Name of School: Highview Baptist School
Location of School: Louisville, Kentucky
Spiritual Emphasis
Program Objective: to make prayer a meaningful experience for elementary students
Summary of Program:
In Louisville, Kentucky, celebrity gatherings and pounding hooves mark the first week of May. If you throw in a few hats and Thoroughbreds, everyone knows it’s Kentucky Derby time again. At Highview Baptist School, the elementary students and faculty members are excited about more than a two-minute race. On the first Thursday in May, elementary students sit in military Humvees, climb into the cab of an 18-wheeler, and meet face-to-face the men and women who serve our local community each day. No, it is not career day. It is the National Day of Prayer, Prayer Walk.
The purpose of the Prayer Walk is to make prayer a meaningful experience for students in kindergarten through fifth grade. While junior high and high school students are praying for the needs of the country in their own prayer service, the younger members of the school lift up the needs of those who serve them each day throughout their community.
The Prayer Walk is designed to be an interactive event between the students and the community service personnel. The students go to each station to meet the various professionals assembled. A policeman discusses the need of police officers for safety as they patrol the neighborhood. The firemen share the need for safety as they fight to save lives and property. The county-clerk representative brings a voting machine, reminding the students to pray for elected officials. The Army and the Air Force soldiers in their camouflage remind students both to pray for those who defend our freedoms and to pray about our nation’s interests around the world. Personnel from the Emergency Medical Services and the Red Cross represent those who respond to health and disaster emergencies.
After meeting and listening to the representatives, each class takes a moment to pray specifically for men and women in that profession. At the conclusion of prayer time, students receive from each station a stamp in their personal “Prayer Passport.”
In addition to service personnel, those who minister to the spiritual well-being of the community are represented. The local Christian radio station brings its live-broadcast van, and the students have the opportunity to help encourage and edify believers in the community. At the Salvation Station, the students are reminded to pray for the pastors who present the plan of salvation each week to families and neighbors. The students also hear the gospel presented to them in an age-appropriate way.
Before heading back to textbooks and assignments, the students make one last stop on their Prayer Walk. It is time for the balloon release, when each student receives a balloon that has an attached postcard. The postcards ask the person who later finds the balloon to share any prayer requests that he or she has with the school. Then in chapel, the student body prays accordingly.
As the last yellow balloon floats into the distance, students and volunteers return to their responsibilities. The community servants go back to their jobs, having been prayed for by more than three hundred children. Parent volunteers smile after seeing their children talking to their Creator. As for the children, prayer has taken on a new excitement and a new reality in their lives.
Prayer Walk 5.5