Local students join worldwide prayer event

By Lynn A. Wade

Nevada Daily Mail

Students at Nevada Middle School and Nevada High School joined with millions of other students across the nation for the annual "See You at the Pole" before-school prayer event.

Students in the United States who choose to do so gather around school flag poles to pray for classmates, teachers, schools, states and countries.

Worldwide, more than 3 million students participate each year.

In Nevada, 35 students participated at the middle school, and about 40 participated at the high school, according to youth minister Jason Blight from First Baptist Church of Nevada, who helped to coordinate the local event.

Rebecca Prewitt was the coordinator of See You at the Pole at Nevada High School, and worked with members of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes to help pull it all together. A guitarist played songs of worship, and students prayed.

"They do a variety of types of prayer. There's silent prayer, they get in groups and pray -- toward the end, they were getting in a circle and holding hands to pray," at the high school, Blight said.

At the middle school, Alyx Hawkins, Elizabeth Prewitt, and others helped coordinate the event. Alyx prepared cards with suggestions for prayer topics and passed them out to participants. That way, each had a sort of prayer assignment. They would pray on that topic and pass the card to the next person. Students prayed for a number of reasons, many of them praying for the teachers and administrators at the school, for the community and more.

This year's See You at the Pole event was preceded locally by a rally conducted on Sunday, Sept. 21, that was attended by about 100 people. During the interdenominational rally, participants shared in games, prayer and devotional music. Blight also delivered a short message about connecting with God.

See You at the Pole began in Texas in 1990, after a small group of students went to a trio of schools to pray during a DiscipleNow weekend, They shared the idea with others in June 1990, and in September 1990, more than 45,000 teenagers met at school flagpoles in four different states to pray before the start of school, according to the SYATP's Web site, www.syatp.com. Since then, it has grown exponentially, with students in all 50 states and 20 countries participating. The next See You at the Pole event is slated for Sept. 23, 2009.