Friday, February 23, 2007
CITY IMPACT ~ Portland, OR: Prayer Scores @ High School
Prayer Impacts Roosevelt High School
Some of you may have heard about the dramatic changes for the better at Roosevelt High in North Portland last school year. Maybe you did not know that for the first time, there was a concerted prayer effort for every student and staff person that started at the end of October, 05, and went through the spring of 06!
This is what transpired for good at Roosevelt last (05-06) school year. This comes from a letter sent out August of ‘06 by the administration of Roosevelt.
*The best test score gains of any high school in the city of Portland (average of 10% gains at all three sub-schools)
*Highest reduction of behavior problems on any campus: 85% reduction of all discipline issues
*Huge parent-participation increases, with 82% of the parents coming to a report card night
*Biggest reduction of vandalism of all Portland High Schools
Many of you may be interested in what the local body of Christ did for this prayer movement. Here is a summary of what we did, in case you would like to try this for your local school.
My husband, Randy, and I copied the model we had had explained to us by some folks from a Youth With A Mission base in Kona, Hawaii. (We were in Hawaii for our 10th anniversary the summer before,) We had heard of the story of what happened in Kaneohe on Oahu, starting with Castle High School. This was a notorious high school , with lots of drugs and gang activity. With hands laid-on us by the couple whose nephew started it at Castle, we were told this is a transferable model. As we heard the story and watched a documentary of the transformation of what God did not only in that high school but eventually all schools at all levels on every island of that state, we thought we could try it in Portland! (This is part of the United in Prayer movement. See UIPhawaii.com)
The model involves having the local body come together, and using first names obtained from the year book (public access information) to write down 10 names of students on small cards. On the back of the cards can be points of how to pray. These local believers who feel led take a card and commit to pray for all 10 names on that card once a week.
In September, we met with the pastors of North Portland at a monthly meeting they have at one of the churches for lunch. We shared about our time in Hawaii and how we’d like to try this. We had already emailed a few of these pastors and had phone conversations with them. They were on board already, and hearing us speak about it charged them up more. Amazingly, a few of them told me that, although they had vision for their local congregation, they lacked vision beyond their church for the community. Rallying around the high school began to be a focus point they all could agree upon!
We decided on the name “Portland Schools Canopy of Prayer” for our movement, based on a picture I had seen in prayer several times during the past year of a huge white canopy (“Cirque de Soleil” style) that was being held up at the top by my husband and me with various leaders holding up the corners. I had felt that we were going to be providing a “covering” or leadership to something, but I did not know what. My husband and I created the prayer cards, with “Portland Schools Canopy of Prayer” on the back. Also on the back were the following prayer points:
Pray once a week for:
*GENERAL BLESSING
*PROTECTION
*WISE DECISION MAKING
*HEARTS SOFTENED TO THINGS OF GOD
Using a yearbook and a list of just the freshman class first names (that an administrator accessed for me as she was supportive of what we were doing), we wrote 9 student names and 1 staff name on each card (with staff followed by “St”).
We held a kick-off meeting in October at a local community center a few blocks from the school. I wanted it not on any church campus so that no one would feel it was being run by any one church. I wanted this to be an effort from the Body of Christ in St. Johns (North Portland). Present were 5 different pastors, some moms who pray who have kids in public schools, a few people from other parts of Portland who thought they might try it at their school, and some ladies from Moms in Touch, Int’l. These women had prayed for a solid year for some mom in the St. Johns area to get a heart for Roosevelt High and the feeder schools and to start a prayer movement there. Very touched, I stood that day and called out in a loud voice, “It is because of YOU ladies and your prayers, that we are here today. Thank you! God has heard your prayers!” The 20 or so people present were visibly moved and erupted in applause. (Every school on the West side of Portland and the East side had Moms in Touch prayer groups, but not one school in North Portland had a prayer cover. The schools had a very bad reputation. The week we did our kick-off meeting, one of the TV news stations announced their list of the “Twelve schools to watch for violence in the state.” Three of the schools were in North Portland, and two were housed at Roosevelt campus.) We shared how this would work, showed the DVD of Transformation Hawaii that we got from Cal Chinen on Oahu. (Cal’s brother was the YWAM fellow we had met, and whose son, Daniel, started the whole thing. You can reach Pastor Cal at the UIP email address above, or call him at 808-265-5567). People were excited after watching the documentary, which tracked not only schools but police and fire dept’s getting prayed for (there were more volunteers to pray than kids to pray for). They talked of how crime went down in the community, and schools that were “looser schools” started winning at sports. Referrals and suspensions were down by 50% and have stayed low for the three years they’d been doing it. The Lt. Governor of Hawaii declared that schools were to be remained unlocked so that local church folks could come and walk through the halls and pray each weekday as needed. (Wow!) In fact, on the website for Transformation Hawaii, my husband found a letter from the city council of the City of Honolulu stating that this United in Prayer Movement had been so beneficial for the community at large that nothing was to hinder it happening at every island in the state!
At our kick-off meeting, we prayed over all the prayer cards, and then we just divided them up. Pastors took however many cards they felt they had intercessors to pray. Folks from St. Johns from our home group took cards, and some were given to a Christian school where two classes of kids decided to pray for the 10 names on a card each week. Later, people told me that they didn’t just pray once a week; they usually prayed every day for those 10 people.
As we shared of this model, other geographic areas showed interest. People began gathering along the Oregon Coast in a concerted way for students. A former colleague from Vancouver School District started this up for a friend who had a hard class of kids. One woman in the Lents area of SE Portland asked for prayer for her class. She had mostly students from non-English speaking homes, many of whom were recent immigrants from countries in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. We divided up that woman’s class as well, and she reported an improvement later. Two siblings from Beaverton decided to take on two of those students and prayed for them each morning. (They were an elementary aged girl and boy praying for a girl and boy, respectively, from that class.) Pastors have expressed interest in Gresham, Oregon City, and SW Portland.
This September, around Labor Day Weekend, we brought together those interested in this prayer movement or who participated last year. Cal Chinen, the pastor from Oahu, came with his wife to New Song Church in Portland (our home church) to address these leaders. Like the folks in my dream holding up the canopy, these leaders were now starting up prayer movements at 8 new schools. The movement was multiplying 8-fold! Cal and Joy Chinen initiated coming as we had kept them in touch all year about the improvements at Roosevelt. I “handed off” track “batons” in a symbolic form of teamwork onto the next “leg.“ On the batons were the names of each leader and the school s/he had started a prayer canopy for. These included both middle schools that feed to Roosevelt, one elementary school that feeds to RHS, Parkrose High, Southridge High in Beaverton, and all three public high schools in Albany. Cal challenged us with a great talk about Jesus sending out the apostles to Dare (to visit and mix with the lost), to Care (eating a meal with folks, eat what is put before you, and if people needs healing--or whatever they need--offer to help with that). This might come in the form of helping on a school campus with janitorial work (like Pastor Greg Johnson’s church did at Southridge) or helping with lunch duty in the cafeteria, as a church did in Hawaii. The last step in his talk was to Share (when they ask for the hope that is within you, tell them). Cal and Joy were continuing on to Raleigh, North Carolina from Portland, as this movement was spreading there (as well as in Lewiston, Idaho and Ventura, California).
For my part, I found it interesting that the year before I had contacted the principal of Roosevelt to see if I could be hired for after-school tutoring. As a certified teacher who was a stay-at-home mom, I needed extra income. The next year (that we started this movement) God provided income another way, and I ended up being able to volunteer one afternoon a week all spring at Roosevelt! While on campus, I helped in two of the offices, where I would just pray as I filed each student’s paperwork. Every name I came across I prayed for. When the secretary told me she was going through a struggle, she found out I was a believer, and she pulled me aside (confessing her sin) and had me pray for a break-through for her. One of the school counselors was under a huge burden. You could see it on her face. The secretary and I went in her empty office and prayed for a lifting of this burden or wisdom to get through it. The next week, the secretary told me that the very next day the woman’s problem appeared to have subsided, as her whole countenance looked different! She mentioned to the counselor that a Christian volunteer and her had prayed fervently for whatever she was going through. The counselor broke down crying. I also was able to help in an English as a Second Language classroom, assisting students with their spring reports. This was a huge helper for the classroom teacher.
Right after we did the kick-off meeting, I had a dream about a small plane slowly crashing and I was watching it go down. As it went by me, I saw the name on the side was “Roosevelt.” I felt that we were to do more than just have people pray in their homes for the students. So, I called all the pastors that we had sent cards out to, and had them make an announcement that we were going to do a prayer walk the next Sunday afternoon. About a dozen people came, including someone from the neighborhood association as well as folks of different races and churches. We prayed from Nehemiah, sensing that “the walls had been broken down,” especially the “gates of the city,” ie., leadership. A week later after that prayer walk, one principal told me she had had a “significant break-through with her staff.” A month or so later, the district brought on the temporary head principal as the now permanent one. She worked really hard to rid the campus of gang influence and pull. We believe that woman, Deborah Pederson, was an answer to our prayers. I told her so! In the spring, Deborah pulled me into her office and told me that the May before (one year earlier) Roosevelt had had 30 suspensions--as in, kids kicked out of school. That May they had had only 3 suspensions. This was a 90% reduction!
I also was in touch with the athletic director, who told me how to pray, and the head police officer on campus, who regularly gave me candid updates as I asked. He told me there was a 100% improvement in leadership from the year before!
TO GOD BE THE GLORY! GREAT THINGS HE HAS DONE!!!
This year, believers from different churches have had their hearts enlarged (like mine was) to come and help on the campus. So, some came and did crafts at winter break for kids from lower income families to have some home-made gifts to give to relatives. Many people sent in clothes to the clothing closet, and some sponsored families at Christmas. I am finding several folks now who will come speak at Roosevelt about their profession. I’m working with an administrator named Rachael Greenfield rachaelg@cascadiabhc.org (who runs the after-school SUN program for the poorest families ). She has asked for help, and we are finding willing local believers to help in most of the areas she has asked for! (The one area we have not yet filled is mentors: preferably men of color to come once a week and help mentor a student in filling out college applications, or just to get extra help with work.) I believe God will do this as well. It is fun to see Him fill the needs as hearts are moved from spending time first praying!
Oh yes, I must not forget an update we just got from Pastor Omari Jones from Mt. Olivet Church. His senior pastor was at a North Portland restaurant recently and the principal of Portsmouth Middle School was there. This principal came up to the pastor and virtually begged for his church to get involved and help on that campus! Like Deborah Peterson, there was a lack of pride and a sincere desperateness to find good help for those students. We believe that teamwork, coupled with answered prayer from our heavenly Father, will be the key to transforming that middle school! Please pray for Mt. Olivet as they step into an open door at Portsmouth--one of the feeder schools to Roosevelt!
Mrs. Kris Richards ran.kris@msn.com 360-737-9877 2/20/07
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posted by NPPN Blog at 9:25 AM |
Some of you may have heard about the dramatic changes for the better at Roosevelt High in North Portland last school year. Maybe you did not know that for the first time, there was a concerted prayer effort for every student and staff person that started at the end of October, 05, and went through the spring of 06!
This is what transpired for good at Roosevelt last (05-06) school year. This comes from a letter sent out August of ‘06 by the administration of Roosevelt.
*The best test score gains of any high school in the city of Portland (average of 10% gains at all three sub-schools)
*Highest reduction of behavior problems on any campus: 85% reduction of all discipline issues
*Huge parent-participation increases, with 82% of the parents coming to a report card night
*Biggest reduction of vandalism of all Portland High Schools
Many of you may be interested in what the local body of Christ did for this prayer movement. Here is a summary of what we did, in case you would like to try this for your local school.
My husband, Randy, and I copied the model we had had explained to us by some folks from a Youth With A Mission base in Kona, Hawaii. (We were in Hawaii for our 10th anniversary the summer before,) We had heard of the story of what happened in Kaneohe on Oahu, starting with Castle High School. This was a notorious high school , with lots of drugs and gang activity. With hands laid-on us by the couple whose nephew started it at Castle, we were told this is a transferable model. As we heard the story and watched a documentary of the transformation of what God did not only in that high school but eventually all schools at all levels on every island of that state, we thought we could try it in Portland! (This is part of the United in Prayer movement. See UIPhawaii.com)
The model involves having the local body come together, and using first names obtained from the year book (public access information) to write down 10 names of students on small cards. On the back of the cards can be points of how to pray. These local believers who feel led take a card and commit to pray for all 10 names on that card once a week.
In September, we met with the pastors of North Portland at a monthly meeting they have at one of the churches for lunch. We shared about our time in Hawaii and how we’d like to try this. We had already emailed a few of these pastors and had phone conversations with them. They were on board already, and hearing us speak about it charged them up more. Amazingly, a few of them told me that, although they had vision for their local congregation, they lacked vision beyond their church for the community. Rallying around the high school began to be a focus point they all could agree upon!
We decided on the name “Portland Schools Canopy of Prayer” for our movement, based on a picture I had seen in prayer several times during the past year of a huge white canopy (“Cirque de Soleil” style) that was being held up at the top by my husband and me with various leaders holding up the corners. I had felt that we were going to be providing a “covering” or leadership to something, but I did not know what. My husband and I created the prayer cards, with “Portland Schools Canopy of Prayer” on the back. Also on the back were the following prayer points:
Pray once a week for:
*GENERAL BLESSING
*PROTECTION
*WISE DECISION MAKING
*HEARTS SOFTENED TO THINGS OF GOD
Using a yearbook and a list of just the freshman class first names (that an administrator accessed for me as she was supportive of what we were doing), we wrote 9 student names and 1 staff name on each card (with staff followed by “St”).
We held a kick-off meeting in October at a local community center a few blocks from the school. I wanted it not on any church campus so that no one would feel it was being run by any one church. I wanted this to be an effort from the Body of Christ in St. Johns (North Portland). Present were 5 different pastors, some moms who pray who have kids in public schools, a few people from other parts of Portland who thought they might try it at their school, and some ladies from Moms in Touch, Int’l. These women had prayed for a solid year for some mom in the St. Johns area to get a heart for Roosevelt High and the feeder schools and to start a prayer movement there. Very touched, I stood that day and called out in a loud voice, “It is because of YOU ladies and your prayers, that we are here today. Thank you! God has heard your prayers!” The 20 or so people present were visibly moved and erupted in applause. (Every school on the West side of Portland and the East side had Moms in Touch prayer groups, but not one school in North Portland had a prayer cover. The schools had a very bad reputation. The week we did our kick-off meeting, one of the TV news stations announced their list of the “Twelve schools to watch for violence in the state.” Three of the schools were in North Portland, and two were housed at Roosevelt campus.) We shared how this would work, showed the DVD of Transformation Hawaii that we got from Cal Chinen on Oahu. (Cal’s brother was the YWAM fellow we had met, and whose son, Daniel, started the whole thing. You can reach Pastor Cal at the UIP email address above, or call him at 808-265-5567). People were excited after watching the documentary, which tracked not only schools but police and fire dept’s getting prayed for (there were more volunteers to pray than kids to pray for). They talked of how crime went down in the community, and schools that were “looser schools” started winning at sports. Referrals and suspensions were down by 50% and have stayed low for the three years they’d been doing it. The Lt. Governor of Hawaii declared that schools were to be remained unlocked so that local church folks could come and walk through the halls and pray each weekday as needed. (Wow!) In fact, on the website for Transformation Hawaii, my husband found a letter from the city council of the City of Honolulu stating that this United in Prayer Movement had been so beneficial for the community at large that nothing was to hinder it happening at every island in the state!
At our kick-off meeting, we prayed over all the prayer cards, and then we just divided them up. Pastors took however many cards they felt they had intercessors to pray. Folks from St. Johns from our home group took cards, and some were given to a Christian school where two classes of kids decided to pray for the 10 names on a card each week. Later, people told me that they didn’t just pray once a week; they usually prayed every day for those 10 people.
As we shared of this model, other geographic areas showed interest. People began gathering along the Oregon Coast in a concerted way for students. A former colleague from Vancouver School District started this up for a friend who had a hard class of kids. One woman in the Lents area of SE Portland asked for prayer for her class. She had mostly students from non-English speaking homes, many of whom were recent immigrants from countries in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. We divided up that woman’s class as well, and she reported an improvement later. Two siblings from Beaverton decided to take on two of those students and prayed for them each morning. (They were an elementary aged girl and boy praying for a girl and boy, respectively, from that class.) Pastors have expressed interest in Gresham, Oregon City, and SW Portland.
This September, around Labor Day Weekend, we brought together those interested in this prayer movement or who participated last year. Cal Chinen, the pastor from Oahu, came with his wife to New Song Church in Portland (our home church) to address these leaders. Like the folks in my dream holding up the canopy, these leaders were now starting up prayer movements at 8 new schools. The movement was multiplying 8-fold! Cal and Joy Chinen initiated coming as we had kept them in touch all year about the improvements at Roosevelt. I “handed off” track “batons” in a symbolic form of teamwork onto the next “leg.“ On the batons were the names of each leader and the school s/he had started a prayer canopy for. These included both middle schools that feed to Roosevelt, one elementary school that feeds to RHS, Parkrose High, Southridge High in Beaverton, and all three public high schools in Albany. Cal challenged us with a great talk about Jesus sending out the apostles to Dare (to visit and mix with the lost), to Care (eating a meal with folks, eat what is put before you, and if people needs healing--or whatever they need--offer to help with that). This might come in the form of helping on a school campus with janitorial work (like Pastor Greg Johnson’s church did at Southridge) or helping with lunch duty in the cafeteria, as a church did in Hawaii. The last step in his talk was to Share (when they ask for the hope that is within you, tell them). Cal and Joy were continuing on to Raleigh, North Carolina from Portland, as this movement was spreading there (as well as in Lewiston, Idaho and Ventura, California).
For my part, I found it interesting that the year before I had contacted the principal of Roosevelt to see if I could be hired for after-school tutoring. As a certified teacher who was a stay-at-home mom, I needed extra income. The next year (that we started this movement) God provided income another way, and I ended up being able to volunteer one afternoon a week all spring at Roosevelt! While on campus, I helped in two of the offices, where I would just pray as I filed each student’s paperwork. Every name I came across I prayed for. When the secretary told me she was going through a struggle, she found out I was a believer, and she pulled me aside (confessing her sin) and had me pray for a break-through for her. One of the school counselors was under a huge burden. You could see it on her face. The secretary and I went in her empty office and prayed for a lifting of this burden or wisdom to get through it. The next week, the secretary told me that the very next day the woman’s problem appeared to have subsided, as her whole countenance looked different! She mentioned to the counselor that a Christian volunteer and her had prayed fervently for whatever she was going through. The counselor broke down crying. I also was able to help in an English as a Second Language classroom, assisting students with their spring reports. This was a huge helper for the classroom teacher.
Right after we did the kick-off meeting, I had a dream about a small plane slowly crashing and I was watching it go down. As it went by me, I saw the name on the side was “Roosevelt.” I felt that we were to do more than just have people pray in their homes for the students. So, I called all the pastors that we had sent cards out to, and had them make an announcement that we were going to do a prayer walk the next Sunday afternoon. About a dozen people came, including someone from the neighborhood association as well as folks of different races and churches. We prayed from Nehemiah, sensing that “the walls had been broken down,” especially the “gates of the city,” ie., leadership. A week later after that prayer walk, one principal told me she had had a “significant break-through with her staff.” A month or so later, the district brought on the temporary head principal as the now permanent one. She worked really hard to rid the campus of gang influence and pull. We believe that woman, Deborah Pederson, was an answer to our prayers. I told her so! In the spring, Deborah pulled me into her office and told me that the May before (one year earlier) Roosevelt had had 30 suspensions--as in, kids kicked out of school. That May they had had only 3 suspensions. This was a 90% reduction!
I also was in touch with the athletic director, who told me how to pray, and the head police officer on campus, who regularly gave me candid updates as I asked. He told me there was a 100% improvement in leadership from the year before!
TO GOD BE THE GLORY! GREAT THINGS HE HAS DONE!!!
This year, believers from different churches have had their hearts enlarged (like mine was) to come and help on the campus. So, some came and did crafts at winter break for kids from lower income families to have some home-made gifts to give to relatives. Many people sent in clothes to the clothing closet, and some sponsored families at Christmas. I am finding several folks now who will come speak at Roosevelt about their profession. I’m working with an administrator named Rachael Greenfield rachaelg@cascadiabhc.org (who runs the after-school SUN program for the poorest families ). She has asked for help, and we are finding willing local believers to help in most of the areas she has asked for! (The one area we have not yet filled is mentors: preferably men of color to come once a week and help mentor a student in filling out college applications, or just to get extra help with work.) I believe God will do this as well. It is fun to see Him fill the needs as hearts are moved from spending time first praying!
Oh yes, I must not forget an update we just got from Pastor Omari Jones from Mt. Olivet Church. His senior pastor was at a North Portland restaurant recently and the principal of Portsmouth Middle School was there. This principal came up to the pastor and virtually begged for his church to get involved and help on that campus! Like Deborah Peterson, there was a lack of pride and a sincere desperateness to find good help for those students. We believe that teamwork, coupled with answered prayer from our heavenly Father, will be the key to transforming that middle school! Please pray for Mt. Olivet as they step into an open door at Portsmouth--one of the feeder schools to Roosevelt!
Mrs. Kris Richards ran.kris@msn.com 360-737-9877 2/20/07
*Receive periodic Email updates on new postings: http://www.nppn.org/subscribe.htm
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