To Sabbath School teachers: This story is for Sabbath, March 23.

By Andrew McChesney

Kashish is only 13 years old, but she is already learning one of the oldest languages in the world. Kashish is learning Sanskrit at a Seventh-day Adventist school in northern India.

Sanskrit is the ancient language of India. No one knows exactly how old it is, but people were using the language in India at least 1,500 years before Jesus was born. Today, all Indian schoolchildren have to learn Sanskrit because Hindi and many other languages in India are based on Sanskrit.

But Sanskrit is a hard language to learn. The words are difficult to pronounce. The way a word is pronounced depends on if there is a dot below the word, a dot above the word, or a dot at the end of the word. A child has to look at the word very carefully to see where the dot is in order to know how to pronounce the word correctly.

Not many people speak Sanskrit. It is usually only spoken by Hindu priests when they recite chants for religious rituals.

Kashish comes from a Seventh-day Adventist family. She never heard anyone speak Sanskrit except in school. It was hard!

But then Kashish fell sick the day before a big exam in Sanskrit. She needed to study for the exam when she came home from school. But her forehead felt really hot. She felt too weak to stand. She didn’t feel any better lying in bed. She could only think about the dreaded Sanskrit exam. She decided to pray.

“Heavenly Father, please heal me soon,” she prayed. “Please help me to pass the exam and get a good grade tomorrow. Amen.”

As soon as she finished the prayer, she felt better. She opened her textbook and studied for the exam as best she could. She also reviewed notes that she had taken in class. She wasn’t able to study much, just a few things here and there.

The next morning, Kashish felt strong enough to go to school. But she felt nervous. She knew that she wasn’t ready for the exam. Before leaving the house, she prayed to God for help.

At school, the teacher gave Kashish a piece of paper with a list of questions written in Sanskrit.

Kashish looked at the questions. She looked carefully to see if there was a dot below the word, a dot above the word, or a dot at the end of the word.

She blinked.

She looked again.

She couldn’t believe her eyes.

The questions on the exam were exactly what she had studied the previous day. She knew all the answers! God had heard her prayers.

Kashish was so happy!

An hour later, Kashish finished the exam and handed it in.

Two days later, she got the results back. The teacher had given her 13.5 points out of 15 points. It was a very good grade.

Kashish smiled.

After that experience, Kashish wants to encourage other boys and girls to pray.

“I would like to say that there is power in prayer,” she said. “Once I had an exam in Sanskrit. It is a really hard language, and I wasn’t ready. I didn’t prepare well. But I prayed, and God gave me a good grade on the exam.”

Part of this quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath Offering will help construct a new school building for Kashish and other students in Anni, India. The 450 students at Kashish’s school now study in an old building that was built by a German missionary in 1976. Thank you for helping give Kashish and her classmates a new school building.