We have an amazing story from our visit to our regular coffee shop yesterday:

Don overheard a man say the word “prayer,” so on their way out he got talking with them. It turns out that one of the couples in the group are Spirit-filled, but they hadn’t prayed in tongues in a long time. The couple they were with hadn’t yet received the infilling of the Holy Spirit, and had in fact been turned off of the things of God by very negative church experiences.

We shared with all four some of our stories and how the Lord has used us in ministry for many years, helping people to come to have a personal relationship with the living God, far beyond what is seen and heard in most churches today. By the end of the conversation, they were all eager to join us in prayer, to see how God would prove the words (from the Bible) that we were sharing with them.

We first prayed with the second couple and both husband and wife received the Holy Spirit. They were in tears, and we could see the relief and softening in them - a kind of healing from their past religious encounters. Then we laid hands on the second (already Spirit-filled) couple and prayed over them, reigniting their connection with the Holy Spirit within them. They were so happy to be praying in tongues again, and they welcomed our advice to pray in tongues daily from this point forward.

Now, this was all very wonderful, but THEN….

Some people we had preached to weeks earlier saw us standing outside the cafe as they drove by. So, they turned around and come back to see us just as we were saying goodbye to the two couples. Actually, the fullness of what happened was that the daughter and mother were in one car, so the daughter contacted her fiance to tell him that she had just spotted Don and his family, and to ask where her fiance was at. The fiance was in a separate vehicle with his brother, but the amazing thing is that he had just passed by the very same location just seconds earlier! So, he turned around, too.

We ended up praying with the gal’s mother and she received the Holy Spirit! For a long time, she had wanted to be able to speak in tongues, but she was always told (incorrectly) that it’s something that has to be learned. We corrected her understanding, quoting scriptures and explaining that it is nothing but a miracle - that “He” the Holy Spirit has a spiritual language with which to communicate with the Father; He simply uses our voice once He comes to dwell permanently within us. The mother was so excited to receive this clarification.

Needless to say, we left the coffee shop feeling overjoyed and incredibly privileged to be used yet again by God to touch others’ lives. Praise you, Jesus!