Caption: Senior Rafael Meikle prays with his “kinder buddy” Ezekiel Barkley. [by Michelle Chang]
by Liam Schimenes
São Paulo, Brazil – Students at the Pan American Christian Academy (PACA) gathered early Wednesday morning, September 25 to join students in the United States and around the world who met at their school’s flag poles for the annual See You at the Pole (SYATP) event for a time of prayer and fellowship.
The event is traditionally held on the fourth Wednesday of September every year. This is the second year that PACA is participating in the event. The school day began with secondary students from sixth grade to 12th grade meeting at the school flagpole during the normally scheduled homeroom time to pray for their friends, families and community.
The tradition, which started in the United States in 1990, has since spread to schools around the world, including PACA. This year, the event marked the 34th anniversary of the movement.
Every year, the people at SYATP.com create a unifying theme and provide support to students to participate and lead this prayer event at their own schools. This year’s theme was, “1st Pray,” using the Bible verse from 1 Timothy 2:1 that says, “I urge you, first of all, to pray.”
This year, a group of Christian musical artists came together to promote SYATP 2024 by creating a special playlist on Spotify (LINK HERE) to commemorate the event.
For these artists, it is important to inspire middle and high school students to take the initiative to lead these kinds of prayers. “See You at the Pole” is a student-led initiative.
“It encourages young people to come together in prayer for their schools, communities, and nation,” says Joshua Davis, from the SYATP website.
At PACA, the school chaplain, Lucas Ham Swisher, collaborates with the spiritual life leaders of each high school grade to help lead the prayers for SYATP. Each grade prayed over a specific topic within these four areas: the Church, the nations, schools, and PACA families. Prayer posters were created to highlight the prayer needs for the 24 countries represented by the students here.
“It’s a powerful moment for us students to come together and support one another through prayer,” said senior spiritual life leader, Giovanna Simao de Souza. The event for the secondary students concluded with a group prayer led by the student council spiritual leaders.
Caption: Elementary students join together in prayer for their school, their community, the churches and the nations represented by the PACA student body. [by Michelle Chang]
However, the elementary students were given an opportunity to join in special sessions of prayer during the 1st and 2nd period of classes. Volunteers from Grade 12 led prayers for the lower elementary students, ending with a special time of prayer between Senior Buddies and Kinder buddies. Each senior was able to walk down to the breeze way and pray over one or more country posters with their kinder buddies.
During second period, four Grade 11 student volunteers joined the upper elementary students (from third through fifth grade) to lead them through a special prayer at the flagpole. Teachers were encouraged to bring their students to the breezeway to pray over the country posters throughout the day. Eventually, the prayer posters were moved to the main building where the secondary lockers and administrative offices are located.
They are still available for anyone to read and pray over in the weeks to come.
