A New Fall Approaches...

This morning I woke up to orange light shimmering through the blinds. Having never seen that before, and hearing a rustling through the window, I curiously got out of bed early. As I peaked out, I found a beautiful misty morning reflecting the early light off the orange and yellow trees outside. What a wonderful way to be greeted by Fall.

Another beauty of Fall is the beginning of semesters and students heading back into their schools with a clean slate ahead of them. What was unusual for Thai and I was that this fall also held a blank slate for us as we entered into a new season with the Luke18 Project.

I was excited as the season started off strong at KU and UMKC, so many things we've written in past blogs were gifts confirming God's loving intention to awaken His campuses to prayer and the adventure of seeking Him first and solely.

As Directors of Luke18's Campus Prayer Movement, we joined our field staff, Joma Okwambua and Katie VanDerwerf, this month in Minnesota. Graciously, God has given us a huge burden for prayer on university campuses, and yet we are still wrapping our minds around how to effectively pioneer campus prayer movements. But I was overwhelmed at how much my heart tapped into His as we spent time in the Twin Cities and learned more of His heart for prayer in that specific region.

We witnessed the open doors and invitations that Joma and Katie have been given to see prayer unite the region. Students would just pop up in Katie's path, asking her for help to get prayer initiated on their campuses. Favor would go before Joma as she stepped back onto her alma mater, North Central University, from students to the president of the university. We grew more and more excited as we sat in a round table with student leaders from 3 major universities, North Central, Bethel, Northwestern Universities, who wanted to lock arms in prayer, together.

I was excited, until our last night in town, when we showed up to a regional prayer meeting Katie and Joma planned. It was set to be at Northwestern, in one of their new prayer rooms decorated by the students themselves. Expectations were set that maybe 10 students would show, maybe 20 if everyone who said yes, really came. But that night about 55 students packed into the room, worshiped for about an hour and then broke up into groups praying for their schools, I was caught in my own dismay and moved to tears.

I loved it and though we've met many people in the Twin Cities who talked about how difficult it was to develop unity between schools, races, and denominations, we were seeing it take place right before our eyes and it was beautiful.

I think I secretly thought, I wanna stay here! Until, quickly the Lord reminded me that His desire is to use our team to see this nationwide. And in that case, I wanna stay serving in my assignment at IHOP and continue to pray this into reality.

Will you join me, as the fall semester hits the mid point, to pray for a greater grace to encounter our students to seek Him first, seek Him solely and see Him move students all over the nation to gather in hunger and prayer!

-angela-

Week of 24/5 Prayer & National Coming Out Week @ U of Missouri—KC!

This week at the University of Missouri–Kansas City (UMKC), there is a tent set up in the middle of campus where students will be gathering around the clock to pray for UMKC. For 5 days this week, five ministries have each adopted 24 hours of prayer where students will take shifts around the clock in the prayer tent to believe God for spiritual awakening & revival on their campus.

But our prayer tent was not the only 24-hour tent to be found on the UMKC quad... an LGBT student group, Queers & Allies, had also rented & set up a 24-hour tent on the quad for the National Coming Out Week where students are encourged to "come out of the closet" about their homosexuality. What an interesting "coincidence": two 24-hour tents, one for godly prayer and the other for gay pride, to be set up across from each other on the same week on the same campus!

So last night, Angela & I were hosting an evening shift at the prayer tent. We were struck by the strange reality of us sitting in a prayer tent at UMKC across from a gay pride tent. We didn't know what to make of it, but we knew that if we were there, we were going to pray... So pray we did that God would break into the homosexual community at UMKC with His love and that revival on campus would start there. Next thing we know, a young lady walks across the quad from the gay pride tent to our prayer tent! In the next half hour, she starts opening up her heart and sharing about the challenges of her life. We end up getting to share the Gospel with her and praying for her. It was SO powerful!

And this was just the first night too. I believe what God is doing at UMKC this week is going to become a normal reality in Christian communities on college campuses — where prayer becomes the paramount priority of all ministry and where prayer is no longer just a "good idea" but a critical necessity. Please continue to pray for UMKC, this week of 24/5 prayer, and the homosexual community that we've had the privilege of reaching out to.

Co-laboring with you,
-thai & angela-