On the morning of September 11, 2001, I went to the internet to look at the latest news. I could not believe it when I saw that two planes had hit the World Trade Center. Thinking it was an accident, I turned on the TV just in time to learn that the Pentagon had also been hit and none of it was accidental.

All day we watched as the horror unfolded. We cried-we prayed-we called friends. Our son and daughter-in-law fly a lot in their work, and we didn't know where they were. They go to New York, Boston, and Washington on occasion, and have friends and relatives in the New York/Boston area.

Finally I contacted my son by e-mail. He was stranded in Dallas and planning to rent a car to drive home to Arizona the next day. They were all okay. One of their friends had a dad who worked in the WTC on the 72nd. floor, but he got out unharmed. We were all so blessed.

We attended prayer meeting on Wednesday night at our church, and when I got home I felt led to start a prayer chain. Once I had a student who was critically ill, and the doctors had given up. We started a prayer chain for her that eventually reached London,England. She fully recovered and more than fifteen years later is still doing fine.

The way this chain works is for you to tell everyone you know, write to, talk to on the phone, meet on the street, or e-mail to pray. Ask that they pray for our country and its leaders and an end to terrorism in the world. If we all do this, and continue to pray ourselves, the prayer chain will circle the globe, maybe more than once.

The candle lighting vigil last night was proof that word of mouth works. I got the message through e-mail and never saw or heard it mentioned anywhere else. But the pictures on CNN were evidence that the word got out and people participated.

I lit my candle and put it outside on the wall that surrounds my patio. No one lives near enough to see it but me. I prayed as I lit it, and kept looking out to see if it was still burning. Although it was only a little tea light about 1 1/2 inches across and 1/2 inch deep, it burned for over 5 1/2 hours! It lasted from 7:00 P.M. until after 12:30 A.M. when I last checked on it. I like to think that my prayer was busy connecting to other prayers on the chain during that length of time.