YOPP: Story Behind the Vision

Year of Partnered Prayer- The Story Behind the Movement!
Saturday (7/15/06) – Wendy Andrews from 24-7 Prayer USA based out of Kansas City was speaking in the afternoon session about the red moon rising in our generation, which is prophesied in Joel 2:28-31 “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people…The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.” She was speaking about these being the last days when 24/7 prayer is being unleashed in this generation of a movement of persevering and powerful pray-ers. She began to share how the Lord had revealed to her that the universities of our nation can be likened to gardens, and the very action of gardening was likened to discipling/caring for/pastoring people. The gardens are college campuses that need to be planted and cultivated in order to bring forth beauty from the land to both protect and keep the spiritual land. We see in Genesis 2:15 God’s commission to Adam and Eve to “cultivate and to keep” the garden, and in this we are commanded to watch over, to guard, to protect the land that we’re given. She shared that it is not an easy job to watch over a garden - it needs to be constantly watered and tended to. The Lord revealed to her that it is specifically through prayer that we can watch over this land on campuses that is so easily ravished by outside sources that come to steal, kill and destroy, and she called us to 24-7 prayer specifically. The Lord also revealed to her that these gardens, our universities, are given by the Father only to His sons and daughters as an inheritance: Galatians 4:7 ‘now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.’ As heirs, we are to take action by assuming our position before the Father as sons and daughters and by claiming our inheritance, keeping watch over it with prayer.

Lou Engle soon came up to join Wendy and he spoke in relation to this call for 24-hour prayer. Lou described how university campuses have become a ‘paradise lost’, and that he believes the Lord wants to reclaim the paradise that’s been lost in the gardens of our universities. The university has also become a breeding ground for humanism, which teaches that everything we need can be found on our own apart from God – and so our gardens which are actually our universities have become corrupted in a way. Lou shared that there is actually a garden on campus at UCSD, which is a literal picture of the corrupted garden of Eden. Jaeson Ma then stated the fact that the first 108 universities of America were founded on the Word of God and were established as Bible colleges to send forth missionaries. We were to reclaim the college campuses lost through our spiritual weapon of prayer. Soon Jaeson and Lou led us to Snakehead at UCSD to pray a proclamation of defeat over the enemy and the victory of our God. As we were walking over towards Snake Path to pray, there happened to be a Chicano heritage group doing a cultural heritage dance at that very moment. We literally felt an oppressive atmosphere. Deanna Sick, a student from Pt. Loma Nazarene University, asked a group member what they were doing and what it was about, and they responded that they were celebrating a certain Chicano historian whose works were being put into the library. When asked who the dancers were, the person said they were calling on the spirits of their gods for a blessing. Jaeson Ma remarked later that when we were walking by, he saw in the spirit a bird with a golden head coming up in the haze of their incense. As he began to explain this, we realized that he was seeing the UCSD mascot, the Sungod. There is actually a statue of the Sungod on campus, and UCSD hosts an annual Sungod Festival celebrating one of the most lawless, humanistic, drunken days on campus. The Sungod statue in the middle of Sungod lawn at UCSD is exactly as Jaeson described it, an eagle with wings open wide, crowned with a golden head.

As we walked down the Snake Path, we began to pray for God to break down strongholds on UCSD and that of other campuses across the nation. Once we got to the bottom of Snake Path, someone had a word that the scales of the snake were like protection against anything trying to knock down its strongholds of darkness, and that we were to come against this force with the Holy Spirit. We began proclaiming the defeat of the enemy and the victory of Christ through the blood of the Lamb over the campus.

Wendy Andrews had the idea to parallel her message from earlier that each of us begin to plant bean seeds, which she had with her, into the ground in the garden as a physical picture of reclaiming the territory. Each seed was to represent a university in America, and we were asking God to reclaim and redeem every university in our nation, starting with 24/7 prayer. It was the idea to sacrifice the land to God, planting seeds of victory that will become trees both now and in many future generations to sprout up and overtake the campus. We were declaring not only victory but our inheritance from the Lord. He says, “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.” (Ps. 2:8) Everyone took some beans and began praying and planting as we walked up the Snakepath. At the top of the garden, with hearts of prayer, Lou began to share with us the actual significance and symbolism of Snakehead and of Geisel library, which sits at the top of the garden.

The design of Snake Path was designed by an artist by the name of Alexis Smith. The 560-foot-long path lies right beneath Geisel Library and significantly, is actually a representation of the conflict between innocence and knowledge in not only the Bible but in Milton’s Paradise Lost. There is a Garden of Eden along the path at UCSD and the snake that makes up Snakepath weaves through it, leading up the hill to the library. Lou spoke about a 15-year-old girl who had a prophetic dream about seeing a house, with “The Whos” written over it like a banner. She walked up to the attic of a house and found a particular series of 7 ancient books that are going to be important for the future. This series was Dr. Seuss’ children’s novels. Geisel Library actually has stored in it the collection of all but one of Dr. Seuss’ original books. The library is named after Dr. Seuss (Theodore Geisel), after his widow donated money to the fund. Dr. Seuss is known as the author for many children’s book stories and is author of one story in particular, called “Horton Hears a Who!” The book itself has high spiritual significance to Lou and the Justice House of Prayer in Washington D.C. regarding anti-abortion issues, though we cannot know whether the author himself meant to include unborn babies in his story on defending the defenseless.

In “Horton Hears a Who!”, Horton the elephant, who possesses huge sensitive ears, hears the cry of the small Whos living on a clover leaf in Whoville. The sour kangaroos and other animals are trying to do away with the Whos, thinking they don’t think exist because they can’t be seen. Throughout the tale, Horton expends great energy in saving the Whos and he says, “A person’s a person no matter how small.” In the end, Horton gets the Whos to join their voices to each other and cry out so that the kangaroos hear them and let them live. One Who is found who is shirking his duty and not joining in - it is the smallest of them all, and when he finally counts his voice and joins in, he saves the whole town of Whoville. Lou reminded us that it is our job to pray for even the littlest to have a voice in order to be heard because it is through prayer and the voice of the little ones that breakthrough in ending abortion would come. The girl who had the prophetic dream is now writing a book for young children with an anti-abortion theme to it.

Symbolically, Lou Engle pointed out that Snakehead (the top of Snake Path) points toward the statue of Dr. Suess, suggesting a spiritual battle between the force of a university’s stronghold of death humanistic ideology versus Theodore Geisel and all that represents life.

The library was physically constructed and symbolically represents the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil – it represents false ideologies and false knowledge sprouting from universities nationwide, feeding unhealthiness to the mentality of our nation. Symbolically, the very same month that the second brick-sized piece of cement fell off Geisel Library (November 5, 2005) was the month that the U.S. Supreme Court began to fall apart in Washington D.C. (November 28, 2005 CNN.com). The first brick-sized piece of concrete fell off Geisel Library a year prior on November 8, 2004. At the U.S. Supreme Court, a chunk of marble from its west pediment fell, after a prolonged period of prayer and fasting on its steps (JHOP, bound4life.com). Pertaining to both of these structures having pieces fall off, Lou made a prophetic connection of a breaking of ideological strongholds on this university and others as well.

As Lou shared about “Horton Hears a Who!”, he said that the smallest Who of them all cried out, “YOPP!” when he joined his voice in with the other Whos. Wendy recognized that to the 24-7 Prayer movement, a YOP is a Year of Prayer, and she suggested that perhaps God is calling for a Year of Prayer on college campuses in America, as the form that our collective voice will take as we cry out to God for mercy on universities. It deliberately had not been Wendy’s intention to call us to a year of prayer during the conference, but the course of events and the prompting of the Holy Spirit brought it out of her. God made it very clear that through Lou’s recounting of “Horton Hears a Who!”, the 15-year-old girl’s dream of finding the Dr. Seuss series, and Wendy’s message on seed planting that we were being called to a year of 24/7 prayer across colleges and universities, to pray fiercely for revival across college campuses. (I took out the “to end abortion worldwide” part – instead of only praying against abortion, it seemed throughout the weekend that the Lord desires a spirit of adoption to fall on college students. The part we know for sure is the revival on campuses part.) The word was proclaimed and we grasped it, praying in agreement. The plan, brought through 24/7 prayer rooms on colleges nationwide, through students zealously seeking the heart of God, is a nonstop one year plan to call for an uncompromising revolutionary college revival movement that will change history and generations to come on this earth. Jaeson prayed for new wine to be poured out when we were gathered at the top of the walkway. A girl pointed out that three thousand were saved at Pentecost and that similarly, there are approximately three thousand universities and colleges in America. We prayed into that. There was also a large emphasis and many prayers lifted up for a new student missions movement to be birthed from this gathering. Lou made a point that Daniel and his three friends were called to be set apart even among all the wise men of Babylon, and likewise, university students are being called to set their lives apart with a lifestyle of prayer and fasting and a “not blending in with society” mentality. Many declarations, praises, and prayers were lifted up to the Lord as the heavens were opened right there on top of snakehead at UCSD and we called for His glory to fall in that place.

For a few years, Jaeson had already been predicting and prophesying that God would raise up 24/7 prayer rooms at universities, to bring in simple churches and to unite leadership on campuses. The Lord, during the initial planning stages for the CTN gathering, revealed to Jaeson that the conference was to be held at UCSD. Jaeson had a prophetic dream one night where Dutch Sheets handed him a book with blank white pages in it - except for two - pages. On one end of the book, there was a picture of students with red LIFE tape covering their mouth, signifying the ending of abortion, etched into the book in black and white. The picture looked like it was a newspaper clipping that was historic. On the other end he saw sea cliffs and mighty ocean waves crashing into the sea cliffs. The waves were powerful but peaceful. Jaeson sensed these were waves signifying revival. The scene then changed and Jaeson was standing in front of a bay of deep blue water and on the other side of the water was a brown-colored building with many windows. He was standing with Jeremy Story on the edge of the cliffs with waves crashing onto the cliffs and the place they needed to get to was on the other side of the water. Jeremy wanted both of them to dive in but Jaeson was reluctant to at first. Jeremy did dive in first. When Jaeson saw Jeremy jumping in, he followed suit. The next day after the dream, Jaeson sent a summary of the dream to Jeremy Story and Dutch Sheets thinking it had some significance pertaining to college revival. (Earlier that year Dutch Sheets had given a prophetic word stating that this would be the year the youth movement would explode and universities would be impacted: UCLA, USC, UT, and Yale).

Interestingly, a few days after the dream, Peter Gent sent Jaeson an email inviting the conference to be held at UCSD, and he included a link for UCSD conference centers in the email. Jaeson didn’t look at it, but forwarded the link to Jeremy Story. Minutes later Jeremy sends Jaeson back an email asking Jaeson if he looked at the UCSD conference center link because the pictures of the conference center resembled exactly what he saw in the dream (UCSD is located next to the famous San Diego Sea Cliffs and has large brown conference center buildings with large windows). Through this confirmation they knew they were to hold the CTN National Leadership Gathering at UCSD. The full reason was not revealed till the afternoon encounter with Wendy Andrews, Lou Engle and the revelation to reclaim the university campuses of America through the rising up of 24-7 campus houses of prayer.

posted by Jaeson Ma @ 8/20/2006 10:32:00 PM