FORT RUCKER, Ala. (April 30, 2015) -- Fort Rucker will celebrate the National Day of Prayer May 7 with a luncheon at The Landing from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. to ask people of all faiths to come and pray for the nation.
"Last year, we just had a small service to recognize the day, but this year we wanted to make (the National Day of Prayer) a big deal, so we've invited Tommy Bowden, former Clemson University coach, to be our guest speaker," said Chaplain (Maj.) Troy Allan, Fort Rucker Family Life chaplain. "We wanted to do something really special and bring somebody in who could really talk about the importance of faith, the importance of leadership, and the importance of building our nation and supporting it through prayer."
The National Day of Prayer was initiated in 1952 by Conrad Hilton and then-Senator Frank Carlson of Kansas, and was passed into public law that the president of the United States was to set aside one day during the year, other than a Sunday, as a National Day of Prayer, according to the National Day of Prayer website at www.nationaldayofprayer.org.
It wasn't until 1988 that Ronald Reagan signed the law dedicating the first Thursday in May as the annual observance for the day. The day is one that people of all faiths are welcome to participate in, said Allan, and is a day that the nation asks people to pray to their creator to ask guidance for the nation.
"It's a very unique thing because you don't usually see a lot of faiths coming together like this, but this is such an important event to really ask God to bless us and to help us, whatever faith we are," he said. "We wanted to make it more of an outreach for people to be able to come and support this National Day of Prayer and come to a place where this is what we do -- we support our nation. It's a unique event supporting the nation in what we do in defense of the nation, and then supporting the nation in prayers -- it's a powerful event to bring people together."
The theme for this year's event is "Lord, Hear Our Cry," which comes from the Bible's Old Testament, I Kings 8:28, as the scripture for this year: "Hear the cry and the prayer that your servant is praying in your presence this day."
"With this year's theme, we're asking God to really hear our prayers in strengthening our nation," said Allan, as he spoke on the importance of faith. "As chaplains, we get to see a lot of how faith helps people in their lives, regardless of what their faith is.
"I work in mostly clinical settings, pastoral care and counseling, so I get a lot of people who come to me from many different faith backgrounds and some from no faith at all," he said. "People come and they kind of find out that some of the questions that they have that are causing them pain or to stay up late are really faith-based questions. As they get guidance and get somebody to walk with them through that, they start to understand that having faith in something, if they call it God or whatever it may be, is important in our lives. It gives us direction, it gives us guidance and it really helps us to pull values that are important in our lives."
The luncheon is open to the public and tickets are available for a suggested donation of $5, and the menu selection will include southern-style barbeque chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes, rolls, salad, iced tea and coffee.
For more information, call 255-2989 or 255-2012.
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