EXPRESSIONS OF FAITH
The work of 'prayer warriors'
By Elaine Masters
It's not very flashy, this intercession business. You just sit around and, you know, pray. You have no bosses or secretaries. No quarterly reports. No one even knows if you show up for work.
At the appreciation dinner for Jesus Hawaii Project volunteers, one person after another grabbed the microphone and bubbled over about how God had opened doors in their assignment, which was to call church pastors and recruit almost 200 of them, with several more churches coming on board after the distribution of videos of the movie "Jesus" and student "survival kits."
Last-hope phone calls raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in a down economy, for a total of $1.7 million.
More than 200 cards enclosed with each "Jesus" video were returned by people seeking a church to attend. Sought-after appointments with the state Department of Education resulted in Superintendent Pat Hamamoto writing letters to all the middle school and high school principals instructing them to allow the kits to be distributed, with the ACLU applauding.
Miracle after miracle.
What could our prayer committee report?
We prayed.
Some of us prayer-walked school campuses. Some of us prayed for our neighborhoods family by family, name by name. Some called a few people to ensure all ZIP codes were covered and then periodically zapped out e-mails and snail mails of timely prayer needs. Nothing flashy. Nothing with cause-and-effect results that we could prove. And so we prayer warriors sat on the sidelines, smiling at the fantastic results, our hearts pounding at what God had done.
For party favors at the dinner, they gave each of us a copy of the locally produced music CD included in the kits, and I've just now listened to it.
Koa, Na Leo, Native Roots, Olivia, Sam Kapu III, 7 Simple Pieces, Trisha Nakamoto, Unlearn — all local musicians, mostly teens, pouring out their hearts, singing of love and joy and hope. Hope. That commodity so lacking in so many teens' lives.
As the kits were distributed, students whipped out their portable CD players and listened to the rock and reggae and smooth ballads. We'll never know how many teens will be turned around by that CD, how many will reject suicide or drugs, how many will come out of depression and turn to God because a song or a singer touched them just when they needed it most.
It's like those intercessory prayers that smoothed the way, prayers that released God's power to open those doors for the Jesus Hawaii Project.
We'll never know which prayers were key or which intercessors prayed them, and we'll never know which songs touch which teens.
Never? Well, someday, when we get to heaven, people will shake our hands or give us a hug and say, "Thanks. I'm here because of you."
Elaine Masters is a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Honolulu missions team.
