This year’s Annual Day of Prayer & Action for Human Habitat was a great success! Hearts were lifted, hope spread, and charity displayed as people from various religious and economic backgrounds gathered in St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Provo last Sunday. Heartwarming, sincere prayers, remarks, scriptures, and musical numbers were offered for the homeless and those struggling locally and worldwide asking that they receive the housing help they need and reminding those in attendance the importance charity and prayer.
Gary Jensen, Habitat’s Board President reminded everyone that, “the greatest motivation in this world is love.”
Two young girls demonstrated this love by making a public contribution. They presented a large, home-made check to Jensen and Kena Mathews, Habitat’s Executive Director. The girls and other children, who attend St. Mary’s, walked around the St. Mary’s congregation in previous weeks to collect change in their “noisy bucket”—so named for the clattering made by the coins inside. This money they then donated to Habitat.
Next, the audience was shown how their donations and prayers help as new homeowner, Flora Aleman, shared her Habitat story. Two months ago she, her husband, and their three little children moved into the house they and Habitat built together in Orem. The whole family had shared the dream of owning their own home and prayed for it over many years. Now, they look forward to December when they can decorate their first Christmas tree and thank Habitat for the opportunity. “They gave us the extra push we needed to…better our lives,” Flora said, “through this program our prayers were answered.”
Robert Millet, retired Dean of Religion at Brigham Young University and the special guest speaker, said he was “deeply moved” by their experience before adding his own ideas about the virtue of prayer.
“Prayer spiritually strengthens by providing access to Him who has all power,” he said.
He advised those in attendance to be more conscious of the manner and words of their prayers. He suggested that they not “rush into the Divine Presence” but to treat prayer and communication with God with respect and humility, rather than act out of duty or obligation.
He discussed praying from the heart and how a love of God can translate into a love of others. He urged all to treat others as God would; for “God is love.”
Finally, he recognized this love as it influences Habitat for Humanity and reiterated the vision of Habitat’s participants with a couple verses from Isaiah, “and they shall build houses and inhabit them…and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.”
Habitat’s International Day of Prayer began in 1983, to make housing a matter of conscience with the goal to place in the hearts, minds, and souls of people everywhere the idea that poverty housing is unacceptable. Prayer provides an opportunity to keep faith at the center of a call to service and justice. For more than three decades, Habitat for Humanity has made a dramatic difference in the lives of people around the world.
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