Pray Through The Day
With Your Children
Knowing how to pray for young people in poverty isn’t always easy. Here’s a way you and your child can use daily activities to learn about and pray for children around the world.
Turn on the Faucet
Millions of children around the world don’t have clean water to drink, much less a faucet in their homes to turn on and off. Many of them, like this girl in Gulu, Uganda, have to walk a long way by themselves to collect water from a dirty pond or river. Sometimes the water is so dirty that it makes them sick.
Activity
Count all the faucets inside and outside your house. Talk with a parent about how easy it is for your family to get clean water.
Prayer
Pray for children who only have dirty water to drink.
Get Ready For School
Not all children get to go to school. Around the world, many families are so poor that they are forced to work all day to earn money, like 11-year-old Keota. Keota worked in a brick factory in Cambodia until she met people from World Vision. Now World Vision helps her to go to school, where she studies hard.
Activity
Draw a picture about what you like best in school. Talk with a parent about what life might be like if you worked making bricks instead of going to school.
Prayer
Pray for children who are so poor that they must earn income for their families instead of going to school.
Read a Book
Worldwide, 57 million children ages 5 to 11 don’t attend primary school — and half of them never will. The result is that 775 million adults can’t read, including Antonio Moldovan’s parents and grandparents. Antonio, 11, is the only person in his family who knows how to read well.
Activity
List five things you wouldn’t be able to do if you couldn’t read. How would those things impact your life? Now list five things you couldn’t do if neither you nor your parents could read.
Prayer
Pray that children who aren’t in school can one day attend.
Eat Lunch
Every school day, 66 million children go to class hungry. When children are hungry, they can’t concentrate on learning. Many children around the world don’t get enough to eat — like this boy in Democratic of the Congo — and some eat only one meal per day.
Activity
Draw a picture of all the food you ate today. Then, turn the paper over and draw what the boy in the picture is eating. What are the differences? How do you think you would feel if you didn’t have enough food every day?
Prayer
Pray for children who do not have enough food to eat.
Walk Up The Stairs
Living with a physical or mental disability can make life more difficult, especially in a developing country like Uganda. Most parents — like Sarah Nakate, shown here with her daughter Hawula — don’t have the money to buy a wheelchair or provide other assistance. A new wheelchair from World Vision makes things a little easier for 4-year-old Hawula and her mother.
Activity
Share with a parent how you think you would get around your house or your school if you couldn’t walk and had no wheelchair or other support device.
Prayer
Pray that children who are disabled have access to the resources and education they need to reach their full potential.
Take Out The Trash
Millions of children are growing up in unhealthy places like garbage dumps and slums. Their parents have no money, so everyone in the family collects and sells things others have thrown away. In Pakistan, these four siblings spend all day at this garbage dump. This environment is unhealthy and unsafe because it is filled with sharp objects and harmful materials.
Activity
Take a look in your trash can, and talk with a parent about what it would be like to live each day among garbage.
Prayer
Pray that all the world’s children will be safe, educated, and healthy.
Share a Bible Story
In 71 of the world’s countries, most people are not Christians. But in many places where World Vision works, sponsored children can learn about Jesus. In Mexico, Luis reads a Bible that a sponsor sent to his family.
Activity
Read your favorite Bible story. What do you like about this story?
Prayer
Pray that all children everywhere will know that Jesus loves them.
Go to Bed
Many children around the world have had to leave their homes because of war or other disaster. Four-year-old Fatima and her family had to leave their home in Syria, where three years of fighting had become too dangerous. Now they live in the nearby country of Jordan, and they don’t know when they’ll be able to go back home. For now, they all live in one crowded room.
Activity
Lie on your bed — then lie on the floor. Which is more comfortable?
Prayer
Pray for children who aren’t sleeping in their own beds, and instead share a bed or sleep on the hard floor.
