prayers and praises from a 7th grade Bible class.

today, i had the opportunity to observe a few classes at the school that just hired me as a substitute teacher and while the high school classes i sat in on were fine, the middle school one definititely took the cake. i recall five of the 20+ prayer requests (which 7 of them at least had to do with someone's dog or cat who might be sick, etc.) which i want to sharee b/c they were just too unique and hilarious to keep to myself. granted, i'm sure a few were just trying to get a laugh out of the class, but still...you have to admire their ambition to request prayer for something the teacher questions, "is this the most important thing you can think of to bring to God?" and them casually answer promptly, "Yep!".

Imagine a class full of 20 hands raised high in the air, shaking and waving to be called on. The teacher calls on kids one-by-one.

JIMMY: "Yeah, I have a praise for the football team having a 'buy' this week (they don't have any team to play so there's no game)! I'm just glad we don't have to play anyone!" Mrs. Currier writes it on the overhead, a little confused.

EMILY: "Yeah, my neighbor keeps smoking pot every night and my other neighbor, that lives across the street...their car got egged last night!" Mrs. Currier asks, "So what would you like us to pray for?" Emily thinks..."Umm...Uhh...that they stop smoking pot?" She said it like it was a trick quesiton. The class giggles.

CARL: "Yeah, can we pray for my sister's best friend--she went to the dentist and found out she has four cavities (the class gasps!)! But...she's british so that makes sense, but still..she needs help!" Mrs. Currier was confused again, "She's what?" Carl responded, "British! And British people have bad teeth!" The guy sitting next to Carl intervened, laughing at him as if he were stupid, "No you idiot! British peope don't have bad teeth. Peope who live in Britain usually don't have good teeth!!" Carl stands (or rather, sits) corrected.

JOSEPH: "Yeah, my Grandma keeps eating Big Mac's and Coke...and she's 70! So pray that she'll just not do that b/c she's old and keep putting salt on everything and stuff." Mrs. Currier nods and says, "So pray for her health?" Joseph responds, "Yeah b/c she can't keep eating Big Macs at her age."

AARON: "For my dog to stop peeing all over the house!" (The class laughs, of course) Mrs. Currier asks, "Is that something that really needs prayer???" Aaaron jumps in quickly and seriously, "Oh yeah! Because my mom yells at him and won't let him in the house all day b/c of it. So now he can only come in at night!" (The class "awweees") And that's the end of prayer time. Now, it becomes a hand-raising battle for who gets to pray for who's prayer request. I'll leave you with Jimmy's comment, who was sitting right in front of me: "Did someone already get Jenny's prayer request?" Mrs. Currier answers, "Yep, it's taken." "DANG IT!" Jimmy complains. "I wanted that one!"

TGIF.