It was a great week for graduates all over the country. This young cadet, Jessamyn Jade Liu, the valedictorian at West Point, shakes hands with President Bush as she receives her diploma. Pray for all our nation’s graduates as they move on to new challenges and new opportunities. Photo courtesy of the White House.

1. The beginning of June marks the start of the hurricane season—the period of time when weather conditions are most likely to give rise to these violent tropical storms. The states where these storms tend to strike have done much to prepare, as has our federal government. But there is still no way of being completely prepared for hurricanes—other than to pray! So it is a very good time for us to pray for all the people preparing for hurricane season, that they will be completely ready to handle any and all kinds of emergencies, and that local, state and federal government agencies and personnel will be able to rise to help with every concern. Pray also for President Bush and for Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff and acting FEMA Director David Paulison and everyone on their teams to be ready to help if there is an emergency. Pray also for a mild storm season. Since God is in control of everything, we can ask Him to calm the storms and to protect those who could be harmed.
2. President Bush needs our prayers as he continues to lead our country. Some people feel that the five years of his presidency have been some of the toughest in recent history. So it’s great to pray for the President as he continues to lead our nation, particularly in the face of the problems currently on the horizon, including the war on terror, the effort to spread democracy in the world—especially in the Middle East, the start of hurricane season and the threat of bird flu! Whew, that’s a lot of big problems to face at one time! But we never face big problems alone—we always have God with us! So pray that God will remind the President of His presence with him, and that President Bush will have God’s help, wisdom and strength as he leads our country.
3. Did you know that our country got some new leaders this week? Three key leaders were sworn in to office this week and are now stepping into their new positions so we can pray for Secretary of Interior, Dirk Kempthorne; CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden and Office of Management and Budget Director Rob Portman. President Bush has also chosen a new Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson who now waits to be confirmed by the Senate. Pray for God’s help and guidance for each of these important leaders.
4. Our troops continue to work so very hard all over the world! They keep on working with the security and military forces in Iraq to help them get stronger so they can take over the enforcement of their own laws—they are making great progress. So it’s a really good time to pray for all the members of our military as they serve around the world, and especially for those in Iraq and Afghanistan, that they will be protected by God and will have His strength and blessing as they serve.

Photo courtesy of the White House.

Secretary of Education--Margaret Spellings
“Spellings” is a great name for the nation’s top education leader, don’t you think? As Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings is responsible for watching over the education of every public school student in our country! She works to set standards for schools and teachers so that every kid can get the very best education possible. She gives the President advice on any matters that have to do with education, and she is also responsible to watch the budget for her department, making sure that all the money our government set aside for education gets to the kids, the schools and the administrators who need it most.

Ms. Spellings has worked with and for President Bush for many years, and was a domestic policy advisor before she became Secretary of Education in November 2004.

She was born in Michigan and moved with her family at a young age to Houston, Texas, where she attended public schools. She graduated from the University of Houston in 1979 with a bachelor's degree in political science. In addition to all the other things Secretary Spellings takes care of, she is a mom! In fact, she is the first mom to serve as Secretary of Education. With her husband Robert, she also has two sons, Britain and Robert as well as two daughters, one, named Mary, is just starting college. The other, Grace, is a middle schooler.

Photo courtesy of the White House.

Secretary of Energy—Samuel Bodman
Samuel Bodman is our country’s Secretary of Energy. Mr. Bodman has a strong background management and engineering, so he is really qualified for the job. He started out as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a professor!

In his position as Secretary of Energy, Mr. Bodman leads a team that makes sure our nation’s energy supply and resources are safe and secure. His department is also involved in making sure that our environment is protected, both in getting and using energy resources. They work to develop new sources of energy for the future and to ensure that all Americans have safe, reliable and affordable supplies of energy for all their needs.

Secretary Bodman is from Massachusetts, but he has held positions in both the Departments of Commerce and Treasury. With his wife Diane he has three children and eight grandchildren. That’s a lot of birthdays to keep track of!

And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.
—Joel 2:28

Then we can spend our time in prayer and preaching and teaching the word.
—Acts 6:4

President George W. Bush will celebrate his 60th birthday this summer. You can help make it special by writing your birthday greetings, prayers, hopes or Scriptures to him! Photo courtesy of the White House.

You know how happy you feel when it is your birthday? It’s your special day! A time to celebrate your life and to tell you how much you are loved! It feels great, doesn’t it?

President Bush is having a BIG birthday next month, and we want to be sure he has a great one! So we are giving you a chance to tell him “Happy Birthday” right here, online! You might want to send him a verse of Scripture, offer a prayer for him or just tell him how thankful you are for his leadership of our country! So check with your mom or dad to be sure it’s okay with them to participate in this cool activity, and click HERE to get started! Right around July 1 we will compile all your greetings and bind them into one giant book that will be delivered to the White House. That should really help the President have a special day, don’t you think?

Charles Spurgeon was only a kid when God began using him to bring many, many lives to Jesus Christ! His life is a testament to the fact that God uses kids to accomplish His Kingdom purposes. Photo courtesy of spurgeon.org.

Have you ever heard of Charles Spurgeon? If you haven’t, it’s time you did! He was one of the most popular preachers of the last part of the 19th century (that means from about 1850 to 1900). His sermons and books continue to influence people today, making him one of the most widely published pastors of all time. But Charles wasn’t always a popular preacher! He was once a kid, just like you! We’ll take a look at his life to see the cool ways God used this lad, from the time he was a teen until his untimely death at age 57.

Charles was paid by his grandfather for catching rats. Have you ever made money that way? He preferred to recite hymns from memory for his grandmother…something she also paid him for!

Charles was born on June 19, 1854. When he was very young, he was sent to live with his grandparents—devoted and godly people. His grandfather was a preacher and much later in life, Charles and he would preach together, sharing a topic and encouraging each other to mention specific illustrations. Charles was very bright with a good memory and a great imagination. He often read Scripture for family devotions. Once when he was a boy, his grandmother promised him a penny for every hymn of Isaac Watts he could repeat perfectly for her. Charles was so good at this that him grandmother had to cut the offer to a half penny—and Charles still came out ahead! Soon his grandfather had his own financial incentive for Charles. Their home had too many rats, so Charles was offered a shilling for every dozen rats he caught. Rat-catching took over and Charles made even more money. But later in life he said that learning the hymns profited him most because he would often use them in his sermons. He rarely forgot anything.

You might think it was just a natural thing that he would become a Christian, but he didn’t. In fact, as a teen, Charles was very burdened and worried about his sins because he thought he had a bigger load of sin to deal with than other kids. He wanted a real experience with God. He searched for it so diligently that he went to every church in town!

We don’t know what Charles Spurgeon’s schoolhouse looked like—it might have looked something like this one. Photo courtesy of gordonstainforth.co.uk.

Charles was such a fine student that he changed schools in order to find a more challenging learning environment. At about age 11 he won an academic contest and was awarded a very special natural history book that he cherished all his life. Young Charles attended school long before schoolhouses had any kind of central heat. Always at the top of his class, one term his grades suddenly began to decline. Mystified, his teacher finally realized that Charles’ seat was far from the wood-burning stove and quite near a drafty door. When the teacher changed Charles’ seat, he quickly rose to the top of his class again.

Charles Spurgeon found Christ in a small chapel on a snowy January morning. Do you remember where you were when you came to faith in Jesus? Photo courtesy of wishfulthinking.org.

All through Charles’ teen years, he was troubled by all kinds of spiritual questions. How could he find peace with God? How could he be set free from the sins that so burdened him? How could he really know God? Young Charles was on a desperate search for answers to these and so many questions. He felt such a strong desire to belong to God, yet at the same time he was completely overwhelmed by his own sins. Even though he knew the truth of the Word and was surrounded by godly, loving people, his heart was burning to know God personally and to find himself at home with Him! During this period in his life he said:

I cried to God with groanings—I say it without exaggeration—groanings that cannot be uttered! And oh, how I sought, in my poor dark way, to overcome first one sin and then another, and so to do better, in God's strength, against the enemies that assailed me, and not, thank God, altogether without success, though still the battle had been lost unless He had come who is the Overcomer of sin and the Deliverer of His people, and had put the hosts to flight.

Charles was so desperate to find God, he had decided to visit every church in his town. One January Sunday morning he awoke to cold temperatures and a gathering snowstorm. He prayed and read the Scriptures and still found no peace in his heart. The storm prevented him from going to the church he’d planned to visit and he stepped into the Primitive Methodist Chapel instead. Only a handful of worshipers had gathered in the little church, and a lay preacher was standing in for the regular pastor. His text was from Isaiah 45:22: Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else.

Though the preacher was uneducated and not articulate, his message hit home and bored into young Charles’ heart. The preacher looked right at Charles and said, "Young man, you look very miserable." Though he had never had a preacher speak to him from the pulpit in this way, the words hit home. The preacher kept on, "You always will be miserable—miserable in life and miserable in death if you don't obey my text; but if you obey now, this moment you will be saved." He raised his hands and shouted, "Young man, look to Jesus Christ! Look! Look! Look! You have nothin' to do but to look and live." This was Charles’ moment of truth! When the preacher said, “Look,” he new he had found what he was looking for! Charles said, “I thought I could dance all the way home."

This began a new life for young Spurgeon. And the freedom he now felt as he considered his relationship with God would fuel his powerful ministry of preaching and social action for decades. When Charles got home that Sunday morning, his mother took one look at him and said, "Something wonderful has happened to you." The young boy who had searched so hard for peace with God would now embark on his own search for souls, and he would.