pulling heaven's strings through prayer, community, and a long-awaited pilgrimage

On Sunday I'm flying to the UK to learn more about a movement that I've been increasingly more interested in since 2004. Last January I moved from New Brunswick (where I had just finished a contract with my University) to Hamilton, ON., to be part of an intentional community 'living in a context of prayer'. I had come to learn, to participate, and to create. The organization in Hamilton is called GOHOP ("The Greater Ontario House of Prayer"), but I had been introduced to it in the UK in 2004 simply as '24-7 Prayer'. 

Journal entry, Monday Jan 7, 2013
Tonight I arrived in Hamilton... my hopefully holy experiment. Lord, I feel like you led me here. I'm just going to... follow your lead. Like a dance. Help me to be sensitive to you, to follow you, trusting in your steps.

Last January I was invited to be an intern with GOHOP; my principal role was to help coordinate our annual night-and-day inner city prayer room in Hamilton. Over 450 people from over 60 different churches came to engage in prayer and worship in creative and interactive ways. Oh, it was amazing. To see people finding community, finding peace, finding a God that they could communicate with, finding a creative venue to express their doubt, their questions, and their faith.  

I've always found prayer rooms to be so interesting. God seems so close in these 'thin places' where the strings of heaven are pulled by punk and prayer-warrior alike. We're swept up in God's glorious fun of creatively communing with him, restoring relationships and places, and reaching out to others in prayer and hospitality. 

Since learning about the '24-7' movement and it's creative communities contextualized in prayer eight years ago, it's stayed alive in my mind as I've  taken the concept to each place I've been. I remember sitting on the stoop with a Philippino missionary friend in Thailand, sharing about 24-7 prayer: about prayer rooms and creativity, about vulnerability and healing, about potlucks and namaste. As tears slipped down her cheeks from being burnt out (she and her husband had adopted orphaned children from Mynamar), she agreed and shared my excitement. I even met a Burmese woman who shared my dream, and had already been renting our a building to hopefully use for discipleship, a Christian library, a half-way house, and a prayer room. It's been heavy on my heart, and I've participated and organized weeks of night-and-day prayer in Bible College, University, and moved to Hamilton just to be with and learn from others who share my excitement.



Each time I've been in England since I lived there in 2004, I've made my customary visit to the old building that used to house 24-7 Prayer in Reading, and try to organize a visit to one of the other communities in England. I almost joined the '24-7 Prayer Vision Course' in England last fall, but instead decided to continue working and paying off my student loans. After so long, I have the opportunity to visit other communities and mingle with other 24-7 folks! As an intern with the house of prayer, I am heading to the UK for one month to participate in the 24-7 International Prayer Gathering in Dublin, Ireland, with a team from Hamilton. En route, I’m also participating in a conference in London focused on prayer rooms in public schools (yeah. Seriously. I know. Check these folks out on their website), visiting other 24-7 communities of creativity, prayer, and hospitality, as well as the Celtic monastic communities of Northumbria and Iona.

In Hamilton, I currently work part-time as a bicycle mechanic for New Hope Community Bikes. It’s a non-profit where I’m able to mentor kids, teach youth and adults how to repair bicycles both in our workshop as well as at schools and apartment complexes, and be involved in an other really neat community and ministry in Hamilton’s lower income East end. I had originally been drawn to Hamilton in order to learn from the community here, and take new skills and understanding back to Thailand. However, I've found a home here, and until I’m directed abroad again, I’ll be based in Hamilton with my four housemates and our cat named Westley, having folks over for dinner, fixing bicycles, and creating neat-o prayer spaces. 

If you like postcards, send me your address and I'll pass on some love! Otherwise, thanks for reading, for your support, and for your friendship. If you like whispering into God's ear, pray that I'll be learning lots, staying focused yet flexible, and that our little team of six pilgrims from Hamilton will be a blessing to those we meet, and will travel safely. 

I've been abundantly blessed - over half of the costs of the trip have been already covered by anonymous donations and financial blessings from family and friends. If you feel that you would like to support me financially in this endeavor as well, you can visit www.canadahelps.org, type in 'Greater Ontario House of Prayer', and just let them know in the 'message' that you wish to support my trip to the UK with 24-7 Prayer. 

my own shrinking heart

At the end of August I was able to visit my sister and her family in Saint John, NB. Within six months of moving my life back to Ontario, Naomi & Co. moved out East, an hour from where I used to live! It was a pleasure to be able to visit the lovely folks surrounding St. Stephen's University, as well as spending a few days with my sisters Jonna and Naomi, and Naomi's three sons.


 I'm not going to pretend that I was very good at helping with Oliver, Charlie, and Thomas. Honestly, I got pretty tired quickly, as I'm not practiced in the stamina of playing toddlers. I'm familiar with more time alone, in reading and in reflection, in cycling through the city and sipping tea in hidden corners of cafes. However, on one evening when the kids were safely in bed, Naomi came downstairs with a strange request,


"Uh... Nicci, Oliver wants you to come up and scratch his back." I opened his door slowly and sat on his bed, lightly 'scratching' his tiny back with my fingertips, singing to him. I wondered if that's how Jesus feels when we come to him with our requests, boldly like a child. My heart was full as I understood the love of Jesus a little more, through my own bumbling efforts to love my nephews... if I so eagerly went to the bedside of a little boy, not even mine, how much more does he run to us? 




Similarly, after we spent our time at St. Martin's Beach building a dam with Oliver and Charlie, Charlie (2 years old) ended up sopping wet and freezing cold. I stripped him of his wet clothes and wrapped him up in my jacket, holding him in my arms, carrying him down the beach and all the way to the van. He snuggled up against me and closed his eyes, and though my arms hurt as his little body relaxed completely, I wouldn't have passed him off for the world. Dang, these little guys. Thanks for teaching me about the greater love of our God, through my own shrinking heart learning to love : ).