The Adventures of Cedric and the Prayer Mail

Since I am already a storyteller at heart, I know know know that once I have children people are going to hear ridiculous amounts of detailed tales of their lives. I already apologize. And, while I'm not a mom yet or anything, I do have the cutest kid story to tell about my nephew. It's truly worth you continuing to read! I'm still smiling about it!

The other day I took my 5-year-old nephew Cedric into church with me for a bit; we stopped by the kid's area, Elevation Station. Ced had been playing his Nintendo DS (or rather his sister's DS!) ALL morning and was quite engrossed into it. Standing in the main lobby of Elevation Station, Cedric spies a big blue mail box with a sign on it that says "Prayer Mail." "What's this?" Cedric asks. "Well," I replied, "say you hurt your foot... so you would write on a note 'Please pray for my foot' then you can drop it into the mail and someone will pray for you." Cedric nods and turns his attention back to Super Mario.

All of a sudden the DS dies. Game over. Cedric looks up at me and frowns. "Auntie, make it work." "Sorry baby, the battery is dead. You're going to have to wait to charge it again." He looks at me a second, is thoughtful, and then rummages out of his bag a piece of scrap paper and a blue marker. "Auntie, how do you write 'Fix my Nintendo?'" he asks. I have a hunch what he is doing so I try not to laugh as I write out the sentence for him. He carefully copies it in off-center letters, silently folds it up, and slips it into the prayer mail box. Marching right back to his DS, Ced turns the gaming system on. It lights up for 2 seconds then dies off again. Cedric frowns. "The prayer mail didn't work." Stifiling a gigantic grin, I say, "Baby, they haven't checked the mail yet! They'll check it tonight and pray for it then." He keeps frowning. "Maybe I should spend the night here and make sure they check it," he mutters. I give him a hug, "No, no, it's okay! I promise they'll check it. Your DS will work in the morning." He nods because he knows he has no choice. "Okay," he says very, very seriously.

Later that night, I turn Cedric and the battery-dead Nintendo DS over to my sister and tell her the story. We are both smiling and trying hard not to laugh. I lean over and whisper in my sister's ear, "Make SURE you charge it tonight!!!" She nods, "For sure!"

Sure enough, the next day the DS worked, Cedric was happy "someone" had answered his mail, and I now have a story to tell at his wedding reception. Win-win for all!