“When your feet are moving, your mind is engaged,” said Sarah Troxel, freshman applied linguistics major and vice president of Union’s IJM chapter.
The labyrinth, sponsored by Union’s IJM chapter, took place in the grove outside the Pennick Academic Complex. A path of white rocks led participants through a time of prayer including confession, praises and intercession.
“We have suggestions along the path, but we try not to make it too specific,” Troxel said. “We want people to pray as God leads them.”
Alexa Mackay, senior social work major, is the president of Union’s IJM chapter. She said the prayer labyrinth began last spring as a way to broaden the reach of IJM on campus and encourage the community to pray.
“It allows space for you to pray as generally or specifically as you want to,” Mackay said.
She said that IJM focuses on modern slavery and human trafficking, so for her the emphasis of prayer was on those issues, but it may be different for someone else.
“We have stations that say to pray for certain things,” Mackay said. “For us, that’s human trafficking, but for them it might be the orphans or the homeless.”
At 10 a.m. and 8 p.m., students played worship music in the grove as part of the prayer walk. The labyrinth was open all day, but the emphasis was at those two times.
Troxel said IJM is open to all Union students, and they meet every Monday at 8 p.m. Every other week is a prayer meeting or a planning meeting. Troxel said the group always takes time together for prayer and reading Scripture.
Mackay said the IJM chapter is preparing for a jewelry sale later this semester where they will sell jewelry made by women who have been victims of human trafficking to benefit Destiny Rescue, an organization that helps people in such situations.
“We are always in prayer for these people,” Mackay said. “And we try to do what we can when we can to help them in any way we can. The biggest way we do that is by raising awareness.”
