The Power of Prayer

Okay, yesterday I took a few of my youth group kids out to collect pop cans in order to help cover the costs of tee-shirts and to pay for their Bible bowl. We would knock on doors, and every person that answered, we would ask if they would donate pop bottles for their group. Every house where a person answered the door, we gave them regardless of donation, a gospel tract.

We began to go door-to-door, and people were really mean to these kids. They were very selfish- acting, rude, and some wouldn't even bother answering the door, even though you could clearly see that they were home. The kids were becoming very discouraged. A couple of the kids thought that it was because of their race that they were being treated so poorly. At one moment, I was even confused by it...

Then it dawned on me what was going on. I had one boy, Juwan, doing the right side of the street, and the girl on the left side. I said to Juwan, "I forgot to pray for us to be successful with this." You see, we were in such a hurry that I forgot to say a prayer before we began. So I prayed with him while the girl, Jocelyn, was on the other side of the rode. I had a feeling of peace come over me, and I told Juwan that the next house that he was going to go to was going to give him a nice donation. As he went to the next house, I pulled Jocelyn over to me and did a prayer with her. The same feeling washed over me. I told Jocelyn to watch what would happen.

Juwan was standing at the door when a lady said to him, "I don't have any pop bottles, but will you take a donation?" Juwan answered yes, and she gave him $10.00. I look towards Jocelyn at the house that she was at, and she was pulling a huge bag of pop bottles behind her. We were all amazed!

Every house that we went to, after we said our prayer, if they were home, they donated to us. It was simply amazing. We literally walked two blocks before we prayed. We literally had nothing, except what my mom donated. After we prayed we could only make it another full block because of time. However, that block that we made it through, was so giving and caring that we collected over 300 pop cans. In fact, someone stopped me and asked if he could donate pop bottles to the kids. I was shocked!

I asked the kids what they thought about that day, both of them answered, "pray before we do anything!!! God answers prayers."

It was a wonderful and successful day. I am thankful for the donations and the lesson that the kids learned!!