My teenage years were spent in an orphanage called Christ's Home located in a farming district some 30 miles north of Philadelphia. This home was run by some faithful German Christians who were greatly influenced by George Müller, a 19th century Christian who maintained an orphanage in Bristol, England. He lived by faith in God and taught others how to live their lives by totally trusting in the Lord for all their needs. So my life was surrounded by men and women who were always having private or public prayer meetings in which they would ask God in faith for every need, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual, and then expect him to answer their prayers. They loved to tell all of us kids from time to time the story of how one dark snowy winter day several years earlier at our orphanage, they gathered all the children and workers together in the dining hall for prayer because they had no food. As they were praying to the Lord to provide food for the children, they heard the sound of sleigh bells, which were normally worn on horses that pulled large snow sleds. The ringing of the bells stopped for a few moments, then started up again and slowly drifted away. Finally the prayer session was finished, and one of the curious workers slipped out of the dining hall to look out on the front lawn. Suddenly there was a great cry of joy, and all the others quickly joined him to see sitting on the steps in the snow enough food for all of them. And the only sign of the giver was the tracks the horses and sled had left in the newly fallen snow.

For many years after that Christ's Home experience I was an observer of prayer, but as the years passed I discovered, as so many of you have, the need to become a participate in prayer. Why? Because I have been learning from the Lord the same spiritual principle he taught his disciples in Luke 18:1: "...that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart." I am finding that there are so many stresses and perplexing problems in my life and the lives of those around me, and that if I am not praying to our gracious and loving heavenly Father, I find myself fainting, simply losing heart.