Campus America: Statewide StirringsRachel Wegner - 3 Nov 2010
Hello there, 24-7 Prayer family!
October has ushered in even more wonderful stories from the Campus America front, so I’ll jump right in.
On October 1-2, myself and two teammates found ourselves huddled in a Wisconsin basement with about 25 students. They had come together for a statewide gathering of the many University of Wisconsin campuses. At the helm of the gathering was our State Coordinator and dear friend Dayn Lukes, who graduated from UW-La Crosse in 2009. Dayn was deeply moved by God to stay in Wisconsin to help coordinate prayer after reading “Red Moon Rising” and then connecting with the Campus America team.
During their time together, these humble, passionate students laid plans to pray nonstop for the rest of the semester. With 14 campuses in the UW network, Dayn challenged each campus to take one day of prayer every two weeks. Many schools are still coming on board, but several have excitedly launched into the effort. Here’s a photo of the crew gathered around to pray for the students representing one of the many campuses together that weekend.
We also recently received word from our friend Chris Centracchio, who oversees the InterVarsity chapters in Vermont, that a united effort of prayer has been launched among New England campuses this semester. Chris, whose home base is at the University of Vermont, has traveled to several praying campuses this semester. He said he has witnessed students ignited with a greater passion to see God move on their campuses and a growing unity among campus ministries.
“The prayer we had at the University of Vermont was a great next step toward our reconciliation of Protestants and Catholics,” Chris shared in a recent e-mail. “The Catholic Center opened wide their doors of the chapel for us to have 24 hour prayer in their sacred space. A greater sense of unity is happening with all the Christian groups than I've seen before in my 15 years on campus.”
Stay tuned for a fuller story with more details on the united effort of prayer in New England via our Campus America site.
Our teammates Nathan Chud and Trent Sheppard have also traveled from coast-to-coast (and even to Hawaii) during the God on Campus Tour, which extends into November. Nate has kept up with periodically blogging about their experiences. As of the end of October, they had visited 14 campuses, with several more to go.
As the team here keeps pace through the end of the Year of Prayer, we are continually amazed at how many stories and reports come to us that are so far beyond our doing. God is clearly at work and students will be praying and reaching out to their campuses long, long after this Year of Prayer. We are so blessed by the friendships and stories we’ve gathered so far and, as always, look forward to more that will inevitably come.
That’s all for this time ‘round. Heaps of love to you guys.