Our Family Prayer Sticks

Don't you just love Pinterest? I mean I just love seeing other people's ideas. It's so inspiring. When I saw this on Melissa's Projects...I knew this was a project for our family.

Prayer Sticks

 

 

I am so thankful for my years of teaching. The first thing God impressed upon me is how sweet and special a young child's prayer is. When I faced cluster migraines, my little kindergartners prayed daily for me. Their parents would tell me the sweetest stories that have remained with me to this day.

 

I have also been forever impacted by my first grade teaching partner, Miss Eger. She inspired me to teach children about a deep and consistent prayer life and how to encourage others.

 

Now that I have turned from "teacher" to "Mommy", I jumped on this idea. The computer design person in me jumped onto publisher... made some circles... stalked Facebook for pictures of family and friends... used the pictures as the filler for the circles...and WALLAH...

 

 

Then, I attached them to popsicle sticks. Do you see your face?

 

 

If you look closely, you will see our immediate family, extended family, friends, pastors, missionaries, politicians (our president, vp, first lady, congresswoman and the republician candidates for president and vp), and even our pediatrician. There are a couple of people who are missing due to lack of pictures, but I hope to add them soon.

 

 

It is sooo great to have these pictures for my kiddos since we live far away from family. Just in the few days of using them, LJ keeps pulling them out and guessing who everyone is. No more explaining who extended family is when we visit over the holidays!!

 

I added a little decoration to our watering can. I almost just put magnets on the backs of them and used them on our fridge, but I love how this can turned out!!

 

 

So how will we use our tin? On Mondays, we will pick 1 stick person to pray for each day that week. We will aslo send a special card to them for encouragement. I am going to take my print out and print it on a full sheet label...cut them out to make stickers ...to add to their card.

 

At dinner, each person at our table will pick a person to specifically pray for. At bed time, LJ will pick someone special to pray for. Already, she has loved praying for her second cousins Anna and Abby. Thinking ahead, I have a feeling that each of my kids will have a tin that they will put together for their night-time prayer time. They can include all of their friends and people they want in their tin. Maybe this will be where I use them as magnets??

I think this would have a great application to a small group or even youth group. Pick a Stick and pray for a friend! If I ever get into the classroom again...this would be a great way to pray for each other!

Here is another version without pictures from the blog Joy's Hope.
 

When we get our first encouragement card done, I will show you a picture of it. Maybe you'll be the first one to get it in the mail!!!