L
ooking for a fun way to help elementary students in your home, school, or church participate in mission? Consider using the Mission to the Cities prayer map poster, like the students at Edenville Seventh-day Adventist Elementary School in Michigan.
These students used the prayer map poster to guide them as they prayed together daily—one city per day—for each of the world’s largest cities. They enjoyed pronouncing the cities’ names, filling in the small circle by each city’s name on the map after praying for it, and “traveling” to cities near and far on their prayer mission. If their teacher, Rachel, forgot to have them pray for the city of the day, the students would remind her.
They kept on together, marking off one city per day until they found out teacher Rachel would be moving away at the end of the school year to teach at a different school. At the rate of one city per day, they knew they wouldn’t finish all 600 cities on the map before she left. They expressed their concerns to her, so Rachel made a new plan.
Each day, she would assign each student their city. Then, in morning prayer, she would pray, “We would like to pray especially for these cities . . .” She would then say a student’s name and city, and that student would pray for that city. The process would repeat with each student. As for what they prayed for on behalf of the cities, Rachel says, “Sometimes we prayed for financial resources, sometimes we prayed for protection, sometimes we prayed for ideas for the missionaries to reach people, sometimes we prayed the missionaries would have courage, and sometimes we prayed that the Holy Spirit would go before the missionaries to open hearts to hear the gospel.”
At the end of the school year, the students were happy to fill in the last circle on the map and feel the satisfaction of having prayed for all 600 cities worldwide with a million or more residents each. Rachel contacted Adventist Mission to request two more prayer map posters—one to leave with the students in case they might want to pray for the cities again next year, and one to take with her to her next school.
If you know some students who would enjoy praying their way around the world, contact Adventist Mission at MissiontotheCities.org and request a prayer map poster. Posters and shipping are free within North America. Prayer map poster files are available at the same site for download and local printing for other regions.
Consider these ways to make your prayers for the cities more interesting and meaningful:
- Search the names of lesser-known cities on YouTube and watch short clips to get an idea of the place and people you are praying for.
- Team up with your Sabbath School class to pray for the cities.
- Help your kids learn geography and social studies as they pray for a different city each day.