{Day 4} Treasure Hunt

Well, I didn't make it to the Encounter/Healing room(s). :/ {Due to sleep deprivation. I was finally able to sleep in today! Very exciting, because I've been getting up before my alarm.} I'm pretty bummed about that, especially since I'm not sure if I can go next Saturday due to the Kingdom Culture conference (which, of course, is going to be awesome).

But I did get to experience a real Bethel treasure hunt. For those of you who don't know, a treasure hunt is where you ask God for "clues," such as a pink shirt, Starbucks, rainbow bracelets, whatever. You write down what He gives you, even if it's off the wall, go out with some friends, and try to find the people He highlighted. Then you pray for them and just show the love of God to them.

There were over 30 people in our whole treasure hunt; most of us were from the school of worship. I really, really like how Bethel church does their treasure hunts. They're organized and not haphazard, with guidelines and good teaching. I already had the idea to implement these this summer, and now it's got to happen. I really want to bring this back. {Are you listening, Ali??} :)

{Not, like, I don't want to bring everything back.}

The time allotted for the treasure hunt is from 1-4 on Saturdays. You spend the first hour, hour and a half, getting teaching on treasure hunts. It starts with LOVE & HONOR, which is the key to all the goals you have, and then guidelines about what kind of prophecy, and practical stuff. He did an example with a BSM1 grad, so we got kind of an idea of how it looked. Great, great teaching and explanation, which is something that's been lacking in my past treasure hunts.

Then we had our papers and were given blanks of locations, appearance, names, prayer needs, and unusual. Five blanks under each heading, and each blank must be filled out. I filled mine up, but the ones worth mentioning for my story are that I had orange dress with blond hair in appearances, weariness/fatigue in prayer needs, and a swim floatie (pool toys) in unusual. {I love that we have this guide. It eliminates the haphazard, and it sets a goal for what needs to be filled out. We had direct orders to fill out every blank with the first things that came into our heads. So instead of a blank page with a mish-mosh of stuff, it's organized and you have a goal. I love this.}

I was in a group with a girl from North Dakota, a girl from Minnesota, a guy from New Brunswick, and a guy from Hawaii. All of us BSW students. We went to McDonald's first, since three of us had it, and prayed for a grandparents/grandkids family. Then to Starbucks, where ND girl saw a girl with gold shoes and was able to pray for her. We sat down to strategize, and the lady beside us said, "Are you doing a treasure hunt?" We nodded, and she asked, "Can I be the treasure?" She goes to Bethel. So we all prayed over her and were able to prophecy over her, and the verse that ND girl had for was the same one she'd been told that very morning, so that was cool.

Onto Safeway, which is like a grocery store. We walked around for quite a while, prayed for some people. And then I saw a blond woman in an orange dress at the other end of the aisle. We hemmed and hawed for a minute, and then decided to follow her. When we decided to follow her, we realized that we were in the pool toy section, which was kind of a confirmation to us, so that was cool.

We finally caught up to her. She was familiar with treasure hunts. When we asked if there was anything we could pray for, she said that her daughter had a dance recital that night and that everything was crazy, and also that Dad would have a good Father's Day tomorrow. So I prayed for her for that, and after we prayed she told us that her daughter had been really tired. So, all of that matched! She had tears in her eyes when we finished, and she said that we were "meant to pray for her today." Which was kinda like, "Yeah. You were on the list." :) But we didn't say that. :)

We met back at the church at 3:30 and shared testimonies from each group. It's funny how many people in Redding are familiar with treasure hunts. He (Josh) even told us before we went out not to all hold our papers in front of us, because everyone knows. :)

I'm hoping to go again on July 2. This time I'm going to take notes on what he says. I can't wait to bring this back.

Haha, I can't wait to bring all of this back! It's so awesome being here.

Nothing else is on the schedule for today. I just get to chill and catch up on everything I've put off for the week. There's some people to call, some clothes to wash, maybe some Bible to read. I don't have any pictures from today, so I'll leave you with this screenshot from the BSW11 Facebook group: