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A normal trip to 7-Eleven turned into much more than expected for Virginia Spence of Courageous Hearts Ministries.
While at the store, Spence's sister saw someone with the word Kingdom on their shirt. "It just happened to be the pastor of Table of Encounter Ministries on 1415 Main Street," Spence says.
After getting invited to the weekly church service, Spence says she wanted to know more. "I said isn't that interesting because remember, we were thinking if we could find a location to do some street ministry, maybe these guys do street ministry, who knows?"
As the service went on, Spence sensed the presence of the Lord and received an invitation for more. "He said 'I would like to invite you to the hospital on Thursday nights because we do ministry,' and I really couldn't believe my ears because my plan was to ask them if they had an opening on a Thursday night, which was the meeting night we were replacing."
While at one of the prayer nights, she recalls seeing one girl. "Initially, she didn't want prayer and she started to watch us pray for people and talk to people and just fellowship. We went over and talked to her, and this was really wild because she said she had a car accident. She had some significant injuries and she was in a wheelchair. She communicated with us more and then at the end of the prayer, she said. 'I could just feel what God is doing already' and she stood upright. It was interesting because the reaction to people when she stood up out of this wheelchair was it was something. But you know, the Lord is just testifying that He's so willing to move."
"Jesus is our source for whether it's aches and pains in the physical body, or whether it's a broken heart because you know you're taking somebody there for the last time and we've all been in those desperate situations where we just don't have anywhere else to turn and we need prayer."
Every Thursday at 6 p.m., Winnipeggers are invited to come to the Health Science Centre adult emergency at 700 William Avenue to receive prayer. Spence says, "They could be the patients themselves, they could be people that just need prayer to go to work and to handle those situations."