God, country and school prayer

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God, country and school prayer

By Kiley Miller, The Burlington Hawk Eye, (Burlington, Iowa), September 26, 2007

Mount Pleasant -- Sunlight on the flag, a goldfinch perched on a dried flower blossom, and 14 students lifting their voices in song: "Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Open the eyes of my heart."

This was See You at the Pole at Mount Pleasant High School -- sweet, contemplative and, in some ways, beautiful.

Held around the globe Wednesday, See You at the Pole brings prayer to public schools once each year in a way legislators and the court system allow.

"We prayed for the president, the troops and other students," said 18-year-old Alicia Kokaly.

See You at the Pole began in 1990 when a small group of young people gathered for a weekend of fellowship in Burleson, Texas. They felt compelled to drive around the area and pray at three area schools.

Youth leaders across the state carried the idea forward, staging the first official event that September. One year later, See You at the Pole had gone national, with a million participants gathering at school flagpoles. Organizers expected more than 3 million students to bow their heads Wednesday in all 50 states and more than 20 foreign countries.

"As a Christian young person, it's important that you're willing to live your testimony, so that it's not just about you but about reaching out to others," said Megan Yturriaga, a youth and associate pastor at First Assembly of God in Burlington who helped promote See You at the Pole among area churches. "Prayer does that. This puts some feet to the faith that you have."

Yturriaga made it to two flagpoles before the first bell rang. She found just seven students praying in West Burlington. But to the north in Mediapolis, she counted more than 50 kids before all the stragglers had arrived. Better yet, it was a mixed crowd, the jocks hanging with the band geeks, the brains and the in-betweens.

"We hear so often about bullying and other divisions among students and cliques," she said. "I think this is a unifying event."

See You at the Pole also can uplift teachers and school administrators, Yturriaga believes, letting them know, amid the trials and struggles of their jobs, that some students do care for them.

Because all prayer at public schools must be student led, Yturriaga advised parents and teachers who wished to participate Wednesday to pray across the street from school grounds. The Burlington School District, for one, does not require such segregation, she said, "but it is important that we follow the rules to the letter."

Following the rules is a concept nearly every student understands, even if some choose not to accept it. And there are unwritten rules governing a high school that are much more dangerous to violate than "no cheating" and "no fighting" -- rules against standing out, being different, and trumpeting religious faith.

Kokaly, who attends First Baptist Church in Mount Pleasant, has faced the skeptics before.

"They're always trying to find loopholes in the Bible," she said.

Alyah Bunnell understands. In the whirlpool that is high school, the daughter of a youth pastor said, sex is OK, drugs are OK and drinking is OK.

"For you to stake out a place and not accept those things," Bunnell said, "you pretty much sacrifice your social life."

When he heard that, Ross Werner, another See You at the Pole prayer, had a joke at the ready.

"It wasn't too hard for me," he said. "I didn't have any friends anyway."

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