You might not feel the Lord is calling you to a short-term trip, but wouldn’t you like to know how to serve world missions efforts? Here are some ideas to help serve missionaries and world missions.
Effective ministries of missionaries often find a huge amount of support (not just financial) from sending churches. Here are some practical ways to serve the missionaries we support and to make sure they are still an extension of our congregation.
Most of us value the speed of e-mail and other communication technology. Consider writing an old fashioned letter with paper and ink and send it to a missionary. This is often a huge encouragement to know you took the time and effort to write and send something to them.
Care packages are another appreciated service to missionaries. Often holidays can be challenging to missionaries since they are away from home and family. A care package can encourage them to let them know that they are not forgotten. Care package ideas include:
Holiday Package. Think of some things to help missionaries celebrate the holidays and to share the holidays with nationals.
Non-holiday package. A package for no other reason can also be encouraging. Fill a box with some goodies and a note of encouragement.
Special event package. Not all special events are holidays. Is a missionary you know having a good old fashioned hoe down? A murder mystery night? Something else? Ask to find out if they need some supplies that are hard to come by or that could be useful in reaching out to the nationals.
Birthday package. Birthdays away from home can be tough, too. While adults can usually ride the storm pretty well, parents and children really feel the blessing to be able to celebrate birthdays.
For more information on care packages, addresses and tips to send the packages, please contact the World Missions staff.
Hosting Missionaries also demonstrates our care and support for missionaries and God’s work overseas. Hosting not only means offering a bed, but many more things different and deeper. Here is a list of some things to offer missionaries when they are back in Dallas.
Housing a missionary (and their family!) not only saves them money, but it also tells the missionary that we care about them.
Maybe you can’t house a missionary, but you can help out their host with a meal, a vehicle, a cell phone, or something else. If not for housing, you can help host an event where a missionary can share about God’s work around the world.
While listening to missionaries lets you hear and be encouraged, it also plays a critical role in helping the missionary debrief her or his experience. Be attentive to really listen to what they are saying and not only understand what they did, but what they experienced.
Copyright 2008 Park Cities Presbyterian Church