In the Christian Bible, accounts of Jesus’ miracles abound. Even non-Christians know the rundown: water into wine, loaves and fishes, healing lepers, raising Lazarus from the dead. At the 24-hour Prayer House at Arizona State University, students come together to pray for modern miracles – and to talk about the ones they say they’ve seen firsthand.
The Prayer House, a 10-foot by 10-foot tent tucked into the northwest corner of Palm Walk and Tyler Mall near the Piper Writers House, is operated by LoveASU, a Christian organization on campus. It was established in 2005 by three ASU students - Chris Ngai, Jon Yee and Joan Yee - who were inspired by similar prayer houses around the world, especially the International House of Prayer of Kansas City in Missouri.
Until the fall of 2011, the Prayer House was an itinerant visitor at Danforth Chapel. Logistical obstacles prevented the Prayer House from returning to Danforth in October 2011. LoveASU members lifted up their predicament in prayer and asked God to lead the way to a new home for the Prayer House. Miles Diaz, strategic prayer coordinator for LoveASU, says God delivered.
"Jon (Yee) got a feeling God was telling us to do a tent to move beyond four walls and get out with people," Diaz says.
They started scouting locations on campus, praying and walking around. The first place they found - outside the loading dock at the M.U. - was less than ideal. They kept wandering and praying like biblical tribesmen, asking God for confirmation. Then they bumped into a friend, Linda Hill, and told her about their Prayer House pickle.
"No way," Hill said. "I had a dream that I was sitting at the corner of Palm Walk and Tyler Mall just worshipping God."
The busy intersection seemed like a prime locale to reach a high volume of students. Diaz was ready to jump in, but Ngai wanted more confirmation.
"I prayed to God and asked him to give Tanya (my girlfriend) a location," Diaz, an ASU alum, says.
He left her a voicemail but didn't mention the encounter with Hill. Later that day, Tanya texted him: "Piper Writers House at Palm Walk and Tyler Mall."
"I thought, 'This is God, this is confirmation,'" Diaz says.
He says five more things happened that convinced them the tent and location were divinely approved. Other student ministries offered up their table time to the cause (student organizations can only reserve tabling locations for up to 10 days at a time), a last-minute email gave them permission to use the location (the powers-that-be had been wary) and Diaz's roommate told him that God had given him a verse (Isaiah 56:7: "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations") and a chapter (Haggai 2) to relay to Diaz. The date mentioned in Haggai 2:1 fit with the schedule they'd set for opening the Prayer House and coincided with the end of the Feast of Tabernacles, a festival celebrated by making and living in tents. The Prayer House opened for its fall season on Oct. 17.
"So much went into it and we feel like God spoke through multiple ways - dreams, visions, prayer," Diaz says. "That's where he wants us to be."
The Prayer House is now a haven for prayer 24 hours a day, five days a week (Monday through Friday). More than 20 different ministries participate and support it, all Christian - though "anyone and everyone can come in," Diaz says.
"It's for praying, not for preaching or debate," he says. "People can have conversations outside and then come back in."
The tent is crowded with prayers both audible and legible. A map of the world is dotted with sticky-note prayer requests and a white board has colorful, spiritual graffiti scrawling across it like spider webs and polka dots of prayers. People sit on folding chairs and pray together or play and sing worship music. The tent has a sultry warmth that diffuses the scent of nearby oleander throughout the space like incense in a church. Everyone seems to know each other and there's a hippie-ish, free love kind of vibe, but in the most wholesome and Jesus-centric way possible.
“We don’t have an agenda,” Diaz says. “Our agenda is to create an atmosphere where God is welcome and where students can come and feel the presence of Christ and feel changed in his presence. We're uniting around a cause more than specific doctrinal beliefs.”
Prayer House regulars say the tent has helped them get closer to God.
“I see prayer as simply a communication with God,” Chris Krosky, a communications junior, says. “Prayer can take different forms. You have a need, you ask God to fulfill that need and he does. Or it can be praise and thanks. It’s just a relationship with God.”
Ireti Eni-Aganga, a medicinal biochemistry sophomore, spends most of her free time at the tent. She says it's helped her in her walk with God and with putting the stresses and demands of school and life in perspective.
"I was struggling with hearing God," Eni-Aganga says. "I came here during the day and we did an activity with two buckets. One was full of rice, which symbolized the stress you're holding. The other bucket was empty and symbolized Jesus. You pour all of your rice into the empty bucket and it symbolizes pouring all of your stress into Jesus and him taking it away for you."
She prayed with people at the tent and felt her life change immediately.
"A lot of things that God was trying to tell me that I was blinded to, I saw clearly," Eni-Aganga says. "I see God literally working in my life. It showed me I can just ask and just let it go to God."
Zion O'Friel, who is not an ASU student, came to the Prayer House from Seattle in January after struggling for years with substance-abuse issues and living on the streets.
"The lord brought me here," O'Friel says. "The lord got me plugged in."
O'Friel says an angel named Mark came to him at a Starbucks in Seattle and handed him a Bible and a book of prophecies. As he shook Mark's hand, he says the angel said, "Michael Zion O'Friel, I've been waiting for you for 10 years."
O'Friel changed his name from Michael to Zion and became a born-again Christian.
Visions, miracles and supernatural experiences are common denominators in many of the Prayer House people's lives. Many say they've seen or experienced the actual physical healing of broken bones, muscles, tendons and more. They chalk these instances up to the power of prayer.
"We're transformed in a place of prayer and hearing his (God's) voice," Diaz says. "Hearing his voice and following him is the catalyst, the thing that has affected my walk in all ways."
Contact the reporter at llemoine@asu.edu
