Burn!

As many of you know, Rachel and I are soon to be the leaders of the Prayer Ground for the Children's Equipping Center. Now don't let the title fool you, or then again perhaps you should. The Prayer Ground is what other churches call the nursery. It is the 1-5 year olds. The idea behind calling it the Prayer Ground is this; just like a baseball team has a field to practice on and get better, children need a field of their own to practice prayer on. Thus, the Prayer Ground.

As my last post mentioned, we were working at our first conference this past weekend. It was really our first submersion into what we will be doing in the future. The conference began on Thursday. While I was at work I received a phone call from Rachel. She went to make breakfast for her and the kids and turned the burner on. Soon after, while gathering the eggs and the frying pan, she noticed the burner was not sitting properly and pushed on it with her hand to put it in place. She forgot it was already on and fully heated up. Sizzle.

So when I got the call, we rushed her to the doctor and they bandaged up her 2nd degree burned hand. It looked really charred and blistery. I figured it would be a couple weeks before she would be close to normal again. This was also on Thursday afternoon with our first session at the conference to be that evening.

When we arrived to work, Rachel was bandaged up, but all in all , in good spirit. The problem was that most of the kids were really concerned/interested in what happened to "Miss Rachel". Tracy Laguardia explained the injury and then led prayer for Rachel's hand with a couple of the children adding their prayers too, after all, this is the "prayer ground" where they can 'practice'.

Friday morning, Rachel unbandaged her hand and could not believe what she saw. The burn was all but gone. The pain, gone! The only thing that remained was the dead skin that had already turned while from being fully cooked. We joke that it is her reminder to not do it again.

This experience serves as our introduction into the Prayer Ground. God moves through the "least of these". For any of you out there with kids, read this:
Luke 18:16 "Jesus, however, called for them and said, "Let the little children come to me, and stop keeping them away. For the kingdom of God belongs to people like these".

If you have kids, or a younger relative, don't be shy, tell them about God. If you are here in KC, and you are a dad with your child in the Prayer Ground, be forewarned, they're practicing!