Below is a prayer written by Ellen, a Kids Hope USA director.
Father, as your children, we come to you acknowledging:
- Our lack of control
- Our need to learn
- Our need to trust
- Our need for your care of us and love for us
Father, these acknowledgements resound in our hearts as we think of our children, including our mentees.
Father, you know their needs and you have opened our hearts to help these children facing challenges. We cannot do this alone, so we come before you asking for help.
Please help us, Father, to recognize the yearning to learn in:
- The child afraid of school,
- The child with behavioral or developmental issues which make learning so hard,
- The child so hungry he or she can’t concentrate,
- The child so fearful that learning is the last thing on which she or he can concentrate,
- And all those children struggling in other ways with a yearning to learn who are facing huge challenges.
Please help us, Father, as we sense in our mentee the need to feel cared for and loved as evidenced:
- In the child afraid of connecting,
- In the child suffering from loneliness, being alone,
- In the child crying out for attention,
- In child yearning for a warm hug,
- And all those other children so hurt by feeling a lack of caring and love.
We know them, Father. We are aware. We hurt for them.
We give thanks
- for your love of them,
- for the tears you shed for them,
- for the Kids Hope program because it does give hope through the prayers, the hours spent together, mentor and mentee, and
- the connections the mentors and children have made and shared.
We rejoice in the changes that are evident in mentees as they grow in confidence and belief in themselves because
- a mentor has listened to their frustrations,
- a mentor has supported their learning,
- a mentor has become someone to trust,
- and a mentor has provide caring concern and love.
A child is born, a miracle, a wonder. Life challenges come but so does hope. Father, bless these children, our bright future full of possibilities.
Amen