At 7:00 pm in a slightly busy sector of Antigua, Guatemala, I hopped from my seat on the concrete wall and fell to my knees in the middle of the sidewalk. If we were to receive any direction for the evening, it would only be from God, so I asked. Ari asked. Alayna asked.
In a moment of defeat, I removed myself from my kneeling posture and returned to my seat on the wall.
“Did either of you get anything.”
Alayna responded “God only told me to ‘Go.’ He didn’t tell me where, but He said to go.”
All Ari allowed us to know what that she had received something, but only said “I can’t tell you.”
What in the world, Ari!? If God didn’t give me anything and He only told Alayna to go, what if you have the missing piece?? I didn’t exactly say that to her, but I was so confused. haha. Once again, I fell off the wall and onto my knees and began to ask God where to go. He answered. “The Park.” I ignored and asked “where” again and I saw a map of Antigua, but the park was highlighted. So as confused as I was, I looked at Ari and asked
“Does what you know have anything to do with the park?”
Alayna scooped up her backpack and ushered us along. The Lord had also told her to go to the park, so we made our way back where we had just been. Lol. It only took us two and a half hours, but we finally asked the Lord what He wanted and we went for it.
We directed ourselves to the park, laughed about the whole situation, and began to pray about what the Father had for us this evening. Personally, I was stoked. This was to be my first ATL experience on the World Race. If you’re not familiar, ATL simply stands for: Ask The Lord. It’s a concept that applies to pretty much every moment on the race, but specifically to spaces in time that our hosts don’t have ministry work for us to be doing. We were blessed to the max with our hosts this month and love the work that they do and spent so much time investing into their ministry, so we didn’t really set aside much time to “ATL.” I’ve done a bit of this at home before, but not a whole lot. I know it’ll be a neat aspect of my life from this moment forward though.
Once we arrived at the park, we popped into a local coffee shop to use the bathroom, paid our dues by buying some coffee, and got to work. Our first encounter was a pretty quick one. The park in Antigua, as in most other countries, is riddled with folks looking to hustle a buck off a tourist with things that they “made.” They’re also always prepared with a good sob story that will hopefully get them a few extra points. Not with this gringo.. That’s all I have to say. I’ve made a rule for myself that if i’m stationary in an area where this occurs, I’ll always repay their ask with my own. Right before they realize that I’m not interested in buying, I pop the question: “Do you know Jesus?” or in Guatemala, “Conoces a Jesus?” to which they typically respond confidently one way or the other. That question specifically asks if you intimately know Jesus, not to simply know who He is, but it begs to know if you have a relationship with Him. It opens the door wide for conversation and I love it.
I hope you’re dying to hear about exactly what went down, so take the next little while to prepare yourself, and I’ll post some more tomorrow. š
I love you.
AWM
