Praying for the World: A Summer Tradition

Jenna Marie Masters shares a meaningful summer tradition that teaches children to develop a heart for the world through prayer, learning, and engaging activities. This lighthearted episode offers practical ways to nurture global awareness in kids while having fun as a family.

• Choose a country using a globe, scratch-off map, or let kids take turns selecting
• Use "Operation World" prayer guide to learn about each country's specific needs
• Visit the library to find age-appropriate books about the selected country
• Cook authentic dishes together (even when they don't turn out perfectly)
• Watch movies or documentaries related to the country's culture
• Consider organizing a "Pray for the World Club" with other families
• Help children find ways to give to organizations serving in countries they're learning about
• Remember that nurturing global awareness aligns with God's heart for all people

If you feel like this tradition is exciting, please share it with a friend. I would love to have an army of moms and kids praying for the world this summer. Don't forget to follow, save, share and subscribe!

Transcript

Introducing Real Moms, Real Faith

Speaker 1 0:11

This is Jenna Marie Masters with the Real Moms , real Faith Podcast . I am so glad you're here so you can be encouraged to trust God with all the things one day at a time . Hello , my friends , this is episode 17 . Last week was kind of a heavy episode , as I was talking about while my son is graduating . So if you didn't get that one , jump on back and listen to it . This one is going to be a little more lighthearted because I don't want to cry this week . I'm just done .

Speaker 1 0:36

My son actually graduates on Wednesday , which , when this podcast drops , will be tomorrow ,

A Summer Tradition: Praying for the World

Speaker 1 0:43

oh my gosh . So today we're gonna talk about something totally different . This is going to be about a summer tradition that we have done in our home for years , but I have to be honest with you . Last year we totally dropped the ball and we did not do it . I think as your kids get older , especially in high school , it can be hard to like wrangle them in to the special thing that mom wants to do . So the tradition is going to shift as they get older . But I just want to share this with moms because I think it's important . The tradition I'm going to be talking about is praying for the world , which we really should be doing all year . I get that , but if you make it a special summer thing with your kids , it makes it an event and it makes it something that they really look forward to and I think it still instills the same principles .

Speaker 1 1:29

I actually just had my five-year-old's kindergarten graduation this week as well . So , like I said , I'm always at two ends of the spectrum here . But we had her end of the year picnic at the park yesterday and I was talking to another precious mom who is from Egypt . I'm always curious when I meet people who grew up in another country , I like to ask their perspective . So I asked her what most surprised you about Americans when you moved here , and first she wanted me to know how much she loves America , that she would never want to raise her child anywhere else . But her answer to this question was I was a little surprised about how little Americans know about other cultures and it

Nurturing Global Awareness in Children

Speaker 1 1:57

just kind of hit me and it made me a little sad .

Speaker 1 1:59

But I also understand it , because a lot of times we don't look outside ourselves . If it doesn't affect us personally . Sometimes it's hard to get out of that and care . I would love to travel the world with my kids . I would love to get lost down colorful alleys and pop into restaurants that smell like butter and spice and that just sounds amazing , but that's probably not everybody's reality right now . Number one it costs a lot of money to do that . And number two , we don't have the time to do that because we spend a lot of our time at soccer practices and track meets and dance and doing the laundry and cooking the dinners and making sure that everybody is still alive by the end of the day .

Speaker 1 2:31

It is our current life stage and I adore it , but I still want to instill a passion in my children for the world and all God created , and this is why God has entrusted us with nurturing eternal souls , each soul in our and sometimes we lose perspective of that and God has entrusted us with them for a season and we get to set the groundwork in our home for how they view the world and others . I want to build a foundation on what Jesus has already set and there is no denying that the lens in which we are to view the world as Christians through Christ's example . Then they need to have a love for God's people , because John 3.16 sums it all up . God so loved the world

Fun Ways to Learn About Countries

Speaker 1 3:14

that he gave his only son . God so loved the world . That's your mic drop . If we can't teach our kids to so love the world and the people in it , we've missed the mark of the gospel .

Speaker 1 3:26

And one way that we can do this in our home that can be fun and easy is to teach our kids to pray for the world , because anybody can do that . You don't have to go to a third world mission trip to pray for the world . You don't have to jump on a plane to open up a book and read the needs of the people across the globe and care about them . So we're going to make this easy . We're going to make it really fun , because when we engage kids in a fun way , they start to care . When they see how much we care , they start to care , and when you make it fun , they get excited . I really believe this is not only one step closer to God's heart , but it's one small way to start loving on a global level . And there's so many simple yet meaningful ways to nurture your children's love for all of God's people . But this is just going to be an easy way . So , number one , you're just going to choose the country that you're going to pray for every month , every week , however you want to make this happen . You can buy yourself a globe , you can spin it and then have one of your kids stop the globe with their finger , and that's the country that you're going to do . Pick it at random . We used to have a map you could scratch off the country that you were going to pray about , so different colors would pop up . I got that on Amazon years ago . You could even get a cork map and fill it with colorful pins and put a pin into every country after you pray for it . You could even have each kid take turns picking the country each week or each month , however you want to schedule it out . So that's really fun too , and then you might find out that your kid was interested about a country that you had no idea was on their heart , and that can be a really sweet insight into who they are as a person too . So , number one just choose the country , however you want to do that . Number two pray .

Speaker 1 4:54

I cannot emphasize how precious this book I'm about to talk about is . It is called Operation World the Definitive Prayer Guide to Every Nation . It's by a guy named Jason Mandrick , and this book is a treasure . It contains all sorts of interesting nuggets about every country in the world , including its most urgent prayer needs , which is my favorite part , and this is where we focus as a family . But whatever those prayer needs are poverty , persecution , the government , corruption , child exploitation , orphans , lack of natural resources , etc . We include them in our family prayer time during dinner . So this book includes all of that in a section , and they even have another part of answered prayers for each country , which is so cool . Then you can look and see hey , these are things that people have been praying about for years and this is how God is answering them in this country . And sometimes you have to edit some of these things . When you have small children , of course , it's tricky to explain what sex trafficking is to a four-year-old . So you just say there's a lot of women there who are being treated really unfair . There's a lot of women there who are not being loved by the people who are supposed to protect them . I mean , you can

Creating a Prayer Community

Speaker 1 5:57

always word it in a way that is age appropriate . The whole point of this is to nurture empathy and compassion for these people they've never met . I will put the name of this book in the podcast notes .

Speaker 1 6:08

The next thing you can do is learn about the country At the library . There are books about every country you could imagine and there's a bunch in the kids section . We would go to the library when my kids were little and I would just let them run around and pick out any book they wanted about that country . Sometimes , of course , I'd have to help them find it , but there's really cool things in there . I mean , there's picture books , there's pop-up books , there's all kinds of things about different countries , and this makes it exciting for them too , because they get to go to the library . It's a special trip pick out a special thing about a special country . And if your kids are older , we all know how easy it is for them to get a book on their Kindle or off Amazon .

Speaker 1 6:41

The third thing to do is to cook . This was my favorite part , because everything normally went wrong , but it made for some really great memories . So we would find a recipe normally , you know , online it's so easy now . Sometimes finding the ingredients can be tricky , but we're so blessed now there's so many grocery stores around that have international food sections . If you want an ingredient , enough you can find it , but this is so fun because you get to cook together . You have fun together .

Speaker 1 7:08

I would say this is where some of my greatest kitchen fails have ever happened , including a Russian borscht that I made . I'm probably not even saying that correctly . It was terrible , and it wasn't because the soup is bad , it's because I made it bad . Another huge fail that I did was an Ethiopian bread . It was awful , and you'll start having to say things like yes , yes , micah , I'm sure I followed this recipe . No , chana , I don't know why it doesn't look like the picture , and we took a lot of pictures while we would cook to show the progress , and it was just a whole thing . I think some of the best food we made was some Nigerian food and some Jamaican food . That was amazing and actually turned out good . So if you do do this , I would love for you to send me .

Speaker 1 7:52

The fifth thing you can do is have fun learning about the culture . We would always do a movie night . The older kids really enjoy documentaries , but there's also great options even if your kids are younger , and I'm probably going to get some judgment for this . But seriously , if you're doing France , beauty and the Beast totally counts , because in the beginning they say bonjour and they eat baguettes and things like that . Please don't judge me .

Speaker 1 8:17

I'm just trying to show you that you can get your child excited about other countries in a simple , fun way . Because what's the heart of this ? The heart of this is that we just want to bring awareness to our kids that there is a world outside themselves . I need a reminder that there is a world outside myself . You could even put on a YouTube , learn a cultural dance from that country . There's so many things you could do to make it fun Sit down and learn a song in their language and one of them is you can give .

Speaker 1 8:46

Once your eyes are open to the immediate needs of others and once your kids' hearts start to open up and soften , you're going to be moved to action . If one of my kids shows a particular interest in the need of another nation , I will help them research an organization that they can support through their allowance . Once my kids worked really hard and set up a whole lemonade stand in order to raise money for water wells in Africa , because it just moved their heart and that's exciting , because you're seeing the Holy Spirit work in their hearts at a young age and they get excited about giving to others , and I feel like there's just nothing better than that . The last thing that we can do , that just makes it fun because it's summertime , invite people to do this with you . One summer we organized a Pray for the World Club and each month we would host a potluck , so every family invited could bring a dish that represented the country they had been praying for and they got to share a little bit about the country , share about the needs of the country , a little bit about the food and what they did for fun to learn about the culture . It was really cool because it was fun . We were all practicing faith at the same time together . I mean traditions don't get much sweeter than sharing it with others .

Speaker 1 9:49

I just want to reiterate why this is important . As believers , taking time to learn and pray for others around the world demonstrates to our kids that we should care , and praying teaches our children that God will use them in a way to make a difference across the globe . In Acts 17 , we learn that Paul took the time to learn about cultures different than his own because he wanted them to know Jesus . So he realized I have to know them too . He was prepared to point them to the one true God they so desperately needed . We have responsibilities , mamas , to model and practice ways to imitate the

Closing Thoughts and Listener Appreciation

Speaker 1 10:22

heart of Jesus . So praying for the world will encourage a global perspective in the hearts of our children .

Speaker 1 10:27

So I hope that you are excited about this summer tradition . I'm excited because I'm going to rev it up again . So if you are interested in doing this , I would love for you to send me a note . You can email me anytime at hello at jennamariemasterscom . I would love to hear from you . You can also send me a text . The only thing is with the texts I can't respond to them . If you would like me to be able to respond to you , please email me instead .

Speaker 1 10:51

And I just want to thank a listener in Coco Florida . She said Jenna , love your podcasts . Thank you for this ministry God has called you to . And I just want to thank this listener . Thank you for listening . It means so much to me that you took the time to write that note , thank you . Thank you . If you feel like this tradition is exciting and a fun idea , please share it with a friend . I would love you to do that . It would be so cool to have an army of moms and an army of kids just praying for the world this summer at the same time . I just love that idea and if you have a moment to rate and review this podcast , it really helps other moms find the podcast , so I so appreciate it . Thank you for taking the time . Can't wait for summer . Can't wait to catch up with you next week . Don't forget to follow , save and share and subscribe . You're awesome . Give it up for our mommy Love it .