The Lord’s hand is orchestrating our U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) intercessory prayer team. I am amazed by how the Spirit inspires our prayers as we pray our team into being. Here is just the first chapter of this amazing journey.

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After contacting IFA and discovering there was no prayer call for the USVI territory, I became the first USVI prayer leader and began hosting weekly calls on June 13, 2023. There were no other participants for several months, but Illinois state leader Maria Slattery joined me every week to help pray for intercessors to join. Later, Wisconsin state leader MaryJo Coleman and Florida state leader Anita Lynott also joined the call and offered encouragement.

While attending IFA’s 50th anniversary gala in November 2023, I sat next to the Ohio state leader at the time Kimberly Brown on the ride to the Russell Senate Office Building. She prayed with me on the bus that the Lord would raise up a team of intercessors for the USVI. Immediately after getting off the bus, I hurried with a small mob of intercessors to climb the stairs to the third floor of the Russell Building for our morning briefing with senators. 

That’s when I bumped shoulders with a woman named Becky Bane, an IFA partner. She looked at my name tag and said, “I’ve been looking to meet you! I live in St. Croix from January through March and I wanted to meet the state leader from the USVI!” We exchanged contact information and to our surprise and delight, we live about two miles from each other.

Becky invited me to attend a weekly Bible study that she held in her home from January through March. Incidentally, it was held at the same time as my weekly call. Becky and I began to pray together along with another intercessor from the Bible study. Soon after that, two more intercessors joined our call. I will always be grateful to Maria and Mary Jo for their regular presence with me on the initial USVI prayer calls, and for their mentorship.

In July 2024, the USVI sent representatives to the Republican National Convention. The Republican candidate running for USVI Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, Ron Pickard, “happened” to go to the IFA prayer room to receive prayer for his candidacy.   

As background, IFA had requested to have a prayer room at both the RNC and the DNC, but only the RCS approved the request. The fact that the USVI was able to send representatives to the RNC was itself an answered prayer, as we had been excluded in 2020 due to nefarious shenanigans, all leading to the USVI becoming virtually a one-party system of government. The Republicans won a lawsuit in January 2024 which restored the presence of the Republican Party. 

The Holy Spirit had been leading our USVI prayer group to intercede for balance in our government, and to break a spirit of corruption. Ironically, MaryJo Coleman (WI) was in the prayer room and had the opportunity to pray over Ron Pickard. How fitting, considering that MaryJo was one of my original prayer partners! She served as an extension of our hands–as a tangible part of the body of IFA USVI–and saw the fruit of her previous prayers with us for a godly candidate to run for the delegate position.

Isn’t the Lord amazing?  

Ron’s wife went with him to the prayer room where she met IFA Chief Program Officer Kris Kubal who gave her my contact information. Ron’s wife joined our prayer group a week later, and she is a powerful prayer warrior. The Lord is using her to keep us aware of what is going on in the election behind the scenes and to focus our prayer. We are not endorsing a particular party or candidate; rather, we are endorsing biblical values, and we pray that our delegate seat be filled with someone with biblical values. That delegate seat is our one and only presence in the U.S. national government and we want it to be our voice.

We are still praying for people to join us from St. Thomas and St. John, as our current prayer team members are all from St. Croix. I trust this will happen! It has been a privilege to pray under the IFA umbrella, and I look forward to establishing a strong USVI intercessory prayer group as the Lord calls more dry bones to life!

What vision have you seen come to fruition for your state or territory?

(Susan Jaquith is the IFA prayer leader for the U.S. Virgin Islands. Photo Credit: Unknown author – National Park service, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=800906)