The daffodils were blooming the day my father died. It was 1993, and I was a freshman. A stranger, appointed by a family friend, found me around a crowded table at SAGA. “Are you Jen Pollock?” I nodded yes. “You need to call home.” I mutely followed her to the pay phone and reached my mother. Hours later, I found myself in some lonely O’Hare terminal, my life, without warning, having been emptied like a pocket.

I had not chosen Wheaton for its praying community, but its praying community held me up in long-winded grief. Friends and strangers prayed for me, and that group of strangers would likely have included the fervent group of women called Intercessors who, since 1940, have gathered on Thursday mornings to pray through weekly lists of prayer requests related to the College. These women have not only believed in the power of prayer; they have sought to exercise it, many on their knees.

Mary Graham Ryken M.A. ’88 attended her first Intercessors meeting in the late 1960s in the living room of Miriam Bailey Armerding ’42. (Miriam had arranged childcare for little Philip, now President Ryken ’88, in order for his mother to attend.) As Mary recalls, many of the women gathered that morning were quite elderly, but “they got down on their knees and prayed for the students who were ill, the work of the College in general, and for some alumni who were ill or in hard situations.”

If My People

Systematic, corporate intercessory prayer is a long tradition at Wheaton since the inception of the College. According to the College’s first archivist, Mary Bent Blanchard hon carried a small book with her to “mothers' meetings.” In this book, “the names of the children of those mothers who attended were written in a book and read over in meetings, that no one should be forgotten in prayer.”

The Intercessors Prayer Group began many decades later as an initiative of the Wheaton College Women’s Club, founded in 1929 by Mrs. Helen Spaulding Buswell in order to extend friendship and service opportunities to Wheaton College staff and faculty women. The minutes of a September 1939 Women’s Club gathering chronicle an invitation to a prayer meeting the next Thursday. That prayer effort seems to have formalized early in the tenure of Dr. V. Raymond Edman hon and his wife, Edith hon, whom he called “a prayer warrior and intercessor.” Minutes from a 1941 meeting noted that the prayer meetings were well attended, and by 1955, records indicate that the gatherings, now organized by Edith Edman, were regular and being held in the Edman home.

In her 1994 lecture to the Women’s Club, Ruth James Cording ’33 remembered Edith Edman’s personal commitment to prayer. “She gathered us together to pray for the College administration, the faculty and the students, as well as the alumni. She believed wholeheartedly in the power of intercessory prayer.”

Lisa Maxwell Ryken ’88 has also heard of Edith Edman’s example of passionate prayer. “I know that both Dr. and Mrs. Edman used to get up in the early hours of the morning. They used to pray for as many students as they could name. Mrs. Edman also went to HoneyRock in the summers and prayed for every camper and every staff member. [The Ed-mans] took Scripture very seriously and knew that we were called to be a praying people.”

But it may not only have been a general conviction about prayer’s necessity that prompted Edith Edman to gather women to pray for the College. As one current Intercessor anonymously shared, Edith had confided to her, years after her husband’s death, that particular tensions on campus during her husband’s tenure had made prayer even more urgent. When the campus turned to tumult, Edith Edman turned to prayer. Since that era, Intercessors has looked to support the College in similarly divisive times. “When there has been opposition to the College, we have definitely felt a special burden,” says Mary Ryken.

“What a lot of people don’t know,” Lisa Ryken, who now hosts the group, said in our phone interview, “is that in the midst of several of the really, really hard things for the College, we’ve had some pretty major medical issues with our kids. Those have been going on concurrently. It’s definitely been helpful to know that these people are praying.”

When Ruthie Knoedler Howard R.N. ’75 sees President Ryken on campus, he’s quick to thank her for her involvement in Intercessors. “I can’t tell you how much we rely on the prayers of this group for the College,” he tells her. Ruthie is encouraged: “We have a president who believes in the power of prayer.”

An Ordinary Thursday

Today, members of Intercessors arrive at the home of President and Lisa Ryken at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday mornings—earlier if they want a cup of coffee and conversation—and stay no longer than an hour. “These women are very, very serious about prayer,” Lisa explains. “There is not a lot of chit-chat.” Those attending are retired faculty members and wives of retirees, current staff members and wives of current staff, even mothers of both alumni and administrators. Some, whose grandmothers and mothers prayed as Intercessors, have inherited this legacy of prayer.

The prayer requests are promptly distributed to the attending members: requests from the Chaplain’s Office, from the Graduate School, still others from the department(s) being featured that week. (In advance of the weekly meeting, Lisa, the leader of the group, calls the respective department chair to ask for student and faculty requests.) Before prayer popcorns around the room, a small passage of Scripture is read—usually a Psalm selected by Lisa—to “align our desires with God’s.”

Sherri Litfin hon remembers the increased concern for privacy during the years her husband, Dr. Duane Litfin hon, served as president, and today’s requests strike a balance between specificity and generality. Last names, especially of students, are suppressed—and often even first names. Other efforts are made to preserve confidentiality, including shredding the list of requests after the Thursday meeting or, in winter months, tossing it into a roaring fireplace.

“Nothing is distributed digitally,” says Maureen Payton Keil ’88. “It would be too easy for it to go astray. It would be too easy to walk away from a computer and to have someone walk past. Or, someone might make a mistake and forward it accidentally.”

The list of prayer requests isn’t just composed of student prayer concerns; it also includes the names of aging and ailing faculty members, many long ago retired, making it a very “personal list” according to Keil. But even when names aren’t made available, members of Intercessors don’t doubt the effectiveness of their efforts. “God knows who they are. We don’t need to know,” says Ruthie Knoedler Howard, whose family has a collective history of 78 years of praying for the College.

Throughout the years, the Intercessors group has met in a variety of places, favoring locations close to campus. They’ve met at the homes of Wheaton presidents as well as the homes of faculty members. For a while, in the 1970s, the group was hosted at the home of Wheaton’s first chaplain, Dr. Evan Welsh ’27, D.D. ’55, and his wife, Olena Mae Hendrickson Welsh ’41. Their home was one of the houses on the land where the Billy Graham Center now stands. Whenever a home was unavailable for a season, the group met instead in various spots on campus.

As these stalwart Christians gather to pray for others, younger members of the group strive to ensure that the needs of senior members are considered. For example, a portable ramp stored in the Rykens’ garage is brought out each Thursday morning to accommodate those with concerns about climbing the steps leading up to the Rykens’ home. Even as the realities of aging may make it more difficult to attend, these faithful women continue to hear and heed the call to intercessory prayer. Before the death of Betty Burtness Knoedler ’50 in 2013, she declared to Joanne Simon Hollatz ’55 that “Intercessors is the last group I’m giving up.” Her last official attendance was at the annual Christmas cookie exchange in 2012. “Do you need to sit down?” Joanne asked Betty, then 84, when she arrived. “No, I’m fine,” Betty assured.

After several minutes, she reconsidered. “Well, maybe I’d better.”

A Hidden Work

Margaret Ryken Beaird ’93, daughter of Dr. Leland hon and Mary Graham Ryken M.A. ’88 and sister to the president, describes the role of intercessory prayer as “hidden” work. “I’m glad you’re writing about this,” she told me, “because I think it is an important and secret component of God’s blessing over the school that women have been meeting to pray for the College since day one.”

“It’s not what everyone notices. It’s the quiet, hidden work where God accomplishes his blessing for his people. Prayer is like that at Wheaton.” She added, “We are tempted to think that prayer isn’t as important or strategic [as other glamorous roles].”

To Beaird’s point, there is little to be learned of the history of Intercessors from archival records, despite its near 80-year existence. Ruth James Cording ’33 was the first to set down some of the record in her lecture for the Women’s Club entitled “Romance, Roses, and Responsibilities: The Wives of Wheaton College Presidents.” Nita Martindale, the late wife of Dr. Wayne Martindale hon and longtime Intercessor, also apparently took interest in the group’s history, though her work has not been preserved.

When Sherri Litfin arrived on campus and assumed her role as leader of Intercessors, she tried to learn more about the origin of the group.

“I wish I could tell you more,” she lamented. “It’s not for lack of asking around, but nobody seems to know the history. It just kind of evolved.”

Perhaps the history of these praying women has gone unrecorded because they haven’t considered their efforts remarkable.

“None of us is special,” insists Ruthie Howard. “We’re plain old women of faith. We love the Lord, we believe in the power of prayer, and we love Wheaton College.”