Students Cry: 'Give me Scotland or I die'
8 Apr 2010
Last month we shared a beautiful video made by our friends in St Andrews that promoted their Prayer Room as part of The Big If - a year of 24-7 Prayer in Scotland. The folks at St Andrews university had signed up for a week but found they couldn't stop and continued for a second week of round the clock prayer!
They emailed again recently to share some stories from their prayer time:
"During our first corporate meeting in the prayer room we had to turn people away to pray on the streets because the room was so packed. I just personally spent some time in the prayer room; around 10 people were there for over 2 hours, young and old, crying out to the Lord together."
In one of those God-coincidences that makes the hair on our arms stand up our Scottish friends found themselves praying in a church building where John Knox used to regularly preach. John Knox would have been proud of their passion and persistence I'm sure. The leader of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland once famously uttered "Give me Scotland or I die" and provoked Mary Queen of Scots to admit she was "more afraid of the prayers of John Knox than of an army of ten thousand". Prayer was the key in the 1500's and unsurprisingly is still the key today. Nick Guy, a student at St Andrews and one of a team of organisers writes:
"We are daring to believe that an entire campus can turn back to the Lord. We no longer want to just talk about renewal and revival; we are praying for it."
Nick then went on to explain how the Prayer Room became an important evangelistic tool for the town and the campus:
"Lots of people who didn't know Jesus came into the prayer room and a guy became a christian because of going into the prayer room. Many other students who would not usually go in for 'prayer' loved the non offensive aspect of the room. People were talking about it all over the place."
The Stand team have done an awesome job and it seems that God has been
enlarging their vision as they've been praying. They're now dreaming and
scheming of Prayer Rooms on every university campus in the UK! (Now if that
doesn't sound familiar you'd better check out the feature article from Campus America.)
Helen
Lawson (Youth and Student worker from Alpha Scotland) talking about the
possibilities that lie ahead as churches across Scotland pick up the baton and
cry out to God for their nation continues.
"I am beyond excited about what God is doing through prayer in Scotland this year. It is amazing to see such passion and enthusiasm from the students and young people of our country as they stand up for what they believe in and give their all to see this nation changed, one person at a time."
To find out more about the prayer room in St Andrews visit stand24-7.com. And to see what
else is going on in Scotland as part of a year of non-stop prayer check out The Big If.
Source: 24-7 Prayer
