Heart of The Valley House of Prayer

So, I had just moved to Corvallis, OR for college at Oregon State University and I met a lady at a Christian church there named Charlotte. She told me about a prayer room that I might be interested in checking out just down the road from my apartment. It was in a time of my life where I was really searching for deeper meaning, so a prayer room sounded great to me! I went and visited one day and found a group of guys reciting poetry that they had written to share with each other. They let me join in and I mostly listened. All of their poetry was about what they believed God was telling them. They had written the poetry while meditating with the Holy Spirit and listening to His promptings. I thought this was really cool and I wanted to learn how to hear God too. 

Long story short, I ended up getting really involved in the upper room. I would attend prayer sessions to pray for the well-being of the world and different people groups, and I would continue to learn how to hear God for myself. I also caught wind with another prayer group called Chi Alpha. They were a student ministry group affiliated with OSU. Every weekday at lunch I would come to the upper room and pray for the campus. I really enjoyed that. I made friends in my prayer groups and grew closer to God.

Soon I met people who were part of a Christian group called "Heart of The Valley House of Prayer" or "HOVHOP." They said their mission was to pray for the church of Corvallis and unite the believers there as well as seek God's Heart like David from the Bible did. One of the things that I loved doing at the House of Prayer was worship leading. I would sing songs and make up my own lyrics on the spot as praise to God. It was a lot of fun. This group of people was really inspirational and special to me because they worshiped God more freely than I had seen other groups do. They would dance to music, wave flags, and even speak in tongues sometimes. I thought the "tongues" were pretty weird at first, and I still do now. But I just kind of think of it as Christians' way of scatting like you do in jazz music. I have to admit, I tried speaking in tongues a few times, and I know something came out of my mouth that sounded like another language, but honestly, I don't think it meant anything. The Chi Alpha group I prayed with spoke in tongues too. They said you should speak in tongues an hour a day! I thought this was absurd. What a waste of time I thought. I think they thought it would scare the demons away or something... 

Anyway, I got invited to join an internship with HOVHOP my first year living in Corvallis. I was hesitant to join because I didn't want to overload myself due to the fact that I was going to school full time and living in a new place with a new mental illness, but Graham from the House of Prayer thought that I would love it. So, I took his word and I joined the internship. He was right. I loved it. I found that it was very meditative and comforting to my mental health since we spent a lot of time in the presence of God doing art, music, and prayer-- some of my most favorite things! We learned how to be prophetic by hearing the voice of God and speaking into each other's lives. I made friends and grew a support network. I loved the internship so much that I ended up repeating it for three years. I think it's what supported me in my college experience. The people I was with taught me a lot about God and my experiences hearing God the Father for myself made it very clear to me that Jesus was indeed real. I felt like I was finally coming into my own and not just believing something because people were shoving it down my throat, but instead because God himself had made it clear to me.

Things were looking up, but then I started to feel the impact of all the work I had been doing. Going to school full time, spending hours doing church activities each week-- even though I loved the things I was doing, I truly was beginning to feel overloaded. My mental health was starting to feel the brunt of it. I was going to have to start taking out hefty loans for the first time to continue school the next term. I was really starting to wonder if I could even finish my degree. "Should I keep on pushing myself?" I thought, "or should I take a break?" All I knew was that something had to change, but I was afraid of all the unknowns. "What if I ended up really sick again?" I needed to act fast. 

Beginning Spiritual Adventures

Growing up, my mom took my three sisters and myself to a Christian church. I learned about Jesus and God and the Bible in Sunday School classes and once I was a little older I attended the main services. As a kid, I believed what I was taught but once I got into high school, I started to question things. I stopped going to church and decided to put my spirituality on the shelf. It wasn't until I started experiencing mental health issues that my spirituality came off the shelf and I started to look at it more closely. I feel like my experiences with marijuana (good and bad) may have activated my interest in spirituality initially because I remember pondering the universe while I was high. But, my strong need to know the truth about reality didn't really set in until once I started feeling unstable. I think this is because in my instability I needed something to hang on to, something firm and steady like God. 

I've heard stories of people having bad experiences with religion and "the church" in their lives, but that never really happened to me. Once I got back home to my mom's house to recover after my mental health outbreak, I started seriously considering going back to the Christian church. I thought about it really hard. In fact, I think I thought about this decision so hard that it actually contributed to me feeling more unstable. I would lay in bed for hours feeling tired and sick from my illness and just pray to Jesus and God. I would experiment with just praying to God and not Jesus to test to see if Jesus was real or not. I had always had this deep feeling that God was real, even as a very young girl. But I was never quite sure about Jesus. But I'll tell you--- I was terrified at the thought that Satan and demons might be real and that if I didn't believe the right thing I would go to hell when I died. I was also very worried about all the other people in the world and what their destiny was. These kinds of thoughts only added extra pressure and stress to my mind and made me feel more sick. So, I eventually decided to return to what was familiar and to what I thought God was telling me to do when I prayed. I returned to the Christian church and sang songs to Jesus and prayed with new made friends. I didn't realize it at the time, but the relationships I invested in at my church became an essential support system for me. And, the outlet of using my spiritual nature to express my heart to God and feel the freedom of relating to a supreme being made me really happy and aided my healing process. 

While I was living at my mom's house I went to a small nearby church while I also took a couple classes each term at the local university. These classes were easy and fun. They were Jazz Band (where I played my tenor saxophone for two terms), Saxophone lessons, History of Rock and Roll, and Philosophy of Sex and Love. In the fall I decided to take a shot at a larger university again and move 30min down the road from my mom. I moved into an apartment with three other girls and crossed my fingers really tight. I learn from the EAST program that moving can sometimes be stressful for someone with a mental health issue, so I was trying to be extra careful. I was still receiving support from the EAST team, but I would be transitioning off of their program soon. I researched the nearby Christian churches and quickly found one that I liked. I met a lady there named Charlotte on the first day I attended. I didn't know it at the time, but she would play an important role in my life to come. She found out that I was into art and music and invited me to check out a community prayer space near campus led by another ministry. Little did I know, but this ministry would change my life.