Spir­i­tual Life Hosts Col­le­giate Day of Prayer

MISHAWAKA—Thurs­day, Feb. 25, was rec­og­nized by Chris­t­ian col­leges across Amer­ica as the Col­le­giate Day of Prayer, and Bethel’s Spir­i­tual Life team hosted a va­ri­ety of events en­cour­ag­ing stu­dents to par­tic­i­pate. At 7 a.m., 2 p.m. and 9 p.m., stu­dents gath­ered in the Shiloh Prayer Chapel for times of prayer and wor­ship. 

Mat­tie Reese, a se­nior in­ter­cul­tural stud­ies ma­jor and spir­i­tual life in­tern, helped or­ga­nize and pre­pare for the day’s ac­tiv­i­ties. 

“I’m re­ally happy with what the Spir­i­tual Life team has done, they put a lot of work into mak­ing to­day hap­pen, and I’m re­ally grate­ful for the team that we have,” Reese said. “There’s so many peo­ple in­volved, and with­out every­body’s help, it would­n’t be pos­si­ble.” 

There were also prayer sta­tions set up in the Tay­lor Memo­r­ial Chapel all day for mem­bers of the Bethel com­mu­nity to come and go as they were able. There were five spe­cific sta­tions for stu­dents to work through. The first sta­tion fo­cused on per­sonal re­flec­tion, the sec­ond on for­give­ness and heal­ing, the third on prayer for fac­ulty and staff, the fourth on prayer for other col­lege cam­puses and the fifth on prayer for the world. 

“A lot of the sta­tions have to do with per­sonal re­flec­tion, some more than oth­ers,” Reese said. “I also think it’s re­ally cool for peo­ple to be able to look out­side of them­selves for the other sta­tions, pray­ing for other col­lege cam­puses and coun­tries around the world.” 

Reese said they had to mod­ify the prayer sta­tions slightly due to con­cerns about COVID-19, in­clud­ing re­mov­ing the tra­di­tional com­mu­nion sta­tion, re­quest­ing par­tic­i­pants re­spect so­cial dis­tanc­ing and pro­vid­ing hand san­i­tizer for every­one en­ter­ing and ex­it­ing the build­ing. 

“For the most part, I was able to keep the sta­tions pretty con­sis­tent with other years, which was re­ally nice,” Reese said. “Not re­ally too many changes, which was good.” 

Sarah Tamalu­nas, a sopho­more in­ter­cul­tural stud­ies and Chris­t­ian min­istry dou­ble ma­jor, is also part of the Spir­i­tual Life team. 

“For me, it’s such a cool op­por­tu­nity to be able to join with other stu­dents in pray­ing for our coun­try, our school, stu­dents and just every­thing in life,” Tamalu­nas said. “I know that just hav­ing that day, an in­ten­tional day to sit down and pray . . . it’s so much more im­pact­ful.”  

Reese is grate­ful for the way the Col­le­giate Day of Prayer brought Bethel to­gether. 

“Col­le­giate Day of Prayer as a whole is re­ally pow­er­ful in it­self just be­cause we get to come to­gether as a com­mu­nity,” Reese said. “Pray­ing aloud and pray­ing to­gether, just that sense of com­mu­nity, is re­ally cool.”