My first time in the Prayer Room was pretty cool. I walked in and looked around for about 5 minutes, which was probably 10 minutes because time goes by really fast. I know you’ll hear about how time goes by fast, and it really does, because you’re in there and you start praying and then all of a sudden you hear a knock on the door. And you think “Is an hour up already?” It is pretty cool and amazing at the same time. And when I’m in there I started to pray and God reminded me that we need to take time of our lives to pray to Him and form a relationship, as Dave was talking about. I remember last week when Rob Raduzycki was up here and he said we need to be prayer junkies and not just Prayer Room junkies. Ever since I heard that and I have been in the Prayer Room I have been better able to start praying more outside and forming a better relationship with God.

Testimony Myrna and Marti Ward

Myrna: I think everybody if you either know God or know of Him you have said at some point in your life that you have felt far away from Him. I heard somebody say one time that if you feel that way God didn’t go anywhere. For me the Prayer Room represents taking time and making an intention to spend time with the Lord. When my brother was in the hospital I had to go visit him at St. Lukes, down by the Plaza, it was kind of a lot of trouble to interrupt my life, sometimes on a daily basis to get ready and go down to St. Lukes Hospital but it was because I loved him and I wanted to see him and I wanted to be there with him. The Prayer Room, while I think the people who created it were inspired by God, it’s a beautiful room, and it’s an atmosphere that you can go and spend time with the Lord there. I think that for me, I know the bible says to love the Lord with all your heart, mind and soul. That’s what going to the Lord is, that’s what this Prayer Room is for me, it gives me an atmosphere, it gives me a reminder. Like Brett said, I need to actually spend the time with Him. Every time I have been in there, twice now, once with my husband which was a great experience, another time by myself. Just to know that I have got to go to Him, and whenever I go to meet Him he will show up.

Marti: I went to the Prayer Room first with Terry, the exchange student from South Korea, and I drew a picture which was my prayer to God. The second time I went with Sarah Whiting and Laura Burgess, the interns from last summer, and Kristen Raduzycki and Katie Case. We actually talked about different things on the news and different things that are happening in our life. Then we started doing prayer requests, we had a page full of requests, so we all just sad down on the floor and we prayed to God and you could feel Him working in you as you prayed.

Testimony Jerry Finke

I am a work in progress. Marcia can vouch for that. I have prayed throughout my life. As a physician I am a whole lot more busy that I should be. So I will say a little prayer and move on. That’s been my prayer life. I jump into things because I have to get things done real quickly, get in there, get it done and get out. I signed up for the prayer room, and when I went in there God said ” I’ve been waiting for you. I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a long time.” And, I listened. I was telling my good friend whose initials are Dave Moore about that. Dave said, “You know, if you had an hour to spend with a radiologist in your field would you spend 58 minutes talking about yourself and 2 minutes listening to him?” Obviously, my answer would be no. So why do we want to spend 58 minutes talking to God or with God and 2 minutes listening. So my pattern of prayer now is to read, this is one of the best forms of prayer that you can come up with, and then I pray, and then I listen. Then I go to one of the walls, and I thank you guys for putting your prayers on those walls and now on the ceiling. If you haven’t been in that prayer room you are missing something. I read the prayers and then I pray and then I listen. That’s my pattern of prayer. The communication is there, my pattern is now there, and my mission is now here.

I have prayed for Marcia’s and my mission, to enlarge our territory. Jabez taught us that. If you want to talk about Jabez’s prayer please come see me because I want to talk to you about it. Our mission is to enlarge our territory and we’re going to do that up north in a retreat center. We’re going to refire instead of retire. The dessert drama next Saturday night is an answer to a prayer. People in this room have listened to the Lord and have responded. I encourage you guys to participate in the dessert drama next week.

God has scheduled you a time in that Prayer Room. Purpose Driven Life has taught us that He knows what we’re going to be doing and He knows that you have a time in that Prayer Room and I just ask you guys not to miss your appointment.

(They have purchased land in a rural area north of Kansas City and are in the planning stages of building a Retreat Center on the property. Someone else sponsored a dessert drama to help kick off the funding of the project. Jerry and Marcia each prayed several times weekly in the Prayer Room as these plans developed. Jerry, while working full time as a physician, often took middle of the night shifts in the Prayer Room).

TESTIMONY Jaye Pryor

On my way over to the Prayer Room at 4am this morning I was asking God “what do you want me to tell them?” And the song on the radio was “as long as I shall live I will testify to love” and the song on the way home was “I will sing of His love forever”. I think I will stick with testify. Let me tell you what it has been like for me in the prayer room these last few weeks. The first time I went in, even thought I had spent many hours helping put the room together, still I was just amazed at the sense of the presence of the Lord and the Joy of the Lord. I felt I could sense His anticipation of all who would be coming there to meet with Him. It has been amazing and wonderful and humbling and uplifting. That I ever got to this point in my relationship with Him is amazing by itself. I haven’t always been a person of prayer, involved in a prayer ministry. I have had my burdens of sin, guilt, and shame which were great barriers in my relationship with God. There was a time in my life when I was confused about everything of God. There was a lot of prayer that pushed me through those barriers and it was worth it all. The Joy of the Lord just really poured out.

But, one night, I woke up burdened with some stuff. I knew Bill had a middle of the night prayer time, so I shut off his alarm and told him since I was already awake I might as well take his time. Anyhow, I loaded up some reading/prayer material, DETERMINED to settle this thing and for all. I pleaded “God, I want to be obedient in this, I just have no clue as to what to do”. This overwhelming sense of “that’s all right I’ve already taken care of it”…that’s all. I didn’t stop to wonder how. I thought “wow!, OK then! I have 55 minutes just to praise you, I guess I will just go with it!” So it was just wonderful, to be in the throne room and have nothing to do but just praise Him.

Recently, knowing our season of 24/7 was coming to a close, I said “God, are you sure it’s time because I feel like we’re just getting started. There are some people who haven’t been in there yet at all, and none of us are to the point where we have been in there enough so that we can take this feeling with us everywhere we go.” The immediate verse that came to my mind was from one of the letters that Paul wrote to the Philippians: …”He who began a good work in you(us) will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 1:6).

I do not know what He does have in store for us, but I know for sure He does have some plans.