Here I Raise My Ebenezer

We try to have a brief time of family worship every evening.  Usually this consists of a short Bible story, singing two songs from the Wee Sing Bible Songs and Wee Sing More Bible Songs and a hymn, and a time of prayer.  Recently, prayer time has been a battle with the girls.  It is difficult for them to think of things to pray for.  At the same time, they really don't like it when we give them things to pray for.  While God does care about us not having bad dreams at night, we really want our children to get beyond thinking of their own needs and pray for others in our family, the church and the world.  Enter prayer board.  I went to Target and bought this bulletin board.  We divided the board into three sections: family, church, world.  (As you can see from the picture, it's still a work in progress.)  Whenever we have a prayer request we write it down (with the smelly markers) on a piece of paper and post it on the bulletin board. During our family devotions, we're not at a loss of what to pray for anymore.  We ask each of the girls to pray for something on the board.  We are happy because they are praying for something in addition to not having bad dreams.  They are happy because they are choosing what to pray for.  Some friends at church also gave us the idea to write down how God answers each specific prayer request on the back and keep them, so that we can periodically remind ourselves of how God has answered our prayers.  We are really looking forward to building our Ebenezer!