Kitchener

5 points of passing = 5 points of prayer:

Kitchener was our fifth week of camps. We were over halfway done our summer. We still had so much to learn. Kitchener was a unique church, as we held our camps in the church’s backyard...which just happened to be right beside the 401. Having camps right beside the highway = lots of traffic...all the time which = lots of noise = bad news for Liz. My voice got lost in the noise of the traffic. There was no way I was going to compete, so I got the boys to do all the yelling.

We had an afternoon of rain. Our first time indoors – craziness! It first starting raining when we had coaches corner, so it worked out perfectly, then it was lunch. But by the end of lunch, the kids wanted to get outside. We had a movie for them to watch about soccer, so while the kids were watching it Skip and I made up games for the kids to do. Luckily for us, we didn’t have to use them. We had everything planned for an afternoon inside, when D came in and told us that we were going back outside for world cup.

In Kitchener, God showed us the prayer of power and taught us so much about prayer. Kitchener had amazing people: too many to mention, but our host mom is worth special mentioning. She was at home for half the week, but during that half she told us so many stories. She told us her story of coming to faith, and what she has learned since then. She was a teacher, first in the public system and then for the last 5 years, in a Christian school. Story of prayer:

There was a little boy in her class. He was an active kid and loved learning. Then he became sick. It took the doctors awhile to figure out what was wrong with him. He was tired and lost his appetite and started missing a lot of days of school. The doctors finally figured out that he had a parasite in his intestines. Our host mom prayed for him every day. Sometimes he would come to school, but never for a full day. One day, as she was driving to school, she felt God speaking to her, telling her to pray for this boy – with the whole class. She gets to school, and the boy is at school. She took him aside and asked if it would be ok, if the whole class prayed for him. He agreed. She got the whole class involved: some kids read passages about prayer, some put their hands on him, and some prayed aloud. Later, that night, our host mom, called his mom to tell her what had happened at school. His mom was pretty excited because he actually ate a snack when he got home and then after dinner, wanted to go for a walk – something he hadn’t done in a couple of months. Slowly, he got better. Power of prayer.

On the Tuesday, the church invited us to their prayer evening. It was really cool. That night, they had a little twist though. The pastor’s wife was at camp while we were teaching the 5 points of passing, and it hit her. 5 points of passing = the 5 points of prayer.

1. Triple G (God Given Groove): our God given groove is our knees; we should be on our knees before God, praising Him and praying to Him
2. Face your target: look to God and pray to Him
3. Follow through: follow up. follow through with your prayers, see it to the end. Don’t give up when it seems nothing is happening, it’ll happen, see it through to the end.
4. Hit the pit: hit the centre. Just like when you make contact with the ball on the side or too close to the top, it’s not going to go where you want it to or have as much power as it could. You need to hit the pit when prayer or else you’ll miss your target.
5. Love the ball (when receiving the pass): love prayer. Too often if we do not see the results of our prayers, we give up and pray less. We are told to pray continually and to be joyful always.

“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18