Prayer has a habit of getting around the world

Remember this? And this one about prayers written by children  in Bible Sunday at my church

Well it was picked up by colleagues at Wycliffe Bible Translators USA and posted on their Facebook page on 10 December.

For more ways that you – and your children – can pray, see here.

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A child’s prayer anticipates a prayer request

This is one of the prayers written by children that I blogged about yesterday in Bible Sunday at my church

On Tuesday in the office we received an e-mail prayer request from Wycliffe colleagues working overseas:

Please could you pray for a discourse workshop R is leading this week for Ash and Am translators… Pray for good health for everyone, for 2 senior translators teaching with R to be a help to the new translators, and that the Ash and Am translators themselves will grow in skills and understanding needed for their task.

Essentially it is a training workshop for new mother tongue Bible translators. As we prayed for this workshop, I suddenly thought: one of the children has already prayed about this on Sunday morning!

Dear God, thank you for the Bible please help people to get trained to translate the Bible into other languages. Please help people to learn about you. Amen

What’s that saying? Out of the mouths of babes…

For more ways that you – and your children – can pray, see here.

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I love it when a plan comes together!

They may not have been the A Team – but the plan did come together last Saturday morning for a Wycliffe Bible Translators NI team at Portadown Baptist Church‘s Children’s Missionary Discovery Day!

A team of 10 led by Bill Bailie put on a two and a half hour programme with stories, games, singing, memory verses, craft and loads of interaction by the kids as they experienced the exile of the Israelites and their return to re-build the walls of Jerusalem. The crunch came when Ezra read the Law and the people listening were first moved to tears of sorrow that they had lost touch with God’s Word and then turned to tears of rejoicing as God’s Word was explained to them.

And what was all this to do with Wycliffe and Bible translation?

It was tied into a video of the Kimyal people of West Papua rejoicing as the New Testament in their heart language was flown in by MAF and Wycliffe planes. The children (aged from 5 to 12) also got an insight into the life of Bible translators’ children in Mali as Myriam shared her experiences of a GAP year home tutoring three children.

Yes, I love it when a plan comes together – and I want to thank the team that planned it and made it happen:  Bill, Margaret, Nathan, Rita, Joy, Ruth, Myriam, Jane, Miranda and Claire! Among them, the team has had overseas experience with Wycliffe in Senegal, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Cambodia, Mali, Philippines and Burkina Faso.

Winding things up at lunchtime, one of the church members thanked the team for a great programme and said that the children would never forget what they had learned that morning.Pray for the seeds sown in the minds of children and young adults.

“Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest field.” Matthew 9:38

Find out more about how you can be involved in Bible translation with Wycliffe.

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“Sounds like a squirrel…

… but it could be Jesus”

Enjoyed this old chestnut (or should I say acorn) from preachersa2z this afternoon.

Ok, ok so you’ve all heard the story. Some well-meaning preacher is introducing his children’s talk by saying that he is thinking of something “with a red bushy tail which lives in the forest and buries acorns for the Winter months…and what do the children think it might be”. Some eager child raises their hand and says “it sounds like a squirrel but it must be Jesus”.  We smile indulgently because we have all been there.

With the prospect of a few Sunday church children’s talks looming, I valued Richard’s advice…

Preachers – never talk so long that you don’t listen…and whenever you can, expose your soul to the wonder of other souls – lest you forget how to be amazed!

Read the whole post here

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