Fires are Starting

Jesus is real.  Fo’ serious.

Okay… so crazy things happened tonight on Bangla.  I will try to summarize.

So, I’ve been struggling with feeling led to any of the bars or any conversations… like, “hello God, I came and You promised that You’d lead me… what’s up?

BUT tonight two beautiful women of Jesus on my team came and spoke over me, telling me that God was directing my steps tonight, that His grace would follow, and that I already knew where I should go.  Uh…… awesome.  So, in the middle of worship and praying about what the heck Jesus means I get this vision of the Lion Bar.  More specifically, an individual sitting in the right back corner of the Lion Bar and get this: a flame is starting where he/she sits.  Sweet.

So I tell my team and we’re all like: “Yay Jesus, we’re going to the Lion Bar!”  And I’m silently freaking out.  Like, what if I’m wrong, what if I don’t know what to say…ah!  And I kinda start thinking, well, maybe we should just swing by at some point tonight- we’ll get around to it eventually.  And God pretty much said: “Hurry your tail up.  Go now!  Quickly, daughter, quickly!”

So, we’re driving to Bangla and as we crest the top of the hill, where the shrine to the spirit of the mountain is, I get crazy dizzy and nauseous.  Clearly the enemy didn’t want something to go down at the Lion Bar.  And so we pray together and as we’re singing one of our favorite songs: The enemy has been defeated and death couldn’t hold You down… my stomach stops hurting and my head stops spinning.  Praise God.

Now we’re on Bangla and walking and my teammates are praying prayers of boldness and obedience over me.  As we walk into the Lion Bar I get wicked confused… this doesn’t look exactly like what I saw in my vision.  There is no real back corner and there’s no one sitting there.

We sat down anyway and Kim started up an awesome conversation with one of the bar girls.  We’ve all already ordered drinks when I look over and see a man sitting at the bar next door (back right hand side), by himself, holding a bottle of water.  And I know.  I grab Debbie and tell her that I have to talk to him, and we become the super awkward kids, leaving our drinks with Kim and going to this bar next door.

I had no idea how to talk to this man.  I was such a chicken.  We sat like 3 stools away, ordered drinks, and as Debbie made friends with two beautiful bar girls (who we have a date with this week, btw)  I walked awkwardly over to this man.

We started making small talk, again, me being wicked awkward just standing by his side as he sat, but eventually the conversation turned to his job.  He apparently owns the bar, having come from France seven years ago, and he doesn’t really like it but needs the money from the tourists.  He pointed to my bottle of water and noticed that I wasn’t drinking, unlike many Americans.   He said that the U.S. Navy often comes through and gets really crazy.

And the next part must have come from Jesus.

I said, “Yes.  I feel like a lot of people come looking for something like love.  They won’t find it here.”

Bam.  And then the conversation shifted and I didn’t really feel led to say anything else, but a seed was planted!  And my new friend totally seemed sincere when he said that he hoped to see me again soon!

God’s so freaking cool.  How cool is it that the spark bursting into flame that He showed me is in the heart of a bar manager that effects the lives of countless other employees and customers?  God has crazy plans for my French friend and I can’t wait to continue to witness to his heart and tell him where he can find the peace and purpose that he seeks.

(Also, Kim made an amazing new friend at the Lion Bar who we’re really hoping to connect with further…  God touched the lives of 4 people at 2 different bars tonight through one vision and our obedience.)

(Also, also, about 5 minutes after we left his bar, my French friend left.  Thank God that we listened when God said “quickly!” He’s so darn cool.)