugged us several times, and she lit up as we told her how beautiful her eyes are! She asked for prayer for her family members and for her knees. When we laid hands on her knees and prayed, she told us she felt the Holy Spirit come fill her with peace, her knee pain went from a 10 to a 3, and feeling returned to her feet which had been numb! I am learning more all the time, it is so easy to just stop for the one and love on them right where they are. I am reminded of Peter's response in Acts 3 to a beggar, "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk."

Saturday was a completely different and new kind of adventure - we did outreach at a psychic fair! It's a bi-annual fair with a quite inexpensive entrance fee, full of booths offering psychic readings of all kinds, New Age resources, and items for sale such as crystals and wands. Our team got connected with a Christian man and his wife who have been having their own booth at this fair for a little while now. They name the booth "Majestic Spirit" and offer "spirit readings, dream interpretation, and healing" among other things. Unlike other booths, these services are offered for free, and instead of using psychic techniques they tell the individuals they are connected to one and only one spirit, the Spirit of the Creator or the Holy Spirit, as they receive prophetic words ("spirit readings") and welcome the presence of God to come and touch them. In this way, they are not flaunting the fact that they are Christians and yet they minister very effectively and when doors open they tell individuals about Jesus and connect them with churches who practice the prophetic and are active in the supernatural gifts if they are interested.

What they and our group found as we interacted with so many various types of people attending this fair is that they are all extremely spiritually hungry, and many of them have been hurt or bored by the church. Some of them have the ability to see things in the spiritual realm or have had some spiritual experience which churches have not been able to explain, often telling the individuals they are crazy and unwelcome. Yet when they encounter the Prince of Peace and experience the love of the Father they just want more!

So our team got to take turns being in the booth and ministering that way to individuals, and the rest of the time we walked around the fair and socialized with other attendees and the people who ran the other booths. Many of my team experienced an incredibly heightened ability to hear God’s voice and be able to give words of knowledge (like saying, “do you have pain in your right shoulder?” and being right about it), and to give accurate prophetic words, and see God completely heal people when they prayed. God cares so much about these people, and they were so open to all God wanted to do! I shared some of my team members’ testimonies on my Facebook page, but to keep it personal I will share one of my own experiences from the day.

A couple of my friends and I went out of the fair to get coffee from a coffee stand. As we chatted with the two ladies running it, my friend Jim got a word of knowledge about knee pain. When one of the workers confirmed she has knee problems we asked if we could pray for healing. At this point she told us she does Reiki, which is a New Age healing technique through the laying on of hands and channeling energy. She told us she already does Reiki on herself and others, but we told her our healing is very different, that we get the power to heal directly from the spirit of Christ. This interested her and she happily agreed for us to try! My friend Jim and I laid hands on her and invited the Holy Spirit to come, commanding the pain to leave and her knee to be healed. As we prayed she told us she could feel heat on her knee, which is a common way the Holy Spirit shows up to heal, and she told us she could feel healing taking place. As we chatted with her more she told us her husband consults witches but that they aren’t very helpful, and we suggested she try directly asking the same one who healed her, the spirit of Christ, when they need answers, because he talks to us and would love to talk to her and she doesn’t need a medium - she said she would try it! Jim also had an accurate word of knowledge about her husband having back and neck pain, and we prayed for him as well. She even told us that her husband wrote a book about a demonic encounter and wanted us to read it, and in return I recommended Kris Vallotton’s book Spirit Wars, which is about spiritual warfare from a Christian perspective, which she seemed eager to check out!

There was a platform at the fair which was mostly used by older men from other booths to play tribal or otherwise interesting music, but when we were given some stage time we took full advantage of the opportunity to sneakily release the presence and worship God. Three individuals from my team danced with flags to worship songs, and another guy did spoken word. I can’t express how powerful that was, having worship music playing in a room full of psychics, witches, and people who are just very spiritually hungry but looking in the wrong places. Several of the psychics from other booths came to tell the dancers how much they loved it, and we saw people get deeply moved, one woman in particular weeping as she watched.

Finally, members of our team had the opportunity to actually directly share about Jesus with several individuals as they opened up. One young guy in particular was getting continually targeted by members of our team with super accurate words of knowledge and prophetic words for his life, and as they talked with him they were able to share the gospel and he gave his life to the Lord!!! When someone asked him what he would do the next day he said, “I’m not coming back to this psychic fair, I’m going to church!”


I’m learning that God is completely in love with the people we often consider the furthest from His reach. As an introvert, talking to strangers in general can be stressful for me, yet I can honestly tell you that for the first time I went a whole weekend of outreach with little to no anxiety whatsoever! I’m learning how not to strive. It’s not about me, but I get to be me, and God loves to use me! Yet it’s his job to do the heart work, my job’s just to love. Loving isn’t hard. And oh the joy it is!