Eleven-year-old Evie Mills from Hillcrest Chapel is serving her church through a ministry of prayer.
Earlier this year, before the church’s annual week of prayer, God gave Evie an idea. At the end of the week, during an open time of sharing in church, she stood up and explained it. She had made a prayer box and invited people to write down their prayer requests and place them in it. Each week, Evie takes the box home and prays through every request.
“I like to make people happy,” Evie says. “It makes me happy to pray for them because even if I’m having a bad day, when I pray for people, it makes them happy. I think older people like it when kids pray for them.”
Every evening, Evie sits in her room, switches on a battery-powered candle, and prays. She carefully glues each request into a notebook so she can keep praying for them. Some requests include a name, while others are anonymous. “If I don’t know the person, or who it’s from, it doesn’t matter,” she says. “I just pray because God knows.”
Evie has also taken the box to Kidzone, the midweek kids programme, where children have added their own prayer requests, and she is now thinking about how she could introduce a prayer box at school.
Evie’s mum admits she was initially unsure whether people would use the box, but the response has been encouraging. “It has been great for Evie to see the impact this has had on people. We don’t always understand how our actions affect others, but God knows what people need, and he is at work.”
Evie’s story is a reminder that children have much to contribute to the life of God's people.
