Prayer is costly

Don Rempel Boschman

The next morning, I went to visit some good Batswana friends in order to ask them to pray for the child. Bishop Bolokwe and his daughter were well known throughout southern Botswana for their spiritual insight and for the effec~tiveness of their prayers. Almost every day, several people would come to visit them, asking for prayer. Bishop Bolokwe, who was now in his 80s, had asked me to help train the pastors of his church and thus we had become close friends.

After hearing what had happened, Bishop Bolokwe and his daughter Mma Tiny agreed to pray for the child. They left the room in order to put on the clothing in which they prayed while I waited for them in their small living room. When they returned, Mma Tiny handed me a thick, soft towel. I was bewildered at first. What was the towel for? Seeing my bewil~derment, Mma Tiny explained that the floor was hard and I would need the towel to protect my knees from the cold, hard cement during the long time we would be praying.

Later, as I reflected on our time of prayer, I realized I had been taught a les~son. In Bishop Bolokwe's mind, both he and his daughter could pray at length on their knees on the concrete floor, but the missionary needed a towel. In other words, Bishop Bolokwe was sure that his 80-year-old knees were up to the task of prayer, and his daughter was sure that her 50-year-old knees were up to the task, but they both doubted whether the knees of the 30-year-old missionary had developed the strength and the calluses needed to pray for any length of time.

Many Batswana Christians spend large amounts of time in prayer, and our family increasingly came to value this. In April, 1995, my wife Kathleen injured her back. Medical treatment in June of that year made the situation much worse, and Kathleen was virtually bedridden for several months.

During that time, literally hundreds of people, both in North America and Botswana, prayed for Kathleen. Many of those people had never met Kathleen but only knew of her plight.

One group of Christians in particular was a source of strength to us. The Parana Apostolic Church is a small denomination of about 100 members comprising two active congregations. Two of their pastors attend a Bible study I lead, and they were very concerned about Kathleen's health. They asked if they could come and pray for her on a regular basis.

Every Wednesday evening during those difficult months, about 15 Christians, mainly university students, came to our house for an hour to sing and pray for Kathleen. A highlight for us during those services was the preaching, which focussed on healing stories in the Bible. The message was always the same: God performed miracles in the Bible, and God is still performing them today. Of course, we knew that, but during those bleak months our hearts needed to be constantly reminded of it.

As Kathleen continued to struggle with pain, the Parana Church decided that hers was an especially difficult case which needed the elders' intervention. At their own cost, a group of five older people boarded a bus and travelled the 300 km to our home. None of these people had ever met Kathleen, but they felt called to come and pray for her. They prayed and fasted that weekend for someone they didn't know.

Because of the Parana Church, I have learned how costly prayer can be. "I will pray for you" is a promise that is often too freely given. The members of the Parana Church gave large amounts of time to pray for us. They spent a lot of money to pray for us in person. I am sure that God would have heard them just as well had they stayed home and prayed for us for a shorter period, but their costly sacrifice was not only pleasing to God, it also lifted our spirits as very few other things could. Even missionaries need to be preached to and reminded that God can and does see and help people today.

" I'll pray for you" can be a costly phrase but it is one that can bring great blessings, even a miracle.