One day at school Mila saw her teachers smoking cigarettes during their breaktime. Mila knows that smoking can hurt people, so right then she prayed for her teachers.
Today’s story comes from Bulgaria. [Locate Bulgaria on the map.]
Mila [MEE-lah] is 6 years old, but already she’s a prayer warrior. Who knows what it means to be a prayer warrior? [Explain that a prayer warrior is someone who prays for other people until God answers.]
One day at school Mila saw her teachers smoking cigarettes during their breaktime. Mila knows that smoking can hurt people, so right then she prayed for her teachers. “Dear Jesus, please help my teachers know that smoking is bad for them. Help them to stop smoking before it makes them sick. Amen.”
Prayer List Grows
That evening when Father arrived home, he saw Mila sitting on the couch with her head bowed. He wondered if something was wrong. He tapped her and asked if she was OK. Mila looked up and said, “I’m fine. I’m just praying for my teachers. They smoke and I don’t want them to get sick.”
Daddy sat down beside her and said, “Would you pray for a woman at work? She smokes too.” Mila smiled, and she and her daddy prayed for Daddy’s friend at work and for her teachers. Mila prayed every day for her teachers and her daddy’s friend.
God Answers Her Prayer
One day several weeks later Daddy came home and told Mila that his friend at work had stopped smoking. The woman told Daddy that she had suddenly lost her desire to smoke and hadn’t smoked again. She said that she had tried to stop smoking many times before, but she had always failed. But suddenly she had no desire to smoke again.
Daddy asked her when she had stopped smoking. The woman told him the date, and Daddy smiled. He told the woman that she had stopped smoking the day after Mila started praying for her. The woman was surprised that a child’s prayer could help her stop smoking. And she has not smoked again.
Still Praying
“My teachers still smoke,” Mila says. “And I’m still praying for them. Sometimes when I see them smoke, I tell them that I’m concerned because smoking is bad for them.” Mila told her teachers that she had prayed for her daddy’s friend, and she had stopped smoking.
“Why don’t you pray that I stop smoking too?” one of Mila’s teachers asked. Mila smiled and told her that she’d been praying for her for several weeks. “My teacher wants to stop smoking,” Mila added. “And I’m sure God will answer my prayers.”
God answers our prayers according to His will. We all can pray for others—our families, our friends at school and in our neighborhood, the store clerks, and people we have never met, such as missionaries who serve around the world and the children whose stories we hear every week in Sabbath School. Let’s pray right now for those we love. That’s part of being a missionary for Jesus. [Close with prayer.]
