Canada: praying for a year in 'North America's worst postal code' - 15 Mar 2005
"February 28th, 2004 began a journey of prayer and perseverance in the notorious Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, " Aaron White of the Salvation Army writes: "Coming at the tail end of a six-week Cross-Canada Salvation Army 24-7 prayer wave, the Vancouver Salvation Army prayer room – dubbed “The War Room” - was only supposed to last a week.
A week passed, and the prayer cntinued. No one knew how long the thing was meant to go; the only instruction we had from the Lord was that it was not to end.
'the centre of the storm'
The Downtown Eastside of Vancouver is an extreme place. It is considered the worst postal code in North America due to its high rate of crime, open drug addiction and prostitution, and HIV/AIDS transmission. There are many slum hotels in the area. One of these, The Empress, is home to The Salvation Army’s War College, a group of students who come for a year to live incarnationally and to learn about mission. Room Number 504 in The Empress became home to the War Room as well. The view from its window overlooks the corner of Main and Hastings, the centre of the storm as it were.
'We continued praying.'
Soon, a month had passed, and still no end was in sight. The shifts were changed from one hour to three hours at a time, making it easier to fill up the schedule. People were tired, but were also learning to meet with God in a new way. Regular prayer became as essential a part of the schedule as regular meals. It was at this point that our leaders felt the call to carry on praying non-stop for a full year at the very least. The War Room was to become the hub of everything that we did in our mission, and a place where each new day a different name of God would be honoured, so that the name of God would once again be pronounced Holy instead of being blasphemed.
'We brought in some binoculars to engage in sniper prayer. This way we could target individuals on the street below and keep them in our prayer sights for a good long time ...'
The summer was hard. Many of the War College students were on summer mission assignments, so it fell to a regular band of 15 individuals to keep the prayer going alongside all of our other activities. It was a time of testing, but also one of great grace, and often God would send mission teams in to fill the hours when we were stretched too thin. It was in this time of perseverance that God downloaded some righteous vision into our midst. We began a fasting rota to compliment the prayer rota, and directed our prayers towards those suffering in the Sudan.
We brought in some binoculars to engage in 'sniper prayer'. This way we could target individuals on the street below and keep them in our prayer sights for a good long time. (I remember drug dealers I was praying for becoming frustrated at their total lack of sales!) And the War Room was the place where the vision was given to plant outposts in 2000 cities in 200 countries in 20 years. This vision is now gaining ground around the world.
'We are even launching a new prayer room in another, more accessible part of the city in order to see more Christians in Vancouver access the beauty of prayer. '
Unless God tells us to, it would be almost unthinkable for us to stop the prayer now, as has become so much a part of who we are. We are celebrating the one-year anniversary in the downstairs pub of The Empress, a slum hotel that has cleaned up remarkably since the War Room invaded its premises. I was told by one person that the reason God won’t have us stop the prayer is that we are digging wells of fire for the city of Vancouver, and we need to keep stoking the flames of prayer to keep the fire burning. We are even launching a new prayer room in another, more accessible part of the city in order to see more Christians in Vancouver access the beauty of prayer. Our hope is to see this prayer room become a city-wide Boiler Room by next year.
We certainly take none of the credit for anything that has happened in or through the War Room. How could we? God is in control of this thing.
We just want to bless and honour him for allowing us to be involved in his Kingdom work, even if it means a 2am to 5am prayer shift in a slum hotel in the Downtown Eastside."
Find out more about what God is doing in the rest of the country on the 24-7 Canada website...