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Angelyn is an amazing encourager who split her growing up years between Europe and the United States. She loves a good book and a cup of tea, but would happily give up both just to give you a hug.

This week was St. Patrick’s Day and the color green was everywhere, as anyone would expect.

Last week, however, as I was along the Silk Road preparing for a prayer walk, I did not expect to see the color green all around me.

My short-term team and I had been in CE almost a week. Jet lag was finally wearing off. We were excited to prayer walk through a particular neighborhood of the city where a Live Dead Silk Road team will hopefully be moving.

The missionary leading the prayer walk encouraged us to pray for whatever the Holy Spirit would reveal to us as we went. As we split off into small groups and headed in different directions along the cobble stone streets to pray, I felt very small. I doubted if the Holy Spirit would show me anything.

It Started With Shoes

Kyle, a team member in my group, felt like we needed to pray over the shoes in the shoe shop we were approaching. I have to admit feeling a little silly praying over inanimate objects. The missionary asked us to pray that national believers, walking and proclaiming the gospel of peace, would fill these shoes.

“Ok,” I thought, “I can get excited about praying for that.”

Then I felt God asking me to do something even sillier than praying over just shoes. He asked me to pray for green shoes. My internal dialogue with the Lord went something like this:

“Really, God? You have a specific pair of shoes you want me to pray for?”

“Yup,” I felt the Holy Spirit reply.

Sigh, “Ok, Lord, I’ll find and pray over those green shoes for you.”

“Thank you, Angelyn.”

They weren’t a particularly pretty shade of green, but they were green, women’s, high-heeled shoes. The color green in a spiritual sense reminds me of life and revival, so I placed my hand on the shoes and prayed life and revival over the woman who would wear these green, high-heeled shoes.

As we continued prayer walking through the district’s main walkways and side streets, my eyes kept noticing the color green. A woman’s headscarf, a brick wall, plastic containers in the café we drank tea in, a boy’s plastic tricycle, women’s dresses being sold on the street – all were green.

A Jealous Love

I felt a little silly pointing out every green object I saw to my group, but I continued to pray for life and revival over everything green I could see. My friend, Lo, encouraged me to pray the Lord’s jealous love over the green objects I saw, since that’s what the Lord reveals to her when she sees green on people.

So I did. I prayed that the teenage girl wearing green skinny jeans would know the Lord’s jealous love for her, the wedding rings with green stones inlaid in them would signify the covenant of the Lord’s love for these people, and the store with the green decorative lights would be filled with the Lord’s jealous love.

My group walked past a wedding dress shop on the corner of an intersection. There was a beautiful, full-skirted with a beaded-detail bodice, green wedding dress. Lo and I walked in. The two women wearing headscarves working there had beautiful smiles and their eyes were kind.

Their English was just as small and limited as the little we had learned of the language there, but smiles and a peaceful demeanor don’t need translation. After a few minutes of limited communication we left the shop and I silently prayed blessing, life, and the Lord’s jealous love over the two women and their shop, that they would become the bride of Christ.

Dusk was settling over the city district. We walked back over the main street to the center square and mosque where we had started our prayer walk. Lampposts lit up the streets. As we turned toward the square, we saw the mosque was also lit up… in green. The mosque was lit up green.

“That’s the capstone,” the missionary said, amazed.

The Lord is Not Done Yet

As my group circled around the mosque twice covering it in prayers of life, revival, and jealous love for the people within, I felt as if we were walking through water that had been standing still for a very long time. Our prayers were breaking through the still water and causing motion where there had never been motion before. Thank you Lord for showing me green that day, as silly as I first felt, and for starting spiritual movement in that city neighborhood.

When we debriefed the next day, our host leader said in the physical, dry and arid land we were in, anything green with life stands out and is appealing.

Lord, may your people along the Silk Road be spiritually green. May your life, resurrection power, and jealous love for these people stand out, call many hearts, and change lives.

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