Tornado Watch?

Yep, you read right. There was a tornado watch on Sunday, but I'll get to that later.

Our fearless leader David Carpentier (Rowley, MA) had a different sort of outreach for us this past weekend. We were to go on Friday to the quarterly prophetic meeting at Northshore Bridge Church in Beverly, Massachusetts, and teach the members of their prophetic team how to do prophetic ministry and dream interpretation on the streets. They had only ever done ministry in the Northshore Bridge, so our job was to teach the 'street lingo' that we use and different approaches to avoid being too religious. One way of doing that was having all of them get ministry from us (the interns) one by one, and we ministered to them using 'street lingo' instead of 'Christianese' (our word for religious lingo). The prophetic team was amazed at how well it worked and how completely nonreligious it was.

As a useless random trivia bit, there is a woman on the prophetic team at Northshore Bridge who was the voice of one of the screams in the Jaws movie trailer...how's THAT for nonreligious?

After the meeting we went to the McDonald's across the street, where we encountered an employee who is Christian and just starting to find out about prophetic ministry. I felt like we were supposed to minister to him, but I had a hard time getting anyone else to join me. He came out after his shift was done, so I took the chance to sit in front of him at a table and start talking to him. Jody Demske (Michigan) came over with a note of words for him that she had written. He expressed how much it impacted him, and that he'll never forget it. That's the kind of ministry I love, when it's random and not defined by a particular time.

Pretty funky artwork @ the Gathering

Saturday we all headed to one of our favorite places in the world to do street ministry: Salem! This time the outreach was only going to last for 3 hours, and the streets weren't exactly full of people. After an hour we did start getting a steadier flow of people come in, and at that point I was able to start teaching my team. The picture I saw for the first woman sitting in front of us was a picture of a tent with only a set of bright eyes visible in it, and then bright stars circling the tent. I told her that there was a mystical quality about her, that people are naturally drawn to her and see something she has that they want. My two teammates added their input, and then she revealed that she is a field nurse, and that often in the ambulance rides people reach for her and cling to her hand. She said that she was a Christian, but then a little further on mentioned that she uses tarot cards 'for fun' to give people hope. After we prayed for her and she went off, I used that opportunity to teach my two 'apprentices' about how to handle that sort of situation, which involved us praying after she was gone that the Lord would show her using tarot cards was wrong.

In the Gathering Church (see previous blog entries about Salem if you don't know about the Gathering) I noticed a lot of artwork from local artists. Pastor Phil Wyman mentioned that he is making the Gathering more than just a typical church, which includes welcoming local artists to 'do their thing' in the Gathering. There was this one clay sculpture in particular of a shoe in a handbag that looked so real, I couldn't even tell it was clay from far away the first time I saw it! I learn something new about Salem every time I go, it seems. One thing always remains the same, though; Lunch at Cafe Kushco! (some of the best food in the world)

There's another John Harding? Egads!

After the outreach we went to a little port town called Newburyport in Massachusetts, where our John Harding, who just so happens to be a local, took us on a mini-tour of the harbor area, and then took me to see a few of the shops. We got hungry rather fast, so the two of us went to eat Indian cuisine. As we ordered our food, we got a phone call from David saying that Newburyport had issued a regional tornado warning! The lights started to go on and off, and all the sudden the rains just hit Newburyport out of nowhere. David said that the two of us needed to get to the van, but the van was several blocks way. The rain was pouring down so hard that there were puddles and "mini-rivers" as deep as half a foot! John Harding had an idea, though - we asked for garbage bags, and the greeter laughed as she got them for us. They were bright white! We covered our heads with the bags, and on the count of three, rushed out into the monsoon rains, splashing through puddles and giggling like schoolgirls. We stopped under the awning of a cafe, and the looks we got from the people inside were priceless! As we ran onward, I decided to be a little crazy and just took the bag off my head. I got absolutely pummeled with rain and soaked, but it felt awesome as I jumped into the van with a goofy grin on my face. As we headed back to the Carpentier's house for the night, heavy hail started to fall...what a mess!

Sunday we went to the Northshore Bridge to promote the Streams Academy internship program and then prophetically minister to the people of the church one-by-one. I always have a hard time with it, as I only feel called to speak to specific people. I decided I would go to people that I felt were being 'highlighted' to me, and that seemed to work better. I didn't always feel the Lord when I was speaking, but the response from each person was always good. My confidence is ever rising...

After church Drew McGee (associate pastor of the bridge) had something called 'Take an Intern to Lunch' where different people from the church took us to their homes for lunch and to talk a bit about what was happening with us at the internship. Our hosts were Spanish speakers, which delighted me! It was great to get some practice in.

This upcoming weekend I have off - after that, there's one more outreach, graduation and then the trip to Mexico. Things are wrapping up fast!