[Cindy] Jacobs then developed what she calls a “prayer strategy” for people from Laredo, Texas, to Duluth, Minn., to pray for 35 days along Interstate 35.
“We prayed to eliminate systemic poverty, we prayed for safety, we prayed for people caught in drug addictions, and trapped in their lives and hopeless,” she says.
The prayers continued well beyond those first 35 days.
And now the movement is called Light the Highway.
Light the Highway’s Web site lists 22 churches and prayer groups along the interstate ”” in places such as Laredo and Duluth as well as San Antonio, Dallas and Austin, Texas; Oklahoma City and Kansas City, Mo.; Des Moines, Iowa, and Minneapolis. According to the site, participants do not believe that Isaiah actually refers to Interstate 35. Rather, it says, the Bible is used symbolically “as a catalyst to begin praying, just like those who live in Interstate 40 can use Isaiah 40:3.”
Do travelers think it’s strange when they see a cluster of people ”” heads bowed and hands uplifted ”” on a grassy strip next to the highway?
“What would you rather have? A group of young people praying on I-35 or a group of young people dealing drugs on I-35? Take your pick,” says Steve Hill, the 54-year-old senior pastor at Heartland World Ministries, in the Dallas suburb of Irving.
“What would you rather have? A group of young people praying on I-35 or a group of young people dealing drugs on I-35? Take your pick,”
Fortunately, I don’t have to choose as both things are equally ridiculous. Let’s hope they find better places to pray and ways to spend thei energies.
I don’t mean to sound self-righteous but: you know, I normally pray about things into which I put a lot of effort: family, close friends, a 15 yr.-old whom I mentor, my service club (Kiwanis), my Baptist church (I am an Episcopal emigree), etc. etc. I feel I have a right to do this, having made a mental and physical and financial committment. The collective poor and drug-infested of the world are beyond my feeble powers. Don’t think I could usefully attempt it, make a dent with prayer. I don’t know the Holy Flock does this. Maybe I am thinking too small!