The Children's Prayer Network, 2009

The last time I was in Cambodia, probably the item that got the greatest response from people at home was the children's prayer network. My friend, Phany, who runs a ministry called Kone Kmeng, which reaches out to children at risk to share the gospel and disciple these kids, also gives kids with very little in the way of support, resources for survival, the main emphasis being prayer. Every so often he gets the children in a given area together to have a prayer meeting. He works through the local pastors, who bring the children in their congregation (and some congregations are largely children) together to pray for one another and for the problems in the country. These kids are serious prayers, and I rejoice that the Lord is raising up a generation of future church leaders who rely on prayer.


On Saturday we got to attend a children's prayer meeting out in Svay Rieng province, where we had been doing children's ministry for several days, going from village to village out among the rice fields, to hold meetings with the kids. Some of them came to the prayer meeting. After
a lot of singing and presentations and skits from various group, we got down to praying. The theme of this prayer meeting was domestic violence, with which these kids are all too familiar. they got into small groups and made lists of their requests, ("pray that the other children in my
school stop persecuting me." "Pray that the Lord will provide the money for me to continue to go to school" Pray that my father will stop drinking." "Pray that my parents will believe in Jesus, too."...) As is the custom here, they all prayed at once--and so did we.

At one point, the adults present got all the kids into the center of the room and all prayed
at once for them. Much more touching was having the kids surround all the adults in the room and pray for us. I feel especially blessed to have been prayed for fervently by these very special children. They mean business when they pray and I think that God honors the prayers of children in a special way.


All this praying against domestic violence brought some strong emotional response from some of the kids. One girl sobbed uncontrollably, while her friends surrounded her and cried, too. These children have known a lot of violence. Phany told me that most Cambodian children have been traumatized in one way or another. Since being with them I have prayed much for the Lord's protection of them. Won't you join me in praying for them, too?