Miss Heather's Preschool Prayer Adventures
First Installment

Monday, October 10, 2005
I put on Children’s Prayers: Praying the Bible CD during job time (play time) and periodically different children would go stand by the speakers and just listen.

At lunch time I put on the CD “Come to the Waters.” Remi got up and danced in the spirit for a very short time and then was distracted by other things that were happening at the lunch table.

Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Getting pickled--I talked to the children about how a cucumber is soaked/immersed in vinegar until it becomes a pickle…just like a cucumber we can soak in God’s presence and get pickled in His presence. I had them get out their blankets (if they didn’t have a blanket I had mats for them) and find a space where they could get quiet before God…they had to quiet their bodies and their mouths and their minds…just think about Jesus…I turned off the lights and put on the CD “Come to the Waters” and I told them how special they were to God and how much He loves them, etc. and I encouraged them to think about Jesus and soak in His presence.

When I gathered them together afterwards (after about 15 minutes or so) this is what they told me they heard God say to them or show them:

Noah—I do something that God wants me to do…but I don’t hear Him.

Katelyn—He was in my heart.

Joshua Lorica—He talked to my heart about me…

Nikki—He told me that He loves me and likes me.

Danny—He loves me.

Grace—He loves me and He loves my family and my brother and grandpa and my grandma

Benjamin—painting

Joshua Landenberger—I was a koala in a house and was being funny like a koala (important to ask if this could be from God and how do we know if it is or not)

Elizabeth M.—I should sleep

Luke—that I was asleep

Wednesday, October 12, 2005
The children were having a hard morning. I was hearing a lot of contention, anger, etc. which is highly abnormal for my classroom. So, after only a short amount of time in which they chose jobs (toys to play with) I had them clean up and come to circle. I asked them if they knew why I had them clean up and come to circle…they didn’t know. So I told them how I’d seen some people saying things that weren’t nice to their friends and how that made God sad and it made Miss Heather sad…then I mentioned how I saw some people not being gentle and how it made God sad and me sad…I did that for several things that I had noticed in the class and then said that I felt we needed to get “pickled” to spend time thinking about God. So we spent the rest of the class time getting “pickled.”

Joshua Lorica—He’s telling me something in my heart. He said to my heart…He’s telling me He’s going to love me

Grace—He says He loves my family and everything I have

Prahlad—He says to pick some flowers for my Mom

Danny—He loves me

Remi—I saw ponies and horses and He said you can’t eat candies and you want some presents.

Elizabeth L.—He’ll love me

Aidan—I saw heaven…it has rainbows

When I had ended the “pickling” time I told everyone they could come back to circle whenever they were ready. Noah continued to lay there and I could see that he was struggling to focus and think about God despite the distraction of the other children telling me what they had seen. As I was finishing writing down what the last child had said Noah came to me and told me, “I still prayed in my heart cause God wanted me too.” So, I commended him for doing that, for doing what God wanted him to do even when everyone else was doing something different. So, I asked him what God had shown him or told him and he said, “He showed me where His Son was…they used to live there. It had horses and hay and they put their baby in there. And there was another place when He was grown up and he still lived with his mommy. It was a different place.”

Thursday, October 13, 2005
Today, at prayer time at circle time Noah said, “Every time I pray in my special language God gives me another special part of it…of my special language. He also asked if he could borrow the Bible (he doesn’t have one at home)…I said yes and he hugged it to his chest and the whole time ‘til Dad picked him up and while they were walking out he kept hugging the Bible to his chest.

We played “prayer ball” as a class today…we all sat in a circle then they picked a person who they were going to roll the ball to, then prayed for that person, then rolled the ball to that person and the next person would pick someone else…When we had finished having an opportunity for each one to pray and be prayed for I happened to roll the ball and was instantly reminded by the children that I needed to pray first.

Friday, October 14, 2005
Luke—When Luke walked in to the classroom he noticed that I had a different Bible under my chair that I was going to be reading from later at circle…This is what he said, “A new Bible!…Look! A new Bible…(then he opened it and looked through a few pages) then said…a new Bible! Awesome! 

During snack time a child had made a comment in regards to being afraid of something. Noah said, “You know something about God…If you know God you’re not supposed to be afraid of anything except Him.

We went on a “thank you walk.” Where we walked for a little while then stopped and looked up and down and all around for something big to thank God for. Then we each said, “Dear God, thank you for…” Then I let them run a bit, then we walked for a while then stopped and looked around for something small to thank God for. Then at one point we ended up outside the church by the school and they had two pews outside. I had the children sit down and then one at a time they prayed a thank you prayer to God. At this point some of them asked if they could get pickled. Some of them just climbed down from the pews and lay under them for a little while.

Thank you prayers—we’d stop and the children would say thank you for some things, then we’d walk some more and stop again and thank God for more things…by the end of the walk some children were thanking Him for just about everything almost every step we took they found something to thank God for…this is a summary of the things the children prayed and thanked God for:

Aidan—for everything, this rock, cows, mountains, leaf, ants, big trees, the cross

Noah—big leaf, pretty flower, around the church, the jungle part of the church (we have an area of bamboo and it’s back behind the church and we call it the jungle)

Danny—big leaf, giant rock, tiny rocks, big trees, stairs, church, water, birds, trash can

Prahlad—I saw a plant, big mountains, trees, bush

Prahlad—When we were going down the stairs back to the classroom after our walk someone accidentally bumped into or pushed Prahlad. He said, “I almost fell, but God saved me.”

Joshua—big trees, grass, feathers

Remi—flower, leaf, having a necklace on the cross (we have a cross and it had a flower lei on it—the flowers had died though), coconut, having flowers, birds, trees

Grace—leaf, cross, stick, baby cross, sprinkler

Nikki—leaf, sky, trees

Luke—big rock, stick, windows

Elizabeth L. –big trees, bush, getting pickled (she said this when we were at the pews outside the church), ladders

Elizabeth M.—big and small leafs, coconut, small sticks, a big tree with a church by it. 

As a side note: after lunch the children normally look at books. However, I changed it a little and allowed them to either get pickled or go look at books.

At lunch time:

Aidan—“Remember when we got pickled?” I said yes…He said, “I liked it.”

Elizabeth L.—Can we get pickled? I said yes, after lunch

Remi—“I want to be pickled.”

Noah—“I want to be pickled in heaven.”

Grace—I want to be pickled in heaven too.  

Noah’s prayer—After being pickled he came to me and said he was going to pray a prayer another day that he had prayed that day…When I asked him what his prayer was this is what he said…Holy Spirit please help me know God. Please teach me to know God…Holy Spirit I want to live in God. Please help us live in and have your power to believe in you and be strong in you.

Monday, October 17, 2005
It started to rain about 10 minutes before we were to go upstairs to see the fire engines. I prayed against it, but decided it would be the perfect learning opportunity for the children. So, I alerted them to how it was raining and said we needed to pray for it to stop so we could go see the fire engines. So they prayed, “Rain stop in Jesus’ name.” Then even when it was still raining they said, “Look, it stopped raining.” I agreed with them and then another child said, “That’s right, it’s getting less and less and less.” Then not much later the rain stopped and the sun came out so I alerted my class to that and we thanked God for stopping the rain. Then we went upstairs to see the fire engines. When the ladder was going up on the ladder truck one child said, the ladder is bigger than my daddy, another child said the same thing. I said that it was bigger than my daddy too. Then Noah said, it’s bigger than anyone except God. God is bigger.

My class still wanted to get pickled. After lunch we had something else to do so couldn’t do it then, but interestingly they got out their blankets and spread them out over the carpet and they asked if they could get pickled and if I would pat their backs. So, I asked my director if they could nap in the classroom, they really wanted too…She said yes, so we started with getting pickled which then turned into nap…even two girls who rarely sleep took naps and they all slept soundly. Normally, many of them are awake by 2:00, but this time at 2:30 when I tried to get some of them up they were still sound asleep. Once they awoke they didn’t want to go play outside they wanted to stay in the class and look at books. When I asked them about what God had told them or shown them they all just said, “I had a good rest.” I know today’s nap time was powerful, because I could play music that spoke to their spirits and I could pray aloud in tongues and pray over each of them. It was neat.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Today for a prayer activity I had them spin a globe (it’s a very old one we have so it’s still got the U.S.S.R.—the United Soviet Socialist Republic). I explained to the children how to hold the globe so they could spin it and it wouldn’t fall over. Then when the globe stopped spinning they were to put their finger down and point to a place on the globe. Wherever their finger was they would pray for the people there. So, I showed them how and prayed for China. (We did repeat-after-me prayers where I’d pray and then they’d repeat what I prayed). Then I had the next child come to the center of the circle and spin the globe and pray for the place to which their finger was pointing. We repeated what the child prayed…some children needed some encouragement and some told me what they wanted prayed and had me pray it with them…To encourage them to come up with what to pray I asked them what they thought God wanted us to pray for those people or I asked what they thought God wanted to tell those people.

This is what was prayed:

Noah—Iceland—Dear God I pray that the people in Iceland grow strong in God and believe that God is the King.

Katelyn—Algeria—Dear God let the people in Algeria love their mommies and daddies.

Nikki—China—Dear God I pray that the people in China would not have anybody angry and help them love their mommies and daddies.

Joshua—China—Dear God please help the people learn to swim in water and like animals.

Elizabeth M.—U.S.S.R.—Dear God please make sure that the people in the U.S.S.R. don’t fight and don’t be mean and love their mommies and daddies and play with each other cause their friends.

Luke—Canada—Dear God, I pray that the people in Canada would play with their friends.

Colton—China—Dear God please help the people in China that they see butterflies and they eat dinner and make friends.

Daniel—Norway—Dear God, please help the birds there fly and that the people would play with their games and the people would play with their daddies.

Benjamin—Canada—Dear God, please help them be happy.

Grace—U.S.S.R.—Dear God, I pray that the people would be healthy, big and strong and happy. Thank you for the people in Russia.

Prahlad—China—Dear God, I pray that the people would be happy and strong. Thank you for birds.

After we were done I let them go choose their jobs (toys) that they wanted to play with. Noah wanted to stay and pray for more places. Noah prayed for:

Greenland—Dear God, I pray that they would be happy and make new friends and play with friends a lot.

U.S.S.R—Dear God, I pray that the people would be happy and strong and smart in You and know that You are King.

Africa—Dear God, I pray that the people would grow strong in You and listen to Your words.

Sweden and Finland—(He noticed that together they make a rainbow shape). Dear God, I pray the people would grow strong in You and listen to Your words.

Norway—(He prayed for this one earlier as well)…Dear God, I pray they grow strong in You.

India and Antarctica—Dear God, I pray that they would help their other friends. 

At one point during job time one of the children sat on the chair on which I usually sit and got out the Bible and he said, “This is Miss Heather’s favorite book…the Bible.” Then he stopped for a little bit and asked me, “That’s right isn’t it Miss Heather?” I agreed…For quite awhile that’s how I’ve introduced the time when I read it to them. Our circle time consists of “exercise” where they each have a turn in the middle leading us in “exercise.” I put on a Christian music CD for our exercise music. Then we pray. I have a prayer helper who tells us what we will talk to God about first. We all pray “repeat-after-me” style whatever it is that the child decides. It’s usually a thank you prayer…thank you God for…After that it’s everyone’s turn to pray. The children either sit there or lay on their stomachs, etc. and they all pray. I pray as well so that they hear me praying too. After prayer I have them all find a place to sit where they can see the pictures to the story. Then I bring out the Bible and say something on the order of, “Now it’s time for the Bible…Miss Heather’s favorite book. I love the Bible, because it tells me about God and about things I should do…I love the Bible.” So, that’s where the child learned that statement that I love the Bible. J It was interesting though, because he also asked me why I have so many Bibles. I told him that sometimes I liked to read the Bible that used small words and sometimes I liked to read the Bible that uses big words…I know I need to think now of a better response, because I want them to know that all the Bibles are basically the same…so they don’t think it’s okay to read any sort of religious book/bible…

Actually, it was a good question though, because I had brought twelve Bibles (one per child) on another day back in September. I had been fasting leading up to the Extreme Makeover Conference by Kids in Ministry International (Becky Fischer). After seeing me go for more than a week with just water the children started to ask me what I was doing. So I talked to them about fasting and how I was doing it to get closer to God. Every day for awhile they would ask me about it and ask me why. We had some neat conversations about it. Almost every day I had one child who would offer me part of his lunch and so I would thank him for offering, telling him that was nice of him to do that, but that Miss Heather was fasting. They assumed that I wasn’t hungry and that I just didn’t want to eat, so I told them that no, actually I really wanted to eat, but more than that I wanted to get close to God. I told them about different ways of fasting…such as rather than eating our favorite food of macaroni and cheese we could fast by eating something we don’t like as much like peanut butter, or we might fast by choosing not to watch TV today (we don’t have a TV at our home and never have, but I know many of the children spent lots of time watching it), etc. One day I felt led to see if they wanted to fast from something so we determined as a class that the next day we would fast from playing with the jobs (toys) for a little while. After snack they would all come get a Bible and look at the Bible or talk to God rather than playing first. Then when they were done they drew a picture of what God said to them or a picture of something they saw in the Bible. So, I had brought 12 Children’s Bibles (of these Bibles I think I had 10 different versions that I’ve gathered over the years). So, that day rather than playing first, we fasted by looking through the Bibles and then drawing a picture. We did the same thing the following day. Anyway, so that’s probably where the question of why I have so many Bibles came from…

Today, the children again wanted to be pickled. However, we only had five minutes ‘til outside time so I told them we could, but that it would be a short time. I let them find their places and one girl (Grace) decided to sit on the chair on which I normally sit. So, I sat next to her on the floor. As I talked a little reminding the children to think about Jesus and reminding them how much God loves them and how special they are I heard Grace repeating after me every word I said. So, I stopped talking to see what she would do. She went on and this is what she said—“God wants us to be quiet and happy and not to yell and to have food to eat and try new foods and that’s all”…then when she noticed a little girl move she said, “Elizabeth, get pickled.”  By this time it was outside time so I whispered to Grace and asked if we were done getting pickled. She said no so we just all sat or lay there quietly…then a few minutes later she said we were done and we went outside.

Later on, after lunch Noah got pickled with his toy whale. He asked me if his whale could get pickled with him. I said that was fine, but that his whale would have to be quiet (he’d been having his whale talk a lot). He said that his whale already knew how to get pickled. So, he crawled under a shelf (one of the places he likes to go to get pickled). Then he pointed out to me how his whale was being quiet. After he was done getting pickled I asked him if God had told him anything or shown him anything. He said that God talked to his whale and told him God wants us to listen to Him…his whale told him what God had said.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Today after snack for our prayer activity we talked about light and darkness. I turned off the lights and talked about darkness and how the bad or naughty things that we do are darkness. I gave some ideas of darkness and had them share some too: not listening to mommy or daddy, telling lies, saying mean words, hitting, throwing things at people, etc. Then we talked about how light makes the darkness leave.  Then I shared one thing that was darkness and prayed in regards to it. Then I turned on the lights and the children all jumped up and down and shouted yeah!!! Then I called the next person over and that person turned of the lights. I made a big deal about the darkness and asked the child what darkness or bad thing we were going to pray about. Then after they told me I asked them what he/she was going to pray. I suggested that they might want to pray what it was they wanted to see or should do instead of the bad thing. I gave them an example such as: If someone were saying mean words we might pray that they would say nice words or say what Jesus would say. Anyway, after the child had prayed I shared with the rest of the class (because sometimes the child talked softly) what the bad thing/darkness was and then what the child had prayed. Then since the child had prayed that brought light…so the child got to turn on the lights and everyone jumped up and down and shouted yeah!!!. Then I had the next child come and do the same thing where they said something that was darkness, prayed about it, I shared it with the class and the child turned on the lights and everyone jumped up and down and shouted when the lights were on…As soon as the lights were off the children either lay down on the floor or sat and some even hid under blankets…when the lights were on they were very exuberant.

The children prayed for people who hit, who throw balls meanly at other people, who throw mud, who hit people in the face, who punch, who throw sand in people’s eyes, who don’t share their toys, who say you’ll die, who scratch, who punch in the head, who slap, who throw dirt, who throw buckets at people and who don’t listen to their mommy and daddy.

As soon as the last child had a turn we had an opportunity to talk about darkness, because there were quite a few children whose exuberance was increasing and who were choosing not to listen to my words. So, I had everyone sit down and I talked about how we were in darkness right then, because some people were not listening. So, I asked what should we do. They responded, “pray.” I said that’s right, but how should we pray, what should we say. They needed a little encouragement, but we came up with a prayer, prayed it and then talked about how now we were in the light.

After that it was job time (play time). One little girl said something to another girl that wasn’t nice and so one girl came and told me that the other girl was in darkness and needed to pray. So, I went over and talked to the girl and prayed. Then as I walked off I heard her repeat what I had prayed and she added more to it. Then she knew she was in the light again and she and the other girl went back to playing with each other.

Another incident happened between a boy and girl and the comment was made that one child was in darkness. So that child prayed and stopped the offending behavior. At one point I commented to a child that it sounded like darkness and so what should we do…she said pray….At lunch time one child commented to another child…that’s darkness…you need to pray….

It was neat to have the children catching each other in darkness (and calling it darkness) and then changing it to light…

Other ideas for bringing the light into the darkness would be using glo-sticks or flashlights.

Everyday the children still ask me if we can get pickled. The first two times I did “pickle prayer” I initiated it, but since then everyday the children have been the ones initiating it. Today we didn’t really have time for it, but after lunch they could choose to either look at books or get pickled (all but 2 chose to get pickled) even though it was only for a very short time.