Arlene Horn kneels at her bedside every night, in her hand a list of 27 names. It's a class list from a local grade school, and Arlene has agreed to pray for them. "I don't know how to pronounce all their names," she laughs, "but I figure the Lord knows who I'm talking about!""I felt led to do it," Arlene shrugs. "Maybe it was the Holy Spirit. I don't know. I just felt led." Arlene lives at Holland Home, the Providence community in South Holland, Illinois. She has never thought of herself as a particularly gifted pray-er, but when she heard that kids at neighboring Calvin Christian School needed prayer partners, she signed up for the program.
The prayers go both ways. Dora wrote a letter to her class, asking them to remember her in prayer as well. She included a photo of herself -- "so they can see that I'm perhaps somewhat like their own grandmas" -- and she's hoping to visit the class in person later this spring.
In addition to Dora Boomstra and Arlene Horn, three other Holland Home residents signed up for the prayer partner program immediately. Gladys Kooy was partnered with the eighth-grade class at Calvin; Anna Bakker was paired with the seventh-graders; and Cleo Sanders agreed to pray for the fourth-grade class.
What a terrific program! It gives the seniors a chance to do something significant for the South Holland community; it teaches the students the value of prayer; and it involves both groups in each other's lives. Dora has already told me that she plans to sign up for the program again next year, and she wants to keep the class that she has now -- she wants to pray them all the way through graduation! I think that's sweet.
