Where West Virginia and Kentucky meld together, pastors and churches are experiencing the stirrings of revival. In fact, the revival is so strong that secular news sources determined it was front-page news.

“The message of hope is a message that resounds with everyone,” Pastor Wayne R. Crozier, of Abundant Life Ministries in Charleston, WV, told the Charleston State Journal. “People want hope, and that is what the church offers.”

In Kentucky, the desperate cries of prayer are rising from one of the poorest areas in the country, where men and women are experiencing miracles and the fresh presence of the Lord. “People are running to the altar and there’s a groan of revival,” Ryan LeStrange says. LeStrange is co-founder of awakeningtv.com and senior leader of New Breed Revival Network. “Repentance and weeping are breaking out. . . . There’s a real intense kind of intercession for the state.”

But to understand where Kentucky is going, one must first understand its history, says Rick Curry. Curry is the senior pastor of King’s Way Church in Pensacola, FL, and chairman of the board of The Sentinel Group, which documents transforming revival in the nations. Many of these areas of Kentucky where the Lord is moving are old coal-mining towns that have been nearly destroyed by economic downfalls.

“I think there is really a great measure of desperation particularly in Eastern Kentucky, in the mountains, an increased desperation in those areas by and large because of loss of jobs in coal mines,” Curry says. “This desperation is drawing hearts of people to return to the Lord, and it’s reflected in the revivals that are happening.”

As for West Virginia, “It’s incredible what is happening here,” Mitchell Bias, pastor of the Regional Church of God, Delbarton, WV, says. “The kids are not only getting saved, but they are finding purpose and destiny—that’s what it’s all about.”

More than 3,000 young people reportedly came to Christ in just three weeks in the area, and in one town, 1,500 people gathered—a crowd larger than the size of the town.

The cries for revival are going beyond Kentucky and West Virginia. On April 9 in Los Angeles, “Azusa Now” sparked a renewed passion for Jesus among at least 70,000 people who prayed for 15 hours in the Los Angeles Coliseum. On the same day, on the East Coast in Washington, D.C., UnitedCry DC16 drew hundreds of pastors to the Lincoln Memorial to repent and ask for a national spiritual awakening.

David’s Tent, a 24/7 worship and prayer movement in D.C., has been going continuously since September 11, starting out in a tent near the Washington Monument and then moving to other key places near the National Mall. This day and night worship will continue until the elections. On July 16, one million are anticipated on the Mall for Together 2016 to exalt the name of Jesus over America.

Adapted with permission from Charisma News. Copyright Charisma Media, USA. All rights reserved.