Category: Missionary Kid

It is HERE! How to Bless a Missionary: Practical Advice for Your Church and Family

I am so excited to announce that my new book (How to Bless a Missionary: Practical Advice for Your Church and Family) is now available on Amazon in paperback and eBook formats!  I truly believe that this book will be valuable to anyone involved in missions and missionary care.

I also think that this is something that every pastor and ministry leader will be able to use to deepen and strengthen the care they give to missionaries.  But it is not just for pastors!  It will help families become more involved in missions by giving them practical ideas that they can put into practice in their everyday lives.

You can find the entire book on Amazon in both paperback and eBook formats.  You can also read it for free right now with Kindle Unlimited.  The link can be found Here or by clicking on the picture above.  (This is an affiliate link which means that if you click on the link and make a purchase, familiesformissions will earn a small commission at no expense to you.)

I would love to hear any feedback from you – whether directly to me by responding to this post or by leaving a review for the book online. I would also love for you to share this with others!

 

 

Vacation Bible School Ideas About Missions

Do you wish that your church had a Vacation Bible School about missions? It may be easier than you think! In this post you’ll find some ideas that you can use to plan a VBS or to use in missions classes for kids.

First, you’ll need to decide the format of your VBS or classes. One format that has worked at our church is to have different rooms or stations set up that children rotate through. This helps the flow of children to keep moving, but also allows a teacher to prepare for just one thing each day or Sunday.  I would recommend focusing on one country each day, discussing missionaries that have served there.

Ideas for stations or classrooms could include:

  1. Craft room – Try to find a craft from the country you are discussing. Look online to find ideas or look at Wycliffe.org where you can download a free VBS program! 
  2. Story room – Have an adult read a short story about a missionary. There are many options (these are affiliate links which means that if you make a purchase through these links, familiesformissions will make a small commission at no additional cost to you!).  While there are other missions books out there, these all have short stories that can be read in a short session.
  3. Activity room – having something where the kids move around is a good idea. This breaks up the monotony of the morning sitting. Try things like:
    • a scavenger hunt
    • a trip around the world with different children leading around the room
    • a game from another country
    • a puzzle of the world, jungle animals, the desert (age appropriate)
  4. Time Machine room – pretend that you are suddenly transported to the country or area where the missionary serves. This one could involve some extra work in decorating, but it can be very fun for children. You can use ideas like:
    • a medical clinic
    • a school room
    • a jungle
    • a hut
    • the desert
    • an airplane cabin
  5. Missionary sharing room – Have a “real live” missionary share with the children. If you do not have a full-time missionary in your area, you can have people from your church that have gone on a short-term missions trip share. Using a map and a few pictures, as well as a prop or two can really make this a special time.

Don’t forget to present the good news about Jesus dying for our sin and tell the kids how they can pray to accept Jesus as their personal Savior!  (Otherwise, missions is pointless!)

If you are really looking for some great ideas without having to do a ton of work and planning, check out Wycliffe.org and their VBS plans.

These ideas would be great additions to a children’s program at a missions conference at your church! Or use them to supplement your homeschool curriculum!

What ideas have you tried?

 

 

Questions to Ask a Missionary Kid

As a Missionary Kid I was asked many questions…and many of them were strange or uninformed. Missionary Kids, when they are back in their passport country, are asked many things, and most of them are not easy for them to answer.  Questions like, “How do you like being back home?” or “Do you have TV?” or “Do you ride on a donkey?” are awkward.

When missionary kids are in their parent’s home country, they are visiting.  They are either there on home assignment or a short vacation, but this is NOT their home.  Home is where they live with their family for most of the time.  They are missing friends and experiencing culture shock.

When you are talking with visiting missionary kids, here are some questions to  ask that might help them feel more comfortable, but also provide you with some insight into their lives. (By the way, many of these are great for any kid!)

Questions

  1. What is your favorite thing about __(insert country where they live)__?
  2. Tell me about your school.
  3. What is your favorite subject?
  4. Tell me about your friends.
  5. Tell me about your family.
  6. What is your favorite food?
  7. What hobbies do you enjoy?
  8. What are you good at?
  9. What books do you enjoy reading?
  10. Do you have a favorite movie or TV show ?
  11. What do you miss most about being gone from __(insert country)___?
  12. What is your favorite holiday?
  13. How do you celebrate ___(insert holiday)___ in ___(insert country)___?

 

For some great ideas on how to do something special for visiting missionary kids, check out This link!

 

 

How to Bless a Missionary – Pray For Their Kids

You might be thinking, “Didn’t we already have a post on praying for a missionary?”. And yes, we did. If you’d like to read it, you can go here.

But praying for a missionary’s kids can need a little bit of a different focus. So, today we are going to talk about specific prayer needs for missionary kids.

  1. Adjustment to new situations – Missionary kids are exposed to many new situations, both in their host country abroad and when they come back to their passport country. Some adjust very easily, but some struggle with each change. Prayer for easy transitions is important.
  2. Language acquisition – Some languages are easy to pick up and learn, while others are very difficult. Some children learn languages quickly, while others seem to struggle. Younger children tend to pick up languages more easily and also seem to have a better “local” accent. Pray that they learn the language quickly.
  3. Salvation – This should be the most important thing that we pray for…and the most important for the missionary parents.
  4. Health – We need to pray for general medical health. They need protection from illnesses and injuries. Many children also have learning or physical disabilities, and we should pray that God would provide the appropriate medical care, therapies, and help for their them and their parents.
  5. Safety – This kind of ties into the health request, but missionary kids can be exposed to many different safety hazards. They may travel more often than other kids. There may be people around them that are against Americans or jealous of their family and would like to harm them. There may be wild animals like hippos, spiders, etc. that could cause them harm. They may live in a village with difficult terrain that makes them more prone to broken bones and falls.
  6. Schooling – Choosing how to educate their children is one of the biggest decisions that a missionary family will make. They may choose to homeschool, attend a local school, or send their child to a boarding school. Each of these choices will require a different way of praying, but we also should pray that the child is able to learn well in any circumstance.
  7. Friendships – Missionary kids need prayer to make friends, but not just any friends…the right friends. When they are little, they need good friends to play with. As they get older, they need friends that will not influence them wrongly. We should pray that they do not choose to follow pagan or evil local practices. We should pray that their friends would help their faith grow.

Here is a link with a great article (with scriptures) for you to pray for your own children as well as missionary kids that you know.  Click here to read it.

Let your missionary know what you are praying for their kids!

Family Activity – Christmas Advent Calendar

Have you ever used an advent calendar?  This is a fun thing that you can incorporate into family devotions or homeschooling.  It will help your family focus more on the reason for the Christmas season.

There are tons of options out there, but here is a fun printable from Wycliffe.org.  It is called “Kate & Mack’s Christmas Advent Calendar“, and it looks like a fun project for little ones!

Advent coloring page

Have fun!

HOT Deal on Books!

Have you been waiting and wishing you could afford to get some books for your kids for Christmas?  Wait no more!

Here is a super HOT deal on books from Amazon!  You can get $10 off of a $25 purchase of books…this means that you can get 2 Missionary Kid Stories books for $12.45 each (shipped free if you are a prime member)!

Use code HOLIDAYBOOK when you check out, and happy reading!

(Valid through November 29, 2016 at 02:59am EST)

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Why I Wrote a Children’s Book – Missionary Kid Stories

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(This post contains affiliate links.)

As a former Missionary Kid (MK), missions has played an important role in my life. I now live in the United States, and I want my kids to be exposed to missions, too. But this is hard to accomplish when you don’t live in another country.

I have implemented many of the things that I write about on this blog with my family, but I wanted something that would be very interesting for the kids and that would help me with other ideas of how to teach them.  Let me tell you about how Missionary Kid Stories came into existence.

My kids and I tend to read lots of books together, so I started looking for books about missions to read to the kids. I wanted one that had information on different countries and types of ministries, but from a kid’s perspective. In searching for a book like this for my children, I could not find one that talked about different ministry strategies from the missionary child’s point of view. The closest book that I found was: Around the World With Kate and Mack by Melissa Paredes (published by Wycliffe), which has a missionary child traveling around and focusing on different languages, cultures, and people groups. I also found several other books written for children about true missionaries from history, like Amy Carmichael and Hudson Taylor.

So, I set out to write a fun, educational, and informative way for children to learn two main things about missions. The result is Missionary Kid Stories . In it, kids learn:

  1. What life is like for different missionary kids in other countries (Mexico, Brazil, Zimbabwe, France, Indonesia, and the Philippines)
    • where they live
    • what languages they speak
    • where they go to school
    • their favorite foods
    • the weather
    • local arts and crafts
    • important landmarks or interesting topography
  2. Different types of ministries in which missionaries serve
    • printing Biblical literature
    • Bible translation
    • teaching in a seminary for local pastors
    • church planting
    • piloting planes to reach remote locations
    • teaching in an international school

Each chapter focuses on a different missionary kid, each in a different country, each with a different ministry focus. The characters are fictional (for security reasons in some countries), but are based, largely, on real missionary families serving around the world.

This book is intended to plant ideas into children’s minds that will hopefully grow into a desire to serve God in missions. I know that my kids have enjoyed reading this book (or having it read to them), and it has sparked many conversations about things they read about. I have been able to use this book to teach them about the countries included. For example, you can read about ideas to use when learning about Brazil here.

I the coming months, I plan to include more ideas for activities you can do with your children based on the book. I hope that families will use this to help broaden their children’s horizons. I also hope that it will be useful in homeschooling, Sunday Schools, and Vacation Bible Schools.  If you would like to purchase the paper or Ebook version of “Missionary Kid Stories”, click here!

If you have activity ideas that coordinate with the countries or ministries in the book, comment and share! I’d love to know!

Family Activity – Cooking with Kate and Mack

Want a fun idea for an activity to do with the family?  Check out these recipes from Wycliffe sent in by real missionary kids!  You can try to make them with your kids and try foods from all over the world!

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https://www.wycliffe.org/resources/kids/cook

Four Big Benefits of Being a Missionary Kid (MK)

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There are lots of benefits of being a Missionary Kid (MK), and each MK could probably give you their own opinion of what those benefits are. I could probably come up with a huge list (some funny and some serious).  One day I’ll have to do another blog post with a long list.  For now, I’m going to tell you four big benefits of being an MK.

Traveling

Getting to travel is one advantage to being a missionary kid. If you like to visit different countries, sample different types of food, and see exotic places, this is the life for you!  Some missionaries have to travel for several days to even arrive at the place where they will live.  Some visit different countries due to the type of work they do, and some travel extensively within the country where they serve.

Learning Other Languages

Most MK’s speak, or are learning, at least one other language besides their mother tongue. Some speak 4 or 5 languages.  This will greatly depend on the country where they live and amount of languages they are exposed to.  It will also depend on each kid’s ability to assimilate a new language.  Let’s face it…some people pick up language much more quickly than others.  Kids tend to learn very quickly and can have a native accent.  Sometimes, people may not realize that the MK’s are foreigners because they speak so well in the language of the country where they live.

Meeting New People

This is great if you are an extrovert! Missionaries are constantly meeting new people, whether this is in the country where they work, or back in the United States while traveling to tell about their ministry.  An MK will meet tons of new adults and children and will learn how to establish a connection with new people in a short amount of time.

Adapting to New Situations

MK’s are some of the most resilient people. They spend a lot of time learning to adapt to new situations, and they become very good at it.  They can usually quickly identify how to act in order to fit in, and may be viewed as reserved at first.  This stems from the need to assess a new situation and decide what behavior is expected.

Obviously, there are many more benefits that could be put on a list, but these are some of the main ones. Feel free to comment with your own ideas and opinions.  What are some other benefits?