World Vision gives Youth With a Mission AFAF grant for prayer and crisis counseling ministry By Reyn Cabinte, World Vision New York World Vision has given Youth With a Mission’s (YWAM) Metro New York office $20,000 to aid their crisis counseling ministry to the people of New York City. The money will go to fund 25 prayer stations and a command center to be set up in Midtown Manhattan. The stations are Christian literature tables marked with large red banners overhead, offering prayer on the streets of New York. They stand out on New York sidewalks like lighthouses on a clear night. As many as 200 people man these stations each day. The strategy is simple: Concerned Christians offer to pray for the felt needs of passersby. Nick Savoca, YWAM’s Metro New York director, says the need is great. “At first, we had someone come in from Pennsylvania to help with the search and rescue. But by the Friday [after the attacks], we realized that the focus needed to shift.” The focus needed to shift because of the great psychological and spiritual wound that came with the fall of the twin towers. Savoca realized that the greatest need was for prayer. “We kept getting calls from churches, all over the country, asking what they could do,” says Savoca. “We prayed, and we felt that God was telling us to use what was in our hands.” What YWAM had in their hands were the tables, banners, and equipment for five prayer stations. They strategically deployed them around the city, but five wasn’t enough. Prayer station volunteers found that New Yorkers by the dozens wanted to talk about where they were on September 11th. And they wanted help dealing with it. The prayer stations were open to anyone who wanted to stop by. But much of YWAM’s comfort went out not to the primary victims and their families, but to those ordinary work-a-day New Yorkers who have to go on with their lives knowing that "it could happen again." And there are lot of New Yorkers to comfort. Sharon Flores, a YWAM volunteer at a prayer station near Ground Zero, says that the workers who have to pass by the clean-up site everyday have a hard time dealing with what happened. “A subway manager came up to me and asked for prayer. She was having trouble sleeping,” explains Flores. “She said she goes home after work and is so horrified by what happened and all of the changes she has to make. She had to force herself to rest because all of her workers are looking to her to lead them. So we prayed together.” Flores says she has listened to many who have been through an emotional roller coaster. “A woman named Janice walked by with a stroller. She couldn’t get in touch with her brother, a police officer, until two days after the attack. It turned out they sent him to work long security hours at one of the bridges, so he was ok. But then the next day her son in the army got shipped to Germany. Her life was filled with so much uncertainty, she really wanted to talk and asked for prayer.” At the stations, cripsly dressed stock brokers weep on the shoulders of volunteers as they pray together. Indian-Americans come and talk about the ways they are eyed with suspicion as they walk down the street. Many of the clean-up workers near Ground Zero stop by after their shift, using the station for catharsis. “This is worse than Vietnam,” a gray-templed steel worker lamented. “I think I have shell shock times 10.” YWAM volunteer Robert Taft, a veteran of air disaster relief efforts from his days in the Air Force, gets stopped on the subway by those who see the CRISIS COUNSELOR credential tags hanging from his neck. “I spoke with Jamal, who goes to school down by the World Trade Center,” says Taft. “He’s fine, but his mother in Brooklyn is worried, and doesn’t want him to go to school. And there were two women who worked in Tower 1. They went out for a smoke on September 11th, and that’s when the planes hit. The habit that was killing them saved their lives!” “But no matter where they are, people want to talk about what happened,” says Taft. “And that’s a good thing.” It is hard to calculate the benefits of such an ad hoc ministry. But if numbers can give an understanding of what YWAM has been able to accomplish, they have given the city of New York hope. By the dozens, office workers, policemen, rescue workers, Muslims, businessmen, tourists, and many other kinds of people stop by the prayer stations everyday. Savoca estimates that the volunteers have prayed for more than 10,000 in just the first three weeks of the outreach. More than 800,000 ‘Fallen but not Forgotten’ tracts have been handed out by YWAM volunteers. It’s cover shows two rescue firemen in the dusty brown air of Ground Zero, with a large piece of the towers’ steel frame in the background. Inside are words of comfort and hope form the Bible, and an explanation of the Christian Gospel. The tracts have become well-known in downtown Manhattan. It is common for rescue workers, and business people who work around the site to ask for multiple copies so they can give them out to their colleagues. More than 400 people have made decisions to follow Christ. But Flores says they don’t push conversion on those who come to talk. “Now isn’t necessarily the time for an ‘invitation.’” She says. “We’re here just to show love, encouragement, and Jesus’ compassion.” Says Savoca, “We want to be there for the people. To let them know that God cares. As we pray for their felt needs, the anger, the mourning, we want to let them know that that same God wants to have a relationship with them.” Taft agrees that compassion is what New Yorkers need the most. “Mostly people want to talk because of anguish,” he says. “They want to talk about friends that were lost. For many, the experience has been depressing.” But of most concern, say the volunteers, are those who don’t talk. “Some don’t want to talk about it,” says Flores. “Or they want prayer, but they won’t talk much about how they’re dealing with it. For many, there seems to be a kind of denial or shock, and at some point will come the anger, and the grief.” Taft is also concerned. “We’re there just to be a comfort if people need someone to talk to,” he says. “But for some, that process is still weeks and months away.” World Vision has come alongside YWAM at a crucial time. “We have no budget currently to make all of this happen. And have been struggling each day to meet the very basic needs for these teams,” says Savoca. “We appreciate World Vision’s sensitivity to our financial needs.” Savoca says that YWAM is committed to help New Yorkers deal with the long-term psychological and spiritual wounds. Now weeks after the attacks, much of the uncertainty has subsided. New Yorkers are now trying to acclimate themselves to a world with terrorism. But the need for prayer has not subsided. “Many of the New York churches who contacted us have a burden for those in their own neighborhoods,” says Savoca. “We want to provide them this [prayer station] resource at no charge.” With the World Vision grant, they will be able maintain and support a total of 30 prayer stations around the city. Savoca says New Yorkers are still ‘tender’ but not nearly as ‘emotional’ as in the first week after the attack. “But they still come to the stations very often,” he says. “ This is the greatest gift we can give the city.”