Don’t Back Down – Your Prayers Change History

Standing for LIFE in front of the Supreme Court

Lately, I’ve been reminded of the first time I took fifteen intercessors to Washington, DC to pray. Early in the planning process I contacted Sandy Grady, who had worked for years as a key intercessor for David Barton of Wall Builders. As I shared with Sandy my desire to pray at educational sites in DC, she said, “Nancy, everyone who comes to DC goes to the same places. They go to the White House, the Capitol building, the Washington Monument, and other famous landmarks. But I’ve never known a group to go to the National Department of Education. Please go there and pray. Our schools need our prayers and intercessors don’t think to include education in their prayer trips to DC. What you want to do will be hard, but don’t back down.”

That was in 2001 and Sandy’s words never left me. That first time to pray at the Department of Education was every bit as difficult as she’d prophesied it would be. Over and over, I heard her words ring in my spirit, “Don’t back down. Don’t back down. Don’t back down.”

In order to go inside the Department of Education building one must have an invitation from someone employed there. Somewhere I’d been given the name of a man from Oklahoma—Jim—who worked in the Department of Education, so I called him a couple of weeks before my group was to be in DC. We had a nice chat. He agreed to host our group, give us a tour of the building, and allow us to have a brief moment in the building’s small auditorium to pray. I hung up thinking everything was all set.

I called Jim early on the day of our visit. He didn’t answer of return my calls. With our appointment “iffy.” I gave those in the group an option to stay behind if they wanted to not take a chance on whether or not the appointment would actually happen. Eight people decided to stay behind. To be honest, I was the most frightened of any one in the group, but I felt the need to go as Sandy’s words repeated over and over in my mind. “Don’t back down. Don’t back down.”

We entered the National Department of Education building, went through security, and asked to speak to Jim. Instead of Jim, two burley security guards came to greet us. They demanded to know why we were there and what our relationship was with Jim. I told them we had come to pray for America’s educational system and gave them the name of the man from Oklahoma. One man left and a few minutes later came back and told us that Jim was busy and couldn’t meet with us.

Scared, I then asked if there were a room we could use to pray. The security men ushered us to a small auditorium where we placed chairs in a circle and began to pray for America’s schools. They eventually realized we were harmless and disappeared. Twenty minutes later, “Mr. Oklahoma” showed up and confessed he had been afraid and had backed out (without telling me). He redeemed the time as he showed us around the building and introduced us to the head of the Department of Education as well as key people in the building. We ended up praying in every office, even the office of the head of the department. It was a victory that would not have happened without one seasoned intercessor telling me, “Don’t back down. Don’t back down.”

No matter what circumstance you find yourself in as an intercessor for you, your family or for the children of America, don’t back down! It’s not an easy task and certainly not for the faint of heart, but persistence and tenacity are paramount when taking on a spiritual giant.

Should We Do Away with the Department of Education?

The US Department of Education employees approximately 5000 people and has an approximate annual budget of $69 billion. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics there are 57 million elementary and secondary school age children in the United States, of which 8 million are either enrolled in private schools or homeschooled. That leaves 49 million children educated by America’s network of public schools and for whom the Department of Education serves. Does the Department of Education produce $69 billion dollars worth of results for the public school children in America? It produces no curriculum, teacher training, or personalized educational training. So what does it do?

According to the Dept of Ed web site, they have four areas of concentration:
1. Establish policies and administer financial aid,
2. Collect data and oversee research on America’s schools,
3. Identify major issues and problems in education and bring national attention to them,
4. Enforce anti-discrimination in public education.

Since the US constitution does not mention education, but the constitution does state that all powers not mentioned in the constitution are delivered to the individual states. Which is the reason why many Americans believe that the US Department of Education has no constitutional standing and must be dismantled. I believe that it is imperative that we pray on a regular basis for the Department of Education—it will remain only if it serves the best interest of our children and improves the educational quality of our schools.

Teacher Protests: The Vehicle for Humanistic Take Over in Education

The scheduled teacher walk-out on April 2 in Oklahoma is not only about the very real need to increase teacher salaries. It reveals how the leaders behind a humanistic global agenda use these types of crises to further their control in the field of education.
Raising the bar in education is a need and concern across our nation. We watch as test results have declined and mo re and more students graduate without the reading skills or life skills needed to succeed after graduation. However, at the heart of this issue, there is a hidden agenda that many of us miss. It is a behind the scenes take-over of the education of our children to indoctrinate them with humanistic ideology.
Crisis is the Vehicle They Use to Implement Change
In Oklahoma, there is very real need for teacher pay raises. In 2016, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a report that showed Oklahoma has the lowest average teacher wages in the nation. Those behind the push for a humanistic take over in education have used this crisis to push through their agenda. Here’s how it works.
On March 26, 2018, the Oklahoma Legislature voted to give public school teachers and support staff a raise. Beginning salaries would be increased by $6,000 per year. Yet, that wasn’t enough to avert a planned teacher “walk out” scheduled for April 2, 2018. Why? Because while the amount fell short of their unrealistic request of $10,000 over the next three years. The voices behind the humanistic agenda recognize that in order to completely implement their plan, they must use this imposed crisis to gain control. Their goal from the beginning of the teacher salary issue was not to achieve a raise for the teachers, but to create unrest, division and failure so that they could point blame which would position them for take-over in the mid-term elections.
Where is there a “crisis” in your state’s educational system? It is important to look at who continues to stoke the dissension to keep emotions running high and prevent reconciliation. In the case of the teacher salary issue, we only need to look at those behind the “walk out” —how it was handled and those who support it—which reveal the hidden impetuous behind the continued push for a teacher strike.
Ultimately, this is the battle for control over the sphere of education not only in Oklahoma, but we can see similar battles in almost every state. Crises are fertile ground to stir dissension and dissatisfaction to gain the upper hand. It is a Saul Alinsky tactic – never let a good crisis go to waste and if there is no crisis, create one. Once in position they can continue their goal to promote an ideology of humanism to the students in the classroom and curriculum. And they will do anything to achieve their goal.

This is how it works and what you need to look for:
The National Education Association (NEA) is the largest labor union in the United States with a branch organization in each state. For Oklahoma it is the Oklahoma Education Association (OEA). But if you believe the welfare and education of our students in the pursuit of “reading, writing and arithmetic” through these organizations is their primary goal, think again.
At the 72nd Annual Meeting of the NEA, held in Washington, D.C., in a report titled “Education for the New America,” Willard Givens (who went on to become executive secretary of the NEA in 1935 and served for 17 years) said:
“The major function of the school is the social orientation of the individual. It must seek to give him under-standing of the transition to a new social order.”

This is the mentality and ultimate goal behind the NEA and any of its state related offices in the United States.

Track What is Happening in your State
Always look deeper than your local organizations at who is assisting to promote your state’s educational agenda. Scrutinize mentioned associations like separate non-profits, law firms, and businesses. In Oklahoma, the OEA recently hired a Colorado consulting firm, Harstad Strategic Research, Inc., to work with them to achieve their goals. A closer look at Harstad reveals that their specialty is to get liberals elected to leadership positions as governors, senators, and congressmen as well as to get liberal state campaigns passed. They are a partisan group with a socialist globalist agenda. The OEA also uses the non-profit, Oklahoma Professional Educators, to make public statements that mirror OEA’s views. Often nonprofits are created to “help” by being the political mouthpiece or shield in order for an organization to distance itself from criticism when speaking out on an unpopular issue

What do they really want?
While the goals may sound good by title, after all – who doesn’t want their teachers to be well paid – those goals will be used to gain political support in order to continue to promote a humanistic, globalist, agenda.
In the late 1800s, John Dewey, known as the Father of Modern Education and a prolific writer on the theory of education, began proposing changes that would promote socialism and thereby produce a globalist child prepared for the 21st Century. In 1932, the National Education Association made John Dewey their honorary president adopting his progressive educational reform agenda. Since that time, the NEA has been successful in implementing their plan, but it is not complete. In order for the NEA to achieve a complete takeover of America’s educational system, they must continue to promote socialism. In order to do so, they must obtain control of governing bodies and insert leaders who will be favorable to their agenda. In Oklahoma, where the issue of teacher’s salary is not new, they have pushed hard for it to hit crisis level—a teacher strike—just before the upcoming mid-term elections. By fueling dissension and the argument that current leadership is “out of touch,” the teacher pay raise issue is a perfect vehicle to achieve their goals. The teachers are simply pawns in their playbook.
The goal is for children to be taught social curricula at the expense of their learning basic skills. Samuel Blumenfeld, one of America’s more prolific voices in defense of traditional education referred to Dewey as the man responsible for “dumbing down” America’s children and promoting socialism in our schools – mainly using the NEA. The process of socialism undermined the role of the parents in a child’s education. The perfect example of a program that bypassed parental and local voices is the Common Core curriculum, birthed and initiated as a federal curriculum, voted on by the governors of the states and implemented on the local level with no local or parental choice.

Not a Democrat vs. Republican Issue
This is not about Republicans vs. Democrats. There are both Republicans and Democrats, who are party to this one-world government agenda. There has been much contention in our government on a national level as well as within each state especially in this past year. With confusion and selfish ambition, the enemy has gained ground.
What Can be Done?
It is important to remember that our battle is not with flesh and blood. Our first response must always be in prayer. It is time that we speak up in prayer and speak forth what we want to see accomplished this year in the Mountain of Education. Here are some prayer points nationally. Look into the issues in your state and add them to this list:

• That teachers will not be used as political pawns in a humanistic battle for the minds of our children.
• That teachers will receive fair, just and equitable salaries. That our teachers will cry out to God and that He will deliver them from their oppression. Our teachers will not be a slave to Pharaoh.
• All ungodliness in our state legislatures will be revealed and those who need to go will be replaced by godly men and women who will judge righteously.
• Thank and praise God for the unmasking/revealing of all those who have ungodly agendas for our children and our state.
• That the restrictions that have been placed on our teachers to remove Christian values will revert back to the original intent of our forefathers in which the Bible and biblical principles were part of a child’s educational process not prohibited from their process.

May we be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves” as this battle ensues. We can no longer afford to allow our educational system to be hijacked. We must look at who and what are behind the “solutions” offered. We can no longer sacrifice the well-being of our children and the educational process to those whose agenda is not to train up our children, but to dumb them down and turn them into “better global citizens.”