GAINESVILLE – A sea of colorful umbrellas covered bowed heads as nearly 150 people prayed Thursday afternoon under the dripping, leafy canopy of the downtown Gainesville square.
“God hears prayer, rain or shine,” Greg Sandoval said as he welcomed everyone to the National Day of Prayer. The scene on the Gainesville square was being replicated all across the United States.
Event organizer Maxine Wagner of Clermont heartily rang her bell and everyone split up into groups and settled in at one of seven prayer stations.
Prayers would be specific and targeted, offered for education, the military, businesses, the media, the American family, government and the church.
Wagner rang her bell roughly every five minutes and the groups would rotate to the next prayer station until everyone had an opportunity to offer supplication at each station.
One man, who preferred to remain anonymous, said, “When the apostle Paul instructed Christians to submit to governing authorities and to pray for them, he was doing so during the reign of guys like Caligula and Claudius and Nero. We haven’t reached that point, yet.”
Wagner said that she is amazed at the support and encouragement she receives each year and calls upon churches in the community to be a part of the annual event.
“People are more than willing to come and help on the square,” Wagner said. “We try to get different prayer leaders each year.”
She added, “The churches are starting to promote it more and I think today we would have had a huge crowd if it weren’t for the rain.”
Jeff Crook, Senior Pastor at Blackshear Place Baptist, ended the event with a closing prayer, asking God, “What You have started today would You continue; God would it be a prayer movement that has a ripple effect throughout this community.”
As people disbursed from the square and headed back to their homes and jobs, the shofar was sounded. The shofar is a hollow ram’s horn that is blown into as a trumpet and served as the ancient Hebrew call to action.
The wailing of the shofar echoed between buildings; the call to action has been sounded.
