By Abby Rathburn | Staff Writer
For 72 hours this week, Fountain Mall was flooded with prayer and worship.
Approximately 3,000 students gathered nightly Sunday through Wednesday to hear from speakers, sing worship songs and pray.
Students, faculty and staff manned a prayer tent around the clock for attendees to pray and worship anytime. Additionally, students of all denominations gathered each night for a special time of worship and a message, according to Director of Operations Anna Webb.
“Our hope for this year really was to see students go from a comfortable or complacent life and faith to a committed life and faith and really challenge them to take next steps that may feel challenging or uncomfortable,” Webb said.
Feeling this conviction, 61 students were baptized Wednesday night following the last sermon. Seattle sophomore Amelie Fleury was baptized at FM72 last year and reflected on her experience as she watched many of her peers do the same.
“I was just truly convicted both by the speakers and by the community of the people who I was with of what it is to live and surrender to the Lord and that was just the greatest peace and joy that I’d ever experienced in my life,” Fleury said.
According to FM72’s website, leaders hoped that through this time, God would bring revival to Baylor’s campus and the larger Waco community. Just like Fleury, students across Baylor’s campus recommitted themselves to Christ. Wichita, Kan., freshman Paisley Ghormley said a phrase that stuck with her from the week was “rekindled hope.”
“At the beginning of the service, they talked about rekindled hope, and I think that’s the most perfect way to describe FM72 because looking around and seeing everyone so devoted to Jesus, I’m so grateful to be at a university where that’s so normal,” Ghormley said.
Although it’s a campus-wide event, students experience personal transformation at it. Webb said students who stayed in the prayer tent throughout the night into the early morning showed their lives had changed throughout the week.
“It’s not an event or a production to them, but it truly is a space to rest in the presence of Jesus,” Webb said.
Highly dependent on its volunteers, campus ministry partners and everyday people signed up to help lead, work and plan the entirety of the event. Fort Worth freshman Minh Nguyen volunteered by singing in the choir Wednesday night.
“I would say it’s a space where I can worship freely and be able to lead people in worship and be able to give that glimpse of heaven through the gifts God has gifted me with,” Nguyen said.
