Operation World by Jason Mandryk is a wonderful reference book and prayer guide that I use in conjunction with my geography/Bible curricula. I began using it last year when my students learned about Latin American countries. This book lists every nation in the world--it shares statistics and maps, outlines how we can pray for each specific country, and explains how God has answered prayers for that country.
If you don't have this book in your classroom, you can still join the prayer movement by going to
www.operationworld.org. There is a prayer guide posted that lists a new country each day, so my students and I visit the website every morning after our worship time. They enjoy learning about new countries (where they are located, what languages are spoken, what percentage is Christian, how many missionaries are currently serving there, what God is doing in the country, and how we can pray) and praying as a group. After our prayer time, I post the name of the nation we're praying for on the wall next to the students' cubbies, so anytime they read the name, they can remember to pray throughout the day.
My hope is that they will recognize the needs in other countries and also that they will focus their prayers on others, not just themselves. So far, we've only centered our prayers on The Maldives and Mali; however, I'm keeping up with all the countries we pray for and at the end of the semester, I'll teach the students how to create a Wordle (
www.wordle.net) of all the country names.
Even though we've only been doing this a couple of days, I had a student come in to class and say, "Last night at the dinner table, I told my family about The Maldives and what we learned about them yesterday and we stopped and prayed." Awesome! What if this extends to the students' homes, churches, etc.? I know that not every teacher has the freedom to pray with his/her students, but consider doing this on your own. Join the prayer movement for the nations!
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