Well, I'm relieved that you find this odd too. I don't know if he is only targeting me or if he does this to everyone. I just can't see how he could stay in business long if he does it to everyone. So I think that part of how he is thinking, or was thinking originally, was that because I am of Mennonite background, that it would be acceptable. I just can't see that he would do this, in this way, straight off the bat, to someone who isn't identified with a religious ethnic group.

Again, I certainly don't find prayer offensive but like you said, it's usually your friends, people you actually know, who would tell you they are praying for you. I don't object to him praying. But I feel like I'm being pushed into a corner which makes me all the less inclined to say anything at all about my beliefs. I am pretty sure that nothing short of a grand Pentecostal display of emotion, complete with "Praise Jesuses" would satisfy him, that my soul is in the hands of the Lord.

I am not a hugger so I am certainly not someone who is ever going to do some sort of big emotional outburst in the presence of someone I don't know.

It would be easy enough to tell him to stop but the thing is, turning the tables, however gently, and giving him a Bible verse such as Matthew 6:6 in return, would still seem like I was somehow being snotty about it to a man who I think is basically well-meaning. If it came from a place of malice, I could say it. It's just not so easy when a person is basically decent and means well.

I've seen him 6 times, each time he has prayed for my back. I decided to let that go since there was nothing offensive or even overly pushy in his actual out loud prayers. But inwardly I figured that if he starts praying out loud that I will see the light, based on the assumption that I haven't, well, that is more than I think I can be quiet about. But I don't want to be rude either. I don't want to hurt his feelings.

Although his wife is of Mennonite ethnic background, apparently the family attends a Pentecostal type church, so I think that maybe his behaviour is considered more normal in that setting.

He also suggested to me the first time I saw him that my back trouble and the fact that there are a lot of things that I unfortunately depend on family members to do for me, that I "should" think about the fact that in wanting or trying to do everything on my own and not asking for help, that I am depriving family and friends of the blessings of the Lord, as in the whole "it is better to give than receive" thing.

I didn't say one word but what I thought was he's being a little unreasonable, since I *am* paying him and if he followed the thought through to its logical conclusion, he ought to be treating me for free, on the same grounds of it being better to give than receive. And it kind of hurt me, for him, that he didn't seem to realize what he was saying, if you know what I mean. Someone he is trying to "reach" who doesn't believe in God, would pick up on that right away and his witness would do more harm than good.

He is only a one minute drive from my house so I really don't want to change. It's far more convenient than having to, with my back, drive an hour to get the same treatment elsewhere where a practitioner might be a little more professional.

So anyway, I've been busy with getting ready for winter. Everything is moving in slow motion due to my back and there's so much to do here before winter which could hit any day. It's not unknown for us to have snow for Halloween.

Layla