UTH Night 4 - All Denim Counts

On Thursday, August 18th, Toni, Allan, Stan and Jo were joined by John and Gem for the first time.

We set off to town via John Street, which was one of Toni's location clues. We ordinarily would walk to town through the nearest park so we felt this could be significant. We continued from John Street and approached a  lady that had one of John's appearance clues. John spoke to the lady and soon realised that he had met her before through the King's Church Furniture Scheme. She didn't match any other clues and had little interest in discussing things further. Toni asked the two men who were with this lady about her clues. They didn't match any but were interested in what was happening. Toni said they could pretend to fit the clues as they seemed disappointed that they didn't! John briefly mentioned King's Church and the hunt continued.

After a few uneventful approaches we headed back. We felt that it was right to go back via John Street, again not the quickest or most obvious way, but to continue to search in Toni's location.

On the way, Stan prompted Toni to approach a man who fitted a denim appearance clue. The man appeared 'foreign' to Toni and Stan as he was gesturing pushing them away. Realising that he was English, Toni started a conversation about her clues but it wasn't going anywhere at this point so Stan followed it up with a general conversation about where the man was off too. This opened up a very fruitful conversation which led to the man (called K) being prayed for right there in the street. K had been hitch-hiking and walking a considerable distance, from the South of England to the Scottish highlands. Throughout the conversation, K kept adding to the list of things he wanted prayer for. He described himself as 'was born again' but had slipped back in his walk with God. Allan joined the conversation and prayer and we continued up North Road where we were all heading. As we reached John Street we parted from K, who was continuing his journey north. Stan blessed him with some kindness for his journey,  we all wished him farewell and recommended that he re-connects with a church and that God is there and he is not on his own. We re-assured him that we would continue to pray for his list. This included a man named C, who was he was on the way to visit. K was concerned for C's lifestyle.
As Toni and Allan were praying later, they felt that although they would probably not see what happens to K and C here, they would see the results of this encounter in Heaven!

Amen to that one!

Update from Friday, July 1st (see that date's blog entry)

Since that time with K and E, Toni met up with K as she requested to discuss what exactly had God been saying and why did he send us to find her?  Toni explained about the treasure hunt and gave her information and opportunity to come to church and find out just what God was ‘on about!’

K later ceased all contact with us because she felt we knew too much and was spooked out and started to distrust us.  Meanwhile, one of K’s friends was having her hair cut and brought up the story of her friend (meaning K) having a bizarre experience with some born again Christians.  As K’s friend was talking our friend realised she was talking about the UTH and assured her that it was legitimate and very real and God has definitely got his hand on her and also her friends, intriguing them enough to talk about it.

To be continued…

King's Church Darlington

Our Ultimate Treasure Hunting group is made up of people from Darlington King's Church. Find out what else we do at
http://www.kingschurchdarlington.org/

Spreading the Vision!

On Wednesday, August 17th, Toni and I attended John and Gem's Connect Group to share the Ultimate Treasure Hunt vision with them. The group are already doing great evangelistic work in the Rise Carr area of Darlington (where King's Church is based) and the whole group were very welcoming to hear what we are doing and where we are going. They had some good questions and some interesting points for how we can make the UTH experience even better.
Thanks to John and Gem and the group for giving us the platform to speak at length and share our vision for UTH.
Toni and I were chatting on the way home and both agreed that John and Gem's is an excellent group and it is great to be around people who have such evangelistic zeal.
Maybe we will some of you at the next Ultimate Treasure Hunt!

UTH Night 3

On Wednesday, July 13th, five of us set off for Ultimate Treasure Hunting Night 3, namely Stan, Toni, me and - joining us for the first time - Jo and Julia.
It was a strange night in some ways: many location and unusual clues came to pass but... no people anywhere! Some of the clues included:

• a vision of standing at Pease statue and looking down towards McDonald's
• several clues that pointed to a clown
• Buckton's Yard and a sail boat
• Grange Road
• cup cakes (again!)
• The name Deborah/Debbie

As we walked down towards McDonald's from Pease statue we found a poster for the circus with a large clown on the front. Right opposite Buckton's Yard was a sail boat in a shop display. Upon leaving Grange Road was a shop that had ceramic cup cakes in the window and the name Debbie was written on one.

There were other experiences similar to this. We all felt greatly encouraged that we seemed to clearly be hearing God's voice and yet some frustration that we had no people fitting the clues. I spoke to two people who seemed to fit, but neither were interested in what we had to say.

We are learning, learning, learning...! To be obedient, to believe that God really does speak to us, and to persevere!