Treasure Hunting the Streets of St Petersburg

Today I did my first Treasure Hunt, aided greatly by a Durham student, Philly Udy.

For those that are unaware of what a Treasure Hunt is, its simply seeking God for prophetic words, clues that highlight individuals to which God is wanting to bless. The encounters may lead to prayer, healings, miracles, salvation...all sorts.

There is plenty of info available which further explains the process, so I won't explain any further here, just share what happened!

Having prayed, soaking in the Spirit of God, we took three minutes to write down what we felt God was saying to us, under each of the 5 headings that experience has shown people works better - these are: Location, Name, Appearance, Prayer Need & The Unusual.

Being in Russia we did then have the added complication of making sure our lists were bi-lingual, so then spent some time getting the translation worked out as well as the odd useful Russian phrase!

And then off we went! Maybe the first such hunt in St Petersburg?

The first forty (ish) minutes we spent walking around, based on a few of our clues we felt we had - "Garden", "River", "Grassy Patch", "Flowers".

One of the location pointers took us to a very popular and well known tourist attraction in the city - The Church of Our Saviour of Spilt Blood. Suddenly, having not had anything so far, three pointers came along in the space of 20 seconds. Having walked around the building, potentially heading up past the area, we saw our first clues - "North Face" and "Blue". There was a couple that passed us, the wife in a blue top and the husband in a North Face sweater. It was the first one we'd seen so we turned around and started walking back. Just then, a man in "Camouflage" trousers passed us the other way, not long followed by a man on a bike with a "Blue" "North Face" coat on. What should we do? We felt the man on the bike was a hotter clue so watched to see if he would stop. He did, so we turned back round and went to him. It was quickly clear that he was dropping off some more stock to a number of sellers - and especially "Umbrellas" - he had about 15 of them! The Umbrella clue had been with me all day but I felt it was stupid because it was a rainy day and EVERYONE had an umbrella, but when the three minutes started, I knew I had to write it down.

Now it was clear why. This guy therefore had three pointers, so we knew it was time to speak to him. He told us everything was good....he checked the rest of our lists and said he didn't need anything. So we said God bless, and went on our way encouraged that we had started our hunt, pleased to have heard from God.

Thinking that encounter through, had we not stopped to follow the original couple, we would not have seen the man on the bike....we were learning to go with what God was doing.

We had one further chat with a lady begging, her "Walking Stick" pointing her out though we didn't feel strongly that we were to pray with her there, as she had said she didn't have any problems with her "Legs" so we prayed as we walked away.

But God had already by then shown that He can speak to us in such ways. It was both of our first Treasure Hunts...but it certainly will not be the last.