As Members of Congress and others come together this morning in Washington, D.C. for the National Prayer Breakfast, I wanted to share an experience I had in Congress and how the Congressional Prayer Caucus began.

In 2005 I was invited by Congressman Randy Forbes, R-Va, to accompany the Armed Service Committee to China.  I had told him in a previous conversation I felt compelled to speak to the Chinese government about the persecution and killing of Christians.  He had initially said there were no seats available on the airplane but later that all changed.  I did not know Mr. Forbes very well prior to the trip. 

On the trip, I had the opportunity to ask the government of China at 8 or 10 meetings why they allowed Christians to be persecuted and killed, why the government imprisoned people for their spiritual beliefs.  At first they denied having imprisoned anyone for religious beliefs.  The Embassy then provided me a list of over 3,000 people the Chinese government had imprisoned, just for being Christian.  As it turned out, the officials were actually a little surprised with the facts and all said they themselves felt no harm should come to people for expressing their beliefs in a peaceful fashion.

Congressman Forbes is a strong Christian.  We became friends on that trip.  Our wives became close also.  The last night we were in Beijing he asked if we would like to get together with them to pray for China and for the people who were being persecuted.  We of course did that.

When we returned back to the US and to our jobs on Capitol Hill we continued to get together and discuss the need for Prayer for this nation.  He did all the legal work and the two of us became the first members of the Congressional Prayer caucus.

It was the first time in our nation's history that a Congressional Prayer Caucus had been formed.  Randy prepared Proclamation, "A CALL TO PRAYER FOR AMERICA." 

The text for the document was 2 Chronicles 7:14.

"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

As you can see, 22 members, both Democrat and Republican, signed the document.