“Prayer is there all the time, but you don’t see the significance or value of what it could be,” says Alyssa Pokharel, a Calvin University junior from Kathmandu, Nepal. She has experienced prayer in classes, in dorms, in bible studies, and before meals during her time at Calvin.
“It’s everywhere. It’s embedded into the way we live out our faith,” she said. “But I think there’s just so much more potential for us to learn about what prayer can be.”
In January 2024, Pokharel felt a prompt from the Holy Spirit to focus on prayer. At the time, she was a discipleship leader in the dorms but thought prayer, particularly intercessory prayer, was not a spiritual discipline she was particularly good at.
But, “Campus Ministries did a lot to show us the significance of spiritual disciplines—faith practices that really open up this whole new world of beautiful relationship with God,” she said.
She made a New Year’s resolution to focus on prayer, having no idea where God would take that desire. A few weeks later, sitting in a breakout session at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship’s Worship Symposium, “I felt this voice, this tug within me prompting me to start a prayer gathering at Calvin,” Pokharel said.
As days and weeks passed after that event, conversation after conversation confirmed that prompt in Pokharel’s heart to be from God. At the same time, she was personally feeling the importance of starting this gathering.
“During this time I was going through a hard season, and sometimes I’d have a day with so much peace for seemingly no reason,” she said. “My friend Anna would text me and say, ‘I’m praying for you today.’ And I’d think, ‘This peace can only be from God.’ It was a tangible way of showing me that prayer has such real power.”
In March 2024, Pokharel took a step of obedience and started a weekly prayer gathering on Wednesday mornings from 7 to 8 a.m. in the basement of the university chapel. And while there was no formal structure to begin with, certain aspects of prayer have become central, including a centering prayer where students sit in silence and give everything they are carrying with them to God, confess sins privately, and then enter into a time of intercession.
“We ask the Lord to put on our hearts what he wants us to pay attention to, what he wants us to intercede for,” Pokharel said. “Every week there is something he’s speaking to multiple people at the same time. Sometimes we just need to give the Lord space to speak before we present our list.”
While it’s clear this small gathering of praying students is having an effect at Calvin, Pokharel is also hearing about how it’s inspiring people off campus.
“Yesterday,” she said, “one of my friends texted me and said, ‘I wanted to let you know that our prayer gathering has inspired a prayer gathering at our church.’”
About the Author
Matt Kucinski is media relations manager at Calvin University.
