Faithful Say Prayers for a Better World

At noon Thursday, Christians across Ventura County stopped what they were doing. And prayed.

They sang in Port Hueneme, clasped hands in Simi Valley and reached for the heavens in Thousand Oaks.

This was the National Day of Prayer, a 45-year-old tradition that exhorts people to focus their biblical beliefs and spiritual energy on the leaders of their world, their nation and their hometowns.

Some prayed for their own neighborhoods.

Reina Amano, 11, of Oxnard joined 400 other pupils from Hueneme Christian School and prayed with city officials and local pastors on the lawn of Port Hueneme City Hall.

She put her prayers on paper ahead of time, seeking divine help to end the outburst of gang violence that Oxnard has experienced in recent months.

“I pray for the neighborhood I live in because it isn’t safe,” Reina wrote in her letter to God. “I pray for the people who have been shot or wounded in my neighborhood to be healthy and safe. I pray for the people in my neighborhood who are in gangs to turn to you for refuge.”

Twelve-year-old Corey Sandoval of Port Hueneme echoed her classmates’ sentiments, but said she prayed for more action from municipal leaders to stem the shootings.

“All this violence is happening and they’re not doing anything about it,” she said. “They need help. They just need to have the Lord with them and they’ll do better, and soon we’ll have a perfect world.”

The kindergartners through eighth-graders--dressed in white shirts and blue shorts or blue plaid dresses--sang “Lord, I Lift Your Name on High” and “God Bless America.”

It is the fourth year Port Hueneme has staged a local version of the National Day of Prayer, which is devoted to seeking divine guidance for the nation’s leaders.

“The Bible tells us we should be praying for our leaders from the local level to the national level,” said Pastor Tracy Cook of Parkview Baptist Church. He said he prays for them regardless of their political position.

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Congress established the National Day of Prayer in 1952, and President Ronald Reagan in 1988 designated it to be the first Thursday in May each year.

For some in Ventura County, the National Day of Prayer was an opportunity to ask God to watch over their families, teachers and president.

For others it was a place to pray openly for an end to abortion or a stop to pop-culture violence.

Arms reaching for the heavens, more than 500 Thousand Oaks residents prayed for the moral health of the nation and guidance for its leaders on the front lawn of Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza.

Leading the Prayer for Our Nation that capped the hourlong service, Pastor Scott Wilson of the Christian Church in Thousand Oaks accused his fellow Americans of trying to disguise evil as good.

Quoting a prayer by a Kansas preacher that angered some legislators when it was read at the statehouse in Topeka, Wilson told the audience:

“We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle. . . . We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. . . . We have killed our unborn and called it choice.. . . . We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.”

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After the prayer, the group of adults, teenagers and children sang “God Bless America” with outstretched arms.

Fourteen-year-old Josiah Hultgren of Newbury Park said he prayed privately for President Clinton.

“He needs prayer to make the right choices,” he said. “Less gay people and to abolish abortion. I think you have to pray for the moral standards of our nation because they are going down the tubes.”

Others agreed, saying national leaders need to enforce a stricter moral code.

“We want the abortion ruling overturned,” said Leslie Freeman of Thousand Oaks. “We need to make a stand to get back to the roots of what this country was founded on--Christian principles.”

But many said they took time to attend the service simply to be among like-minded worshipers and to pray for the general health of the nation.

“We should all be praying for the government leaders and the community,” said Gayle Carmichael of Moorpark. “But I think it’s great that there is this day set aside for those that haven’t prayed every other day to focus on.”

Ed Rosiek, a Thousand Oaks resident who attended the ceremony wearing a T-shirt that read “Real Men Love Jesus,” said he came to spread the Gospel.

“God is today giving us something in the country and local communities, gathering his people in unity for the purposes of extending the message of the Gospel to those who do not know Him.”

Eleven-year-old Jilee Bennett, who came to the service with her parents, also prayed.

“Our country needs Jesus,” she said. “Because if something bad happens, He will help us.”

In Simi Valley, a smaller congregation gathered in the hot sun of high noon on the plaza outside City Hall.

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Mayor Greg Stratton led the crowd of 150 or more in an opening prayer:

“I want you to pray for tolerance, because I think tolerance is the one thing that is most important in our society, and it seems to be getting lost,” he said. “There’s a lot more ill feeling in the world these days than there needs to be.”

Pastor Dave Guzik asked them to pray for families while asking for guidance for the nation’s leaders.

“When it comes right down to it, our house is just as important as the White House,” he said.

But among the Simi Valley faithful, as in other cities, an undercurrent of worry surfaced.

“We’re in probably the greatest crisis this nation’s ever faced,” said Ed Thomas, 43, an executive assistant for High Adventure Ministries.

“Murder in the streets, drug abuse, you name it,” he said. “The country’s out of control. We need help, and the government’s not able to rectify this.”

Added co-worker Virginia Otis, “I believe that prayer makes a difference in our personal lives and on the national level, and certainly in scripture we’re enjoined to pray for those in authority. As we look at our nation today, there’s unavoidable problems unless we turn to the moral governor of the universe, which is God.”