Win-Win Situation

by A.C.

I haven’t yet found a down-side yet to training children in the fine art of effective prayer. Nobody’s gotten puffed up, kids actually enjoy praying, intercessors have been discovered, and positive life-choices are made under the direction of the Holy Spirit. I’ve been doing kids prayer training for nearly sixteen years now and it never gets old, watching God do “His thing” when kids are shown how activate their faith. Recently, while attending the “Deep Calls Deep,” conference in Singapore, as a guest trainer for elementary-aged children, we zeroed in on worship and the effect it has on God’s enemies as well as listening for God’s voice. Listening for God’s voice turned out to be their most favorite discipline. Kids actually were stoked about prayer; some of them for the first time in their life.

Now for the interesting part. One boy, Seth, heard God’s voice for the first time in his life and it changed him on the spot. That was well and good, but there’s more. He listened intently for God’s voice a second time and the message he received was that our group should pray for a “Pastor Leaman.” He had never heard this name said in his life and wondered if there could be a person with such a name. This was confirmed by a few other children in the group who knew we should pray for a pastor, but they didn’t know which one until Seth gave us the name. What a winning situation!

We prayed simply and with transparent sincerity for this “Pastor Leaman,” without knowing which one, where he lived or what the situation was. As I related the events of our training to a friend attending the conference, the Holy Spirit quickened her insight about which Pastor Leaman we had prayed for. It was a pastor and Foreign Missions District Director in the Minnesota district. Yes, that’s the one. It doesn’t stop here. There is more. Now it’s a Win-Win Situation!
When my friend, Cylinda, visited the group the next morning to give them details to confirm their experience, the group decided to be a blessing to her for her kindness. They asked God to give them a message for her, and after a brief time of listening for God’s voice, three children in the group felt God had given them a collective picture she would understand. The message (in three parts) was clear and was a source of unquestionable direction. Wow, a Win-Win-Win Situation!

Can you imagine how these children felt knowing how specifically God showed up for them? Of all the people at the conference, he used them to really route the enemy through extraordinary worship, they flowed with the moving of the Holy Spirit among the adults as if they were one of the leaders on the platform (and without vying for attention). It was amazing!

After the training was over, they didn’t stop. When I got back to my “regular” job, working in a preschool overseas, I met some spiritual turbulence. The enemy tried to negatively affect me through attacks on the children in my kindergarten. For two weeks straight after I returned, every day a child was seriously injured. That is until I realized the nature of the attack and contacted the kids group in Singapore. They prayed with me for the spiritual attack to stop and joined with me to pray protection over every child in my care. Within hours the accidents stopped and things have returned to normal. How many times can I say, “Win-Win-Win-…Situation?”

So now that you’ve read a trainer’s perspective, I want to allot some time for you to read perspectives from Seth, Pastor Leaman, Cylinda, and Brenda (Seth’s Children’s Leader). I think their stories will thunder across the page better than anything else I could write that training kids to pray is a “Win-Win Situation.”

Seth’s Perspective: “About 15 seconds had passed. I could literally feeland hear the name “Pastor Leaman” . I was very doubtful about it. I was not sure if there was such a person. I checked with Sis. Angie and she told me that God would not blame me if I was wrong ,she also said that she knew a few Pastor Leamans. After “listening time” was up, Sis Angie asked us to share what we heard or saw. It happpened that another boy, seated not far from me, had seen a man/boy preaching. Sis Angie told us we should pray for Pastor Leaman and his safety. I was still very doubtful and Sis Angie convinced me to trust in God. I felt that it made sense and we started praying for Pastor Leaman in a group. The next day, a big surprise was in for us. A friend of Sis Angie, Sis Cylinda, came in to kids church. It turned out that she knew a Pastor Keith Leaman who was sick. It was actually true ! I was very happy and I want to hear more from the Lord!”

Pastor Keith Leaman’s Perspective: To know that God has put me on someone’s heart in the middle of my battle with life-threatening illness has lifted my spirits. To know that God used my situation to provide a training ground for children to get to know His voice, makes what I’m going through a little less of a mental ordeal. I know He hears me and loves me, because these children let me know.

Cylinda’s Perspective: It was quite something to share the insight God had given me after I’d heard Seth’s Word from God. But then to receive such a wonderful blessing as the children circled around me, listening for God’s voice and shared what they heard (even if it was a little strange, it made perfect sense to me), then praying for me. All I can say is, Wow!

Brenda’s Perspective: “We invited Sis Angie to teach our children on prayer during our annual church camp in 2010. She took the children to a new height of prayer and listening to  the voice and direction of God, to be sensitive to God’s voice through visions they’d see and draw out. We’d pray for the person, country or situation they felt God was leading to draw out and it was phenomenal just to see the children drawing connected and similar pictures without speaking a word to each other! Truly God can confirmed prophetic directions in prayer through the mouth of these two to three young witnesses! There was a unique occasion when one of our young kids, Seth (age 11), heard God telling Him of a name, Pastor Leaman. I knew that it was a God-given name and one not imagined as the name ‘Leaman’ could have never been imagined by an Asian child; it is too foreign and unheard of. After praying for this Pastor Leaman, we found out from an overseas delegate within the camp that
she knew a Pastor Leaman was suffering from chronic sickness and immediately, goosebumps appeared all over my arm. God had used an 11 year old boy on the other side of the world to engage in prayer for this pastor who he has never met nor seen. Oh the deep love of God!”