12.07.07
48 Hours Straight
Our team recently embarked on a slightly new adventure here in Ancona. Many months ago I read Red Moon Rising, which is the story of the 24-7 prayer movement that began here in Europe. Our team passed the book around, and at our planning meeting in July we decided that we wanted to try to create a prayer room here.
So we pulled all of the stuff out of our little office, and Heather and Heidi worked on remodeling in it into a place for people to come and pray. We got volunteers, some from our church, some from neighboring churches, and some from no church at all, to come and spend an hour at a time in the prayer room. When I first printed out the sign up sheet with 48 blank spots to fill, I was more than a little overwhelmed. How would we ever fill them all?
But slowly, they got filled. People came to pray. If someone missed an appointment, there was always someone to fill in. For 48 hours, prayers were lifted up, shouted, sung, painted, written, and whispered. And it was incredible. People came out of the little room in tears, thanking us for setting it up and asking us to let them know when we do it again. Everyone said that an hour flew by.
Prayer has obviously always been a focus of the ministry here. But for 48 hours it was the focus. It was all we did. I have no idea what God is going to do with that. We’re in a culture where, at least some people, are accustomed to popping into a church for a prayer now and then. The idea itself wasn’t all that strange, but I think the intensity was.
And I can’t wait to do it again…