This past summer one of our babysitters left us to head to Niger to work and tell people about Jesus.  At first I was mad at her for leaving me because she was one of our best sitters, but I got over it quickly!  😉

A few days before she left she stopped by the house to tell us bye and before she left my kids and I prayed over her and it was the sweetest thing to hear my kids pray for her to learn the language quickly, to tell lots of people about Jesus, and that she wouldn't die.   They came up with all of those on their own, but I thought they were all quite fitting for someone heading into a foreign land.

We added her picture to our prayer window in our house and each time we pray as a family we get the privilege to pray for people all over the world as they serve people.  Peru, Haiti, Niger, Libya, Scotland and London are currently represented on our prayer window.  One of my main hopes as a parent is that my children will grow up with an understanding that this world is bigger than they know.  That around the world people die daily because of lack of water.  That around the world people go to church in secret.  That around the world people don't have access to health care like us.  That around the world people die for their faith.  These are things I want my children to grasp.

This past month has been a hard one for our prayer window because someone that we have loved and prayed for from afar was killed for their faith.  The exact thing they prayed against with our babysitter that left.  I'm not always sure of how much they get or understand about everything that happened in this situation, and then out of no where they surprise me.  We were having dinner the other night and doing toasts (which kids love) and as it got to Story she held up her glass and proudly said “to Ronnie.”  Aaron and I paused and asked her why she toasted to Ronnie and she as confidently as she could said because he died and he loved Jesus.

Parents, how do you help your kids have a bigger world view?  I'd love to hear your resources so that we can all do a better job of sending our kids into this big bad scary world.