A story of a person (angel?) God brought across my path on Thursday afternoon while I was helping set up Bethlehem Marketplace.  

I had just returned from lunch, about 1:00, and there was a lady at the Connection Center who wanted to know where the prayer room was. I said, “Follow me” and I took her to the little prayer room on the south hallway around the sanctuary. As I walked there with her I did not ask any questions and she did not ask any of me. But I did say to myself, how did she know we had a prayer room but not know where it was? She did not look stressed out in any way so as to be seeking prayer for herself. I turned the little sign on the door to indicate the prayer room was in use and I went back to putting together BMP and forgot all about her.

 

At about 4:00, I was sitting at my desk when the receptionist buzzed me and asked, “Pastor Norm, can you come out here?” I went out and there was this lady I had met three hours earlier standing there. She asked me where she could get a copy of the prayer magazine that is mentioned on the prayer cards on the bulletin board in the prayer room. She happened to see it mentioned as she was putting her hands on the walls of the prayer room while praying for BMP. I took her back to the prayer room and showed her the copies of the magazine under the table in the room. She did not want to snoop around. 

 

My conversation with her was 3-4 minutes long but I don’t think I will ever forget it. She said “I just felt very compelled to come to this church today and pray for this” (showing me a flyer for Bethlehem Marketplace). That is when I realized she had been praying for three hours. I was meeting her for the first time in my life (I think) so I asked her “do you attend church here?” She said, “No, but I have been in your services and I feel very comfortable at your church.” She said she was renting a cottage on a lake but had to leave Christmas Day and she would be coming to BMP this year. She said she had been through it once before. I told her she seemed like an angel coming to pray for BMP. As she left the prayer room, she asked if she could go into the sanctuary and pray for every person who would sit in those pews this weekend. She wanted to touch every row. I encouraged her to do that and thanked her for her prayers. The receptionist said she left the church around 4:20. 

 

If we feel an unusual sense of the presence of God at Bethlehem Marketplace this weekend, it may be because of this lady’s prayers and others like her who have been seeking God on behalf of sandy streets in a styrofoam city. Let’s all join her and seek God for 

Bethlehem Marketplace.

 

A huge thank you to everyone who has helped put together Bethlehem, the day after Christ was born.