Hello, Friends of Shiloh Ministries:
Thank you all who prayed for our Father’s Day prayer journey. Last weekend we traveled to Alexandria and Washington to conduct our first intercessory incursion in the new season of Pray for the Bay. We are dividing this account into two parts. It is intended as a teaching model to raise up intercessors who will take deliberate aim at recapturing the territory around the Chesapeake Bay.
Alexandria is a strategic place to pray for the nation’s capital, its government and its people. Alexandria and adjacent Arlington, Virginia, were part of the original District of Columbia when it was created around 1800. As a busy seaport, Alexandria was a major market in the slave trade. Men made fortunes importing Africans and selling them to plantations in the South. Fear that Congress would abolish slavery in the District led Alexandria to request land formerly belonging to Virginia be “retroceded,” which occurred in 1846.
At each of the eight places where we prayed, we proclaimed “the Lord’s death until His coming again” by celebrating Communion, the ultimate prophetic act. Here is what else we prayed:
DAY ONE
RIDGELY: Macedonian Call
The morning we were to leave, Barbara dreamed she was standing in a sand and oyster shell parking lot. A woman came up to her and said it was urgent to pray in Ridgely because there was a curse over the town. In the dream, Barbara took authority, praying in the Spirit. Ironically, she wasn’t even sure where Ridgely was. That would be our first stop.
We drove through the pretty town, stopped at the school to pray and then parked in front of the church the Lord directed us to. As we were praying, a lady came out of this church where she has attended for 60 years. She gave us permission when we asked to drive a stake there. We would not have done this without permission. (We call these spiritual surveyor’s stakes because they mark out territory we are claiming for the Kingdom of God. On them is written “Jesus is Lord,” “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done,” “revival, awakening and transformation” and other declarations.) Whenever we drive a stake, we hammer it all the way into the ground so it can’t hurt people and no one will remove it.
BAY BRIDGE: Stake and Eggs
Several months ago, we prayed and drove a stake within sight of the Bay Bridge Tunnel in Virginia. On this trip we did the same thing at a beach within sight of the Bay Bridge. When we pulled into the parking lot, it was the same as in Barbara’s dream.
We walked down to a small public beach and asked God to keep us hidden as we prayed, declared and drove a stake. We prayed for the healing of the bay and safety for the bridge. As the water lapped against the shore, we saw thousands of little fish or turtle eggs suspended in it. We took it as a sign that life was about to hatch, symbolic of a harvest of souls.
NATIONAL HARBOR: Blessing the Water
After checking in our hotel, we took a water taxi to National Harbor, across from Alexandria on the Potomac (nicknamed in American lore “the Nation’s River”). This waterway is one of the principal tributaries of the bay and has been severely polluted for at least 150 years. Abraham Lincoln reputedly left Washington on summer nights to avoid its stench.
We were to pray there because it is a place where gambling will come if legalized. We were sent to declare righteousness and repulse spirits assigned to steal from the unwary. As we sailed to National Harbor, we declared God’s sovereignty over the bay region and prayed for His Spirit to hover over the water.
An inordinate amount of trash and driftwood floated on the brown river. We took this as a prophetic sign. When we asked the Lord about its significance, He told us most of this visible pollution enters the river at Washington. The debris and dead wood reflect the wasteful nature of the government system, not a particular presidential administration.
We faced the Washington Monument and U.S. Capitol upriver and declared unity for our nation. We prayed for the President and military, Congress and the Supreme Court – that the nation’s laws agree with God’s Law and we return to paths of righteousness. We declared that churches come together and decreed hope, joy, peace and trust in the Lord. We sowed humility, love, forgiveness, stewardship and faithfulness. We prayed that God protect the bay region from storms and disasters, and that He blow a fresh wind of His Spirit to cleanse the land and prepare the harvest.
An experience later in our trip tied in with this. Walking toward the river in Alexandria, we stopped at the gardens behind Carlyle house. Built by a prosperous colonial merchant, this mansion was once a gathering place for society. A prominent American flag waving from an adjacent home kept distracting me. Something seemed out of order. I closed my eyes and the Lord said, “Some people, but not all, are patriotic because it makes money for them, not because they are committed to principles. It is the same with Christianity.”
Our next e-mail will report on our exciting forays in the George Washington Masonic National Memorial and at Freedom House, once the holding pen of a large slave-trading operation. As you read about this incursion, please don’t assume the job has been finished. It will take lots of prayer by as many people as are willing, just as we have followed people who faithfully prayed before. Let us together fill the bowl in Heaven with our corporate intercession.
Later this summer, we hope to do an intercessory incursion around the Northern Neck of Virginia. If any of you over there have any ideas, please let us know.
