PORTSMOUTH, Va. -- Melody Repanshek and Joe Misiura strolled down Gillis Road like neighbors taking advantage of a late summer evening.

A woman stopped them and told them she was heading out of town because of a family illness.

They promised to pray for her.

Now and then, Misiura stopped in his tracks and stood motionless as if thinking hard about something.

He was praying.

About problems and needs of neighbors.

For people he doesn't even know.

Repanshek and Misiura are among 75 people praying over all 50 streets in Cradock and West Cradock.

In front of about 1,300 homes.

It's called prayer-walking, a worldwide movement that has shown up on the anchor-shaped road network of this World War I-era neighborhood.

Residents have struggled to bring back the days when mom and pop stores thrived on the community square and families knew each other.

But sometimes the nostalgia of the community square and gazebo is overshadowed by the comings and goings of the neighborhood bar.

And the churches on the corners of the neighborhood don't fill up like they used to on Sundays.

"If praying over every street can't change things, then nothing will," said Repanshek, who is organizing the effort for Cradock Baptist Church.

Members of the civic league, like Misiura, have joined in. Many of the church members drive from other neighborhoods and cities to pray for Cradock.

Repanshek had never heard of prayer-walking until the church's interim pastor suggested it.

She went online and saw thousands of Web sites.

"It's nonconfrontational," Repanshek said. "You don't knock on doors and give out tracts. You touch a house or a fence and pray for the people in there."

The prayer-walkers meet at least once a week to talk about what they're praying over and how things are going, Repanshek said.

There's plenty to pray about. Crime, drugs, thefts, domestic abuse. The things that communities everywhere face.

But mostly they're praying for the people who live in each of the homes.

"People don't even know they're being prayed for, really," said Pastor James R. Woodland. "We may not know who is in the house or how many are in the house. We pray basically for the front door and everything on the other side of it."

Woodland said he meets people along the way when he's prayer-walking.

"I just sort of smile and say 'Howdy' and strike up a friendship," he said. "For all they know, I'm getting some exercise."

He sees many vacant homes in the neighborhood and he prays over those, too.

They're nice little homes, he said.

"I say, 'Lord, please send nice people that will be a blessing to the community into that home.'"

Woodland said prayer-walking has been heavily promoted by the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The Rev. Randy Sprinkle, a former missionary to Africa who has been involved in prayer-walking, describes it as "putting feet to your prayers."

"Often we think of prayer as sort of static," said Sprinkle, who is director of the International Prayer Strategy Office for the mission board.

"It really isn't," he said.

It's a movement that started in the 1970s as churches were led to get out of the church sanctuary and into the world, he said.

It's become more popular in recent years.

"We're seeing it in America like we've never really seen before," Sprinkle said.

He believes it was growing even before Sept. 11.

"I look at Cradock, and Cradock is like a lot of communities in Portsmouth," said Woodland. "It needs a good boost."

He believes prayer-walking might be just what the neighborhood needs. "I can't see anything but good coming out of it."