Prayer Partners

Growing up we had Prayer Partners at church. My grandmother was in charge of planning this event each year and it was always exciting. These were secret prayer partners and then after a certain amount of time there was a big reveal party. I still remember my prayer partners and those were relationships that I cherished as I grew up.

Well when I moved to my new church I had every intention of creating this type of program. Then no one signed up. It was very discouraging. So I put the thought on the shelf and figured there would be a time down the road that I could put it into action.

I have a group called Faithgirlz. We meet once a week on Sunday evenings for an hour. This group is designed for girls 5th - 12th grade. It is currently mainly middle school. So there are times these girls drive me nuts. But I am very passionate about this ministry and what it stands for. This is the specific time where I get to teach the girls what it means to be a girl devoted to God, how to live outside of the world's standards for girls, and how to find courage in the beauty that God created within them.

This is the group that Prayer Partners has come alive again. Each one of these young ladies' are paired with one of our adult UMW ladies. The idea behind this pairing is to give these girls another place they can go outside of family to find a positive mentor. This pairing is not secret, the girls and ladies know who each other are. We have gotten together a couple of different times and each time has been a blast. My favorite has to be the most recent.

We had a Valentine's party together. My thoughts behind this date is the fact that Valentine's Day can be one of the hardest days of young lady's life, especially if you're single and your friends are not. But seeing as most of these girls are in middle school, there isn't a whole lot of real dating yet. We got together for pizza, games, and a good time on February 15th. I didn't want to ruin anyone's actual Valentine's Plans.

I'm sure the adults were not so excited about the idea of pizza for dinner, but the girls sure were. A couple of the ladies brought some dessert, and we were definitely spoiled with some beautiful chocolate covered strawberries. I went shopping right after church, and happened upon the amazing after Valentine's sale of all things sugar. So I stocked up and came up with some really awesome games/prizes.

Each person was given a small box of chocolates and for each piece they had to tell something about themselves. This was great because some of our pairs had never met face to face, and some were brand new pairings. I was impressed with how easy the conversations flowed, and each time a new question was asked I had to interrupt everyone to ask it.

 

Each group was given heart shaped marshmallows and toothpicks. Their job was to create something that represented love to them. The only rules were no hearts, no crosses, and you must use all of the supplies you took. This was hilarious to watch and again it was successful.

After these two games we exchanged gifts. I asked each of the adults to bring a teddy bear for their prayer partner, and then I wrote a poem to go with them and they became prayer bears. I received something similar from a prayer partner when I was young and that is where the idea came from, but it also served as a Valentine's present. Girls love stuffed animals and most definitely as a Valentine gift. I wanted to make sure each of these girls received a special gift from someone who loved them on this special day. The girls then each had a chocolate rose to give to their prayer partner.