staff Archives - Fragrance Arise

Andy and Vina Sanchez with their daughters (oldest to youngest, from left) Ava, Ana, Abigail, Adalie

House of Prayer Spotlight is a monthly feature of Fragrance Arise (and honestly, probably my favorite series)! Every other month features interviews with different houses of prayer, and the in-between months feature interviews with my fellow staff members at The Prayer Room. God is doing so much in the house of prayer globally (check out my House of Prayer FAQ for more info) and this series aims to shine a light on what it looks like in different places.

This month, I am featuring Andy Sanchez, who serves with me at The Prayer Room Missions Base. He’s an intercessory missionary who raises support to do this full-time, and he’s also a family man with a wife and four beautiful little daughters. Andy was a full-time public school teacher simultaneously serving on volunteer staff at The Prayer Room for years, holding onto a promise that God would one day transition him into full-time ministry at The Prayer Room. That moment came in early 2018, and it is a joy to run alongside him as he serves the Lord and this house so excellently and faithfully!

What is your role at The Prayer Room?

I am a full-time missionary at TPR and serve on the Senior Staff. I am the Director of Staff and I oversee part- and full-time missionary staff and volunteer staff. I get to teach theology in our Immerse Internship, School of Supernatural Ministry, Forerunner Music Academy, and in our Daniel Academy, which my four daughters are a part of, I teach 1st and 2nd grade.

Currently, I am managing our Base Operations Department and I also handle the audio/video recording, editing, and online posting. I am also the unofficial tech support guy.

[He also serves at least 30 hours every week in the prayer room, including shifts as a section leader, prayer leader, and worship leader. He taught himself to play keys so he could serve musically!]

How did God lead you into being involved?

In 2006, I was starting a lunch-break Bible study at work and inviting a co-worker. He countered my invitation and asked me to come check out his friend’s morning prayer time that had started in his living room. I stuck around and got to see that 1-hour daily prayer meeting evolve into The Prayer Room Missions Base.

In 2007, during one of the early prayer meetings, I remember developing a prayer from the Bible asking the Lord to restore the Priesthood. Suddenly, I heard the response, “I am so glad it only took you ten years to answer the call.” The Lord had been leading me to minister to Him and I had just now come to realize and agree with His plan for my life. I knew from that moment, I was to be a modern day priest and serve in His house for the rest of my life.

The Sanchezes holding down the prayer room on Thanksgiving!

What is meaningful to you about being on staff?

Being a missionary at The Prayer Room makes me feel like I am best friends with someone like a Bill Gates or a Jeff Bezos in their early days of talking about this idea they have that will one day change the world. I get to be in on God’s best-kept secret: the house of prayer!

It is special to me that I get to raise my kids in a godly community that is always talking to God and about God. I spent my 20’s establishing a root system for my family so that together, we can live our lives as an offering of worship. I am really excited to see how my kids will outrun me and surpass anything I was ever able to do.

What has been the greatest difficulty and the greatest joy of being part of The Prayer Room?

The greatest difficulty for me is managing the mental and soul traffic that is constantly going on inside me. I am thankful that I get blocks of hours to be in prayer meetings because some days it takes a lot longer than I would like to quiet myself and engage with the Lord.

A big joy for me has been watching people transform in the prayer room. Over the past 13 years, I have seen so many people encounter the One True Living God in a prayer meeting. Some come in with hurts and burdens and they just melt when they get before Him. Others come in numb and become awakened. It is so fun to watch Jesus do His thing in real time.

Andy’s website, with blogs, teachings, and testimonies, is andysanchez.us. He also sends out monthly email updates with glimpses of family life and ministry life — sign up for Andy’s newsletters here!

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Silly family send off at the end of my externship — Silly TPR staff send-off at the end of my externship.

You heard right, and this is NOT a drill — by this time next year I expect to be on full-time missionary staff with The Prayer Room!!

I’ve been sitting on this announcement for months, wanting to make sure that it was really God’s calling. At this point I’m 99.3% sure that it’s happening… who am I kidding, I can’t imagine myself anywhere else.

As you probably know, I spent all of last semester serving as an extern at The Prayer Room (TPR) in Arlington, TX, which is right in between Dallas and Ft. Worth. While I was there I fell so in love with that house of prayer. Their heart and their vision for 24/7 prayer until Jesus’ return is exactly in line with the passions God has placed in my heart, and their beautiful community has made me feel like a lifelong family member since day one.

I didn’t plan to go back after my externship, but once I got the idea in my head sometime in September, I couldn’t get it out. My heart has been knit to that community, and I want to labour alongside them to build 24/7 prayer and to equip the Body of Christ to be with Jesus where He is. I’ll be doing some of the same things I did there before – worship leading, administrative tasks (possibly as Community Life assistant again), and I’m sure a lot more as well.

There are really four specific things that stand out to me about TPR:

The prayer room itself. I’ve never known another house of prayer that takes its prayer room more seriously. There’s a stubborn refusal to let the fire go out no matter what! I’ve heard so many stories of two people rotating hour by hour through snowstorms when no one else could get to the building, beginning piano students thrown into worship leading when no one else could get there, even playing guitar in a closet when the police showed up! They take their mandate of 24/7 prayer very seriously.
The community. TPR is a family. Most of the community has lived in someone else’s house or opened up their house at one point or another. They really do walk with each other through every kind of joy and sorrow. They hang out constantly and laugh a lot. Night and day prayer is FUN when you do it with your best friends.
The end times. When God called me into the prayer movement, He got me in with the vision of how He is raising up 24/7 prayer in this generation to prepare the church and the world for the events surrounding Jesus’ return. I can’t imagine doing this without that understanding as foundational. TPR has a strong emphasis on understanding the end times and its relationship to the prayer movement. Not every house of prayer has that emphasis (and God may not be calling them to emphasise it!) but for me, this was very important.
Teaching. I believe I have some level of a teaching gift on my life, and part of TPR’s vision is to raise up and equip teachers of the Word. They once had a Bible school and hopefully will again soon, and they want to be a regional training centre with as much influence and reach as God will give them. This would the perfect place for me to learn and grow and spread my wings as a teacher.

I will graduate from IHOPU in May, and then I’ll go home to California for a while to focus on raising financial partnership. Depending on how that goes, I may move to Dallas as late as January 2017 – which would allow me to spend the holidays with my family!

I’ve moved around a lot the past few years, but this will be the first time I’ve moved away from home indefinitely. It’s a huge transition, but I know in my gut I belong there.

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Fragrance Arise

Tag: staff

House of Prayer Spotlight: Andy Sanchez, Intercessory Missionary

Announcement: I’M MOVING BACK TO DALLAS!