U-Haul, we pray.  24-7 Prayer Rooms have always been found in unconventional places soaking ordinary locations with God’s presence.  This week’s story from Montreal, Canada is no exception.

“I’m still recovering from this weekend’s event,” writes Daria Tomiuk.  “I’m part of a church community that doesn’t have an actual church building; we rent space in a school for our Sunday morning service, so when thinking about creating a 24-7 Prayer Room, we needed to think a little ‘unconventionally’". Daria and her church rent storage space and a boardroom in Montreal to pray in every Thursday morning in building owned by a van and truck rental company called "U-Haul". While in prayer one Thursday morning, Daria and other's hatched the idea to rent one of U-Haul’s trucks to pray in for twenty-four hours. Why not turn the truck into a prayer room? "The idea seemed a little crazy and perhaps not the best way to introduce our church to 24-7 Prayer", explained Daria, "but when I spoke to a few people about it, excitement built and it became clear that this was what would work for us."
 
So they did it! They did twenty-four hours of prayer starting on a Friday night at 7pm and going until the next day, Saturday, at 7pm. "We purposefully parked on a main boulevard in our community, at an Esso Gas Station, which shares the parking lot with one of the biggest malls in Montreal.", wrote Daria.  "It went so smoothly, other than the lack of sleep, it felt so easy. The Esso owner totally welcomed the idea.  He even gave us his electricity and extension cord!" Daria reports that many people came and prayed. They saw God do some amazing work in peoples lives; many prayers were prayed for their community, city, co-workers, friends and family.  People began to think ‘missionally’, sending out emails/text messages to friends and family asking how they could be praying for them during this prayer time and beyond. They even set up a ‘wailing wall’ inside the truck which ended up full of these requests. As Daria wrote her report, she received another call from someone about how much that time in the ‘Prayer truck’ meant to her and how God has really been speaking to her since… "It’s amazing and overwhelming.", reported Daria.
 
"To be honest though", continued Daria, "leading up to this was pretty hard for me. The opposition I experienced before was great. The night before I had terrible dreams and woke up feeling anxious and like it would be one big failure… Satan did not want to see this happen. I even had people close to me who just seemed totally unsupportive of the idea- it really didn’t make sense. Of course God won that battle though."
 
"As I reflect on those twenty-four hours, a few things really stand out to me,"  commented Daria. "As ‘unconventional’ and weird as it was, it got people together AND praying. There were three girls who spent almost the full twenty-four hours there with me; it was so encouraging and amazing time for us together." One of these girls arranged a station wagon for people to sleep in, if needed. One girl, Cindy, helped Daria with all the set-up and tear down, never left and didn’t sleep at all during the full twenty-four hours. she was so excited about what God was doing in and through the group.  From 11pm-12am there were ten people in the truck praying together! Then 12-1am there were 8, 3-4:30am there were five. "If all it takes is renting a U-Haul to get people together and praying for our city", wrote Daria, "then that’s what we’ll continue doing!"
 
"I pray that this simple story of stepping out in faith for a short twenty-four hours to pray will encourage you to also take risks and watch what God does with your faithfulness.", concluded Daria. "I would love to help you if you need anything. And once you do it, let me know so that I can inspire the rest of Canada!”