Today was the first full day of 24/3 prayer, and we invited most of the youth that we've met from the 3 churches to come and join us for the day. Many kids came and we had an afternoon intensive prayer meeting, where we prayed for the youth of each church individually. It was a really powerful hour of prayer, and you could really see the Spirit moving. What really caught me though was the contrast in response between those youth that had slept over at the church and really spent time with us, as opposed to those who hadn't. The ones that stayed with us have gotten really close with various members of the mission team: we've celebrated surprise birthdays with them, had food fights, played games, shared stories, and genuinely befriended them. For these kids, when we prayed for them, they were clearly more moved than the rest. This got me thinking that when we pray for people, certainly there's power in the words, but perhaps the most crucial key is the love that person knows we have for them. Just from simple things like cake and jokes, those kids knew that we loved them. And that made our prayers for them that much more powerful, because they knew we were genuine and true. They opened their hearts to receive the blessings and words we prayed because they trusted us.
One little girl gave a very touching testimony tonight: she said when the teachers (us) prayed for her, she felt like Jesus was speaking to her.
Isn't that amazing, that the love of God that we display through simple things like food fights and cake can really open hearts to receiving prayer and through that, receiving the Holy Spirit?
awesome!
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