JUNE 27, 2005

This year’s VBS emphasis was on PRAYER, using “The Lord’s Prayer” as a model. We had the opportunity to teach about 60 eager young people that God wants to hear from them and will respond as a loving heavenly Father.

One of our VBS teachers, Amy Bassett, wrote the following account of how she, as a child, learned about prayer.

–Pastor George Van Alstine

FAITH LIKE A CHILD
By Amy Bassett

“And I tell the truth, unless you change and become like
little children, you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven.”
Matthew 18:3

Prayer is a powerful thing.
It’s a combination of thinking, listening and speaking. It is a concept that is difficult for some adults, much less the developing minds of children.

I can remember being very young and praying at Sunday School. The pastor taught us the “traditional” prayer pose: head bent, hands folded, eyes closed. I remember curiously peeking at other children in my class, looking to see if they had their eyes open, too. If I didn’t close my eyes, was I not really praying? Would God not listen to me unless I followed procedure?

You have to understand, that I grew up in a home where prayer was not evident. I did not pray before meals, or before I went to bed. In fact, I cannot recall ever seeing either one of my parents praying. In spite of this, my parents would send my sister and me to church every Sunday and to Bible Study every Wednesday night. All that I had learned about God came from reading the Bible and what was taught at Church. This is how I learned to pray. I bowed my head, folded my hands and closed my eyes.

This year, when I began to teach at a private Christian School, I felt the desire to help my students pray. It was my first instinct to tell them to bow their heads, fold their hands and close their eyes. These young children at the age of 6 knew the prayer routine. What shocked me to the core, was their strong desire for prayer. It was not duty, it was not routine, it was personal time with God. It became so that as a class, we would discuss what we needed to pray about before prayer time. My students even began to ask me if they could pray out loud. Bowed heads, folded hands and eyes closed were not necessary. Their faith was written on their faces and spoken through their words.

Over the course of the year, I became very sick, some members of my family became sick. My students prayed for me. They bowed their heads, folded their hands and closed their eyes and prayed for me. These prayers I felt to the core of my being. They were unscripted prayers, knowing instinctively that a child could come before God and request healing. This was not forced procedure, and my students were not instructed to pray for me—they wanted to.

During the last week of school, parents will sometimes write a nice letter, or give me a card, thanking me for teaching their child. I truly cherish their words, as I believe that children are incredible and I love my job.

On Thursday night, the evening of our promotion ceremony, I was handed a card by one student who had a particularly trying year. His father had walked out on him, his mother and his sister. His mother did not have a job and quite a hefty mortgage and tuition to pay. He was an angry boy, understandably. I prayed for him regularly and prayed with him, with my hand on his back, when he had anger outbursts.

As I opened up that card, I read the words “Thank you for praying with and for my son.”

Sometimes, we teach without direct instruction. I learned to pray at church, but how much better it would have been to pray at home, to see my parents praying with and for me.

VBS has ended, but let’s remember our children. Let’s pray for them and with them. Let’s show them we care for them and that there is Someone else who cares for them, too.

Let’s come before God with faith like a child.

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No messenger next week—The office staff will be take time to rest from their weekly publishing schedule.