USA: Prayers for Peace Answered Amongst Rioters - 1 Nov 2006
"Freakfest" - an annual Halloween celebration in Madison, Wisconsin - normally draws 50-60,000 partiers to the super-cool University City. But in recent years it's gained an infamous reputation for rioting, looting, vandalism, excessive drinking, and hundreds of arrests. The Chicago Tribune writes of this Madison Halloween party, "Significant problems with the event date back to 2002 when revelers threw rocks and bottles, breaking at least 12 windows and damaging police cars. In 2003, store windows were broken and at least two cars were tipped over. In 2004, a small bonfire was started and 450 people were arrested. Last year, as they had since 2002, police used pepper spray to quell a crowd of about 2,000."
This year, in response to such disorder, YWAM hosted a week of 24-7 prayer in their campus house as part of an outreach to campus and particularly to young people attending "Freakfest". And it seems that our prayers for peace were answered. 
Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz (left) released the following statement regarding the 2006 Halloween event in Madison. "This year's event was a big step in the right direction...Initial estimates are that there were 117 arrests tonight, less than half the number in 2005. In addition, this is the first Halloween in several years at which the deployment of police in hard gear and the use of pepper spray was not required. We met all three of my goals for this year…We reduced the amount of over consumption of alcohol.”
Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz (left) released the following statement regarding the 2006 Halloween event in Madison. "This year's event was a big step in the right direction...Initial estimates are that there were 117 arrests tonight, less than half the number in 2005. In addition, this is the first Halloween in several years at which the deployment of police in hard gear and the use of pepper spray was not required. We met all three of my goals for this year…We reduced the amount of over consumption of alcohol.” Linnea Caldwell, who coordinated the 24-7 prayer on campus, writes the following:
 Though the hours didn't fill up entirely, it started to give us as a community a jump-start into praying and pressing into God for the campus and our own relationships with Christ. Saturday night was the big Halloween celebration night in Madison - this year they charged $5 admission onto State St. in attempt to avoid the riots, vandalism, numerous arrests, pepper spraying and personal injury that has occurred almost every year prior. This ended up being pretty successful...and we attribute that to prayer and divine protection, though I'm sure the city would say it was because of the admission charge. The crowd was only 35,000 as compared with 50-60,000 in previous years and anticipated for this year. Two outreaches were going on that Saturday night, which also coincided with a week of outreach to campus. Some of us joined with an outreach on State St. held in a former porn shop which showed a make-you-think production called "Beyond the
 Grave" and gave out free hot drinks and food to party-goers. Others of us reached out to the crowd on our street, Langdon, where many party-goers end up or pass by. We set up a table with free hot drinks and snacks to serve party-goers and to open up an opportunity to share the love of Christ. All the while, people were praying in the prayer room, hearing from God and interceding for divine appointments and safety & protection for party-goers.Linnea had a very good conversation with a Buddhist, who was raised in the Catholic church, dressed up as Jesus. Needless to say, he was quite confused about what he believed and hearing about the personalness of God, and that Christianity is the only religion in the world not based on good works was eye opening for him - we pray it made a difference.
Everyone we served were extremely grateful, and most asked, "Why are you doing this?" - this gave us a great opportunity to share about love for God and people, and some stayed and hung out with us. We ended it at 3:30 am when we ran out of the 1,000 cups we had. Overall, we felt it was a very effective outreach and a successful night!
I feel like this was only a very meager beginning to the plans God has for this community in prayer this year, and maybe we didn't do everything exactly right, butGod still used it and I know there will be a lot more prayer because of it, even if just from me! It really helped keep me accountable to do that which God called me to specifically over and over again, which is to spend a good chunk of time with Him in prayer & intercession every day. |