Illinois: 'Let's Do This NOW!' - 19 Apr 2006
My name is Kari, and I’m 17 years old. When I read Red Moon Rising, God just inspired me to really pursue getting a prayer room started in my town, Morris, Illinois.
I was pestering my youth pastors (Nick and Amy) for a while, telling them that we need to get a prayer room started, we need to do this. He just kept saying, “we will, we will”, and I kept thinking, “I want to do it now!” I was praying that God would have His way in this, and soon enough, Nick told me that we had a date in which we were going to do a 12-hour-prayer night.
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We set off one of the back rooms and turned it into a prayer room. I was praying all day that God would work through that night and that the people He wanted to be there would be there. We set it up so that everyone would spend the night and people would get up and take their shifts throughout the night when it was their turn.
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I wanted a little structure so that people would have some guidance of how to pray, but I also wanted it to be a place of free expression and intimacy. There were two bibles set out with a few passages selected for this time. We also had a couple of journals, with colored pencils, where people could write or draw in.
I just really feel that a prayer room is essential to what God is doing and is going to do in this Youth Center and this community.
The prayer night was definitely a milestone for the CYC, and it is really at the perfect time.
We need to be the “watchmen on the walls” who will “pray day and night, continually.”
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We need to give ourselves no rest until we see God’s kingdom come on earth. (Isaiah 62:6-7).
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The CYC doesn’t have a building of its own right now, and we are really focusing and trying to get a building now more than ever before. One of the churches in town,
My Father’s House of Prayer, lets the CYC use their building.
It has really been amazing how that church has been supporting the idea of a prayer room, and they are allowing us to set aside what used to be an apartment upstairs in their building to be a full-time prayer room.
"The waters are rising, but slowly. We need to dive deeper into Him and ask Him to break open the dams of grace so that the water will overflow from the canyon and make salt water fresh.
We need to enter into a deeper intimacy with Him so that life will flourish wherever this water flows and there will be trees continually growing a new crop with leaves that never turn brown and fall.
And it all begins with communicating with God.
It all begins with prayer!
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