This past year was full of heartbreak for the Wheaton College community. Last fall, Dr. Brett Foster, professor of English and Wheaton’s “Poet in Residence,” and Dr. Roger Lundin ’71, professor of English and Arthur F. Holmes Professor of Faith and Learning, passed away. Last winter, over 1,000 alumni sent letters, social media messages, and/or made calls to the College in response to the parting of ways between Wheaton and Dr. Larycia Hawkins, former associate professor of political science. As these events unfolded, I cried out to God in prayer for wisdom and understanding and held onto hope with my colleagues in Marketing Communications as we gathered most mornings during the dark winter months to pray for each other, our campus, faculty, staff, students, and alumni worldwide. 

As I prayerfully considered how we should address all that had happened on the pages of Wheaton magazine, I encountered President Ryken's February letter, in which he encouraged us to focus on five themes: lament, evaluation, repentance, forgiveness, and healing. These themes were an answer to my prayers. They were the steps we needed to take to move forward as a community. 

Over the course of two weeks in March, we interviewed 45 faculty members, staff members, and students across campus, asking five questions related to the five themes President Ryken highlighted in his letter. The answers to the fifth and final question of our interview, “My prayer for Wheaton is...” became the centerpiece of this issue’s features section, titled "Our Prayers for Wheaton." In these prayers for Wheaton, I sensed the heart of our campus. While it was clear that all of our interviewees had experienced pain and loss to some degree, I heard in their words an intense passion and zeal to honor the Lord in all that we do and say as a community. We have published all 45 of these prayers with the hope that they may be encouraging to you, our alumni and friends. 

My prayer for Wheaton is that with humble hearts we would fully trust and know how wide, long, high, and deep the Father’s love is for us. 

I invite you to please join us in praying for the Wheaton College community. If you have a prayer you would like to share, please send it to editor@wheaton.edu.

For Christ and His Kingdom,

Allison Althoff Steinke ’11