Prayer Cloths

The day that we were driving up to the hills, we saw this tree covered in prayer cloths. I knew what they were because I remembered reading about it in one of the Bakers’ newsletters. Here is a snippet from their Nov. 2003 newsletter talking about the prayer cloths:

“Near streams and in the mountains surrounding Almaty, we often see trees with tiny cloths tied to them. One of the popular beliefs in Folk Islam is that if a person ties a cloth to a tree (especially those beside streams, on mountains, or at the grave of a holy person), the person’s prayer becomes more powerful and their wish is given a greater chance of being answered by their god. Each of these thousands of tiny cloths represents a heartfelt need. Behind each is a person desperately reaching out to God. As followers of Christ, this discovery was saddening for us. We know that the power of prayer is not in a piece of cloth, or even in the earnestness of a person’s desire. The power of prayer is found only through the grace of our God, in the powerful name of Jesus Christ.”