After several days at Training Camp, we were sent away for team bonding time. We started out the afternoon taking some time in prayer, prophesying over the day and asking God to give us pictures, words or colors that would lead us to who we needed to interact with that day.  Some of us got images and colors so we just decided to head into town and  play it by ear as we looked for clues that might make sense with our pictures. We spent some time trying to figure out where to go for dinner, fairly unsure of what our afternoon would have in store. No coincidence, as we were driving to dinner we noticed a fuzzy, hot pink gorilla jumping up and down on the side of the road advertising for a Halloween costume store. Obviously a conversation starter, we immediately decided to pull over and talk to him.

As was only perfect timing, Grace happened to have a full-body Tigger costume in the back seat of her car. Ben quickly put it on and ran out to greet the pink gorilla. Initially we were a little bit hesitant since Ben and the Gorilla seemed to be getting ready to fight.  Eventually the guy pulled the head off his Gorilla suit and introduced himself as Stephan.  As a group we started chatting with Stephan and soon learnt that he wasn't a Christian and he told us "even if I did believe in God I would not live here because people are far too hypocritical." He seemed to be really opposed and turned off to religion and we let him know that we were more focused on Christianity as a relationship with God and sharing His love around the world, and thats why we are going on an 11 month missions trip to 11 countries. Stephan informed us that he believed in spiritual things and that if people believed in something that was "good" then that should be okay for them and okay with everyone else.

We then decided to go out on a limb and ask Stephan if we could pray for him.  He said sure and was surprised that we wanted to do it right there on the side of the road. We were so glad just to get the opportunity to share with Stephan what we are going to do next year and get the chance to pray over his life and pray that in his spiritual search God would find Stephan and meet him there.

The cool part comes next. As we were walking away and back to the cars some of us finally made the connection that Stephan was the jumping man Ben John had seen during prayer only a couple hours before.