When I think about prayer, I think back to the very first time I ever prayed. My parents and I attended a Southern Baptist congregation. I was five years old and was listening to the preacher talk about Hell. It was after a particularly passionate sermon about how the unsaved would definitely burn in Hell. After every sermon the preacher always had the same catch phrase, "If you were to die tonight, where would you go, Heaven or Hell?" I had heard about the suffering in Hell and knew I didn't want to go there. Being five years old, all I really knew was that I wanted God to be happy with me.

As a child I was terrified of the idea of Hell and I certainly did not want to end up there. But looking back I realize that the message I was taught was to worry constantly about what I had done wrong, rather than focus on what I had done right. Praying in church always involved the preacher praying out loud for the congregation. I would close my eyes and wait patiently for the man to quit speaking so that I could pray for myself in quiet. I promised myself that if I were a preacher, I would never be like that. As I got older, I gradually no longer worried about offending God. I felt more inclined to pray for things that I wanted and needed.

Taking the next step in my spiritual walk, I went to Bible College. My Uncle Bill and Aunt Connie were involved with a small Bible College in Oklahoma, and the prayer in this church took on a new meaning for me. I had never experienced anything like it. When the minister gave the prayer the people in the congregation would speak out with words of agreement. It seemed to help the minister to be more inspired. I remember the first time I led the prayer for the general assembly. It was very different. It was like I was preaching a mini sermon and I had a mini choir of Amens in the background. It gave my prayers a new life.

I was now given the knowledge that my prayers not only were heard but also answered. I had my first gleam of hope that God was out there. I always knew and felt that I was guided and cared for but never having the vocabulary to back it up with.

The idea of prayer really working came when I prayed for a man while doing missionary work. He had been sick for several weeks. The doctors could not figure out what was wrong with him. The man was not a member of any church but he believed in God. He believed that I was a man from God. I told him that before I began it was not me that would heal him but his faith in what I was doing. I anointed his head with oil and said my prayer. It was immediately that his color changed in his face. I saw the gray color that had been there was now red and rosy. He seemed to move better. I remember feeling a pulsating feeling of power. It was electrical in nature. As I was saying the prayer for this man, I felt a force greater than myself. It made me feel warm all over.

The very next day the man who I had prayed for called. He was feeling 100 percent better. We became very good friends until I returned back to the States. Time and many moves on my part has brought us apart but I will never forget about him and the day I really saw prayer work.