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January 2006
As you can
see from the article, our students are praying! Not only are they praying but
they have been joined by students from other campus Christian organizations. We
are encouraged by this display of their dependency on God. More than that, we
are encouraged that this prayer movement has been completely thought up,
organized and run by our students. It is one thing for us as staff to organize a
prayer time (which we have) which very few students attend. It is another thing
entirely for students to organize an event that gets hundreds of students
praying during this month.
Be praying with our students that God
would answer their prayers and would move in the lives of students on campus.
Pray that students would have many opportunities to share their faith and would
see others come to know Christ.
By Katie Woods, Daily
Staff Reporter
1/8/07
Usually,
hundreds of people crammed into a fraternity on a Saturday night means a party.
When the clock struck midnight on Saturday at Christian fraternity Phi Alpha
Kappa, though, more than 100 students had gathered to pray. Packed onto sofas,
huddled on the floor and leaning against the walls, students sang joyfully and
closed their eyes in meditation as they kicked off the 40 Days of Prayer, an
event sponsored by 10 campus Christian groups.
Students can sign up for as short as half an hour or as much as an entire night
of prayer time in a designated room in the Phi Alpha Kappa house. They can sign
up for as little as a half hour, or as much as an entire night. Organizers aim
to have someone praying at all times over the next 40 days.
"In this school it is easy to get lost as a Christian," said LSA senior Ashley
Hajski. "This event can help us be together under our God."
Philip Michael, a junior in the School of Music, Theatre and Dance, planned the
event with LSA junior Jeffrey Chin. Michael said he sees 40 Days of Prayer as an
opportunity for religious people from different backgrounds to come together.
"Our major goal is to see a revival on campus as far as Christian enthusiasm or
people following Christ to get more involved in their spiritual life," Michael
said. "Our event is open to all Christian denominations and non-Christians
alike."
World Reach, an international Christian missionary group, has helped organize
similar events at campuses across the country, helped set up a website called
PrayUM.org, where students can sign up for prayer times. The organization also
gave campus organizers maize and blue wristbands with the phrase "Pray UM."
Throughout Saturday night, students poured into the house to join the prayer
session and look at the designated prayer room, which was no bigger than a
standard dorm room.
The room's walls were bare except for sheets of white and yellow butcher paper
on which participants can write their prayers.
At the front of the room, a wooden cross hung over a bowl of water. Students can
write their sins on their hands in red marker and wash them away in the bowl.
A world map was taped to one wall. Underneath it were sheets of star stickers
for students to mark the areas they've prayed for.
"It's when we pray that God moves and I believe things on this campus will
change with our prayer," LSA junior Michelle Holliday said.
Michael said he hopes the event will send a different message than the one
espoused this fall on the Diag by radical Christian preachers who made headlines
by screaming about their hatred for gay people and others.
"Our foundation is that God loves us and cares for us, not that he is going to
condemn us, but that he sent his son for us," Michael said. "Even though we
would be classified in the same genre as the Diag preachers, our approach is a
loving one. We seek unification -not separation."
Kids' Column
I have been hoping for snow so we can go
outside and play and we finally got some! I am now doing a typing computer
program for school. It is a lot of fun and I ask to do it almost every day! Soon
Lauren and I will be doing Spanish, too.
Mommy is teaching me and Andrew how to
clean. She says it’s part of school but I think she’s just trying to get some
help to get our house ready to sell. I got to sleep on the floor in Lindsey’s
room the other night and it was so much fun!
I was holding back, but decided I’d better
start talking, so after Thanksgiving I shocked my Mom and Dad and started
talking in sentences. I’m not sure anyone else understands me, but my parents
do! My favorite question lately is “Why?” I am enjoying being 3 so far. 3
year-olds are definitely not babies!
Why didn’t anyone tell me how much more
stuff you can get into when you can stand? I cruise around the furniture and
find all kinds of fun things now. It makes me sad to not be able to stand all
the time. One of my absolute favorite things is a bath. I can be crying really
hard but as soon as I figure out that I am getting a bath I stop crying.
Caleb |
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