Family Activity Archives - Families For Missions

How to Engage Your Family: Shows About Kids From Other Countries

If you are looking for a great educational program for your kids and entire family to watch, I have found a treasure! One day during quarantine I was looking on Amazon for something interesting for my kids. I stumbled upon a program that is super interesting and is free for those with Amazon Prime. It is called The Most Dangerous Ways to School. (Links in this article are affiliate links.)

Your family will learn about a different country in each episode. The show highlights the challenges that children around the world face as they journey to school. I found it interesting that it also discusses the climate, housing, food, and other information about the country where the child lives.

The first season’s episodes take you to Kenya, Nepal, Oymyakon (Russia), Peru, and Himalaya, but there are three seasons available. (Please note that programs on Amazon may change in availability without notice.)

During the second season, you will learn about Nicaragua, Mongolia, Mexico, Ethiopia, and Papua New Guinea.

Season 3 takes you to the Philippines, Colombia, and Bolivia.

How our Family Engaged with this show:

Our family has watched most of these episodes and we have tried several different ways to engage:

1. We take advantage of talking about how privileged we are and how easy it is to get an education where we live.

2. We discuss any missionaries that live in the country that is featured.

3. We talk about if we have been to the country featured.

4.We get out the globe and make sure we know where the country is located in the world.

5. We convert the temperatures mentioned from Centigrade to Farenheit so that our kids will understand and have a frame of reference.

6. We look up plants and foods mentioned, using the internet, to find out what they are.

What ideas do you have? Have you seen this show before? I would love to know what you thought of it!

Fun Family Activity About Africa From Wycliffe

If you are looking for a fun activity to do with the kids at home, check out Wycliffe.org for a fun safari from home. You can learn about different animals in Africa and even make a 3D cut out animal of three of the fun ones!

Fun Family Activity from Wycliffe.org
https://www.wycliffe.org/blog/posts/lets-go-on-a-safari-right-from-home

Research Some African Animals

In addition to this fun activity, head to your local library to check out some books about wild animals. You might even find some fun books that would tell you more about the countries where these animals live. Here are some examples:

Journey Through South Africa tells a little bit about the Kruger National Park in South Africa and the Mlilwane Nature Reserve in Swaziland. It has a fun map with a journey planner page that older kids can use to follow along as you “travel” through the country.

You can learn more about Elephants with a National Geographic Kids book for early readers. They have a variety of books representing different animals.

If you have little ones that are working on learning their alphabet, the African Animal Alphabet from National Geographic Kids is fun.

There are so many books to choose from about wild animals. Look through the sections about animals and African travel at the library and pick some of your favorites! For a good read about a missionary to Africa check out David Livingstone: Africa’s Trailblazer.

Watch a fun video together

If you have kids that love watch TV (and who doesn’t?), try watching a video about animals together. If you are an Amazon Prime member, you can watch episodes of Wild Kratts for free right now, including one about elephants.

There are also some great documentaries about African animals and their habitats available on Amazon Prime. Check out Growing Up in the Savannah or Strange Encounters in the Savannah.

Have fun making your animals and learning about them!

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!

Mission Class Ideas for Kids – Japan

I am so excited to be back and blogging again after taking a little time off over the summer for some projects and commitments. I have been very busy working on a new book that will be released in the coming months, and I have been soaking up some extra time with my kids.

I also helped with a summer missions class for the grade-school kids in our church. It was great fun to help plan activities and crafts for each week…the kids enjoyed it so much and learned a lot! I’ll be sharing more about this over the next couple of weeks.

Each week of the class we picked a different set of things to focus on: each week had a featured country, a past missionary story, a current missionary, a prayer station, and a craft. Small groups of kids rotated through each of these and spent about 10-15 minutes in each area. We also had an opening and closing time with song and prayer.

Here is a link to the song that we used (but we added lots of clapping between lines and some motions, too.) 😊 “Be a Missionary Everyday”

One of the weeks, we focused on Japan. Our missionary from the past was Jake DeShazer. He was a prisoner of war during WWII in Japan, and he hated his captors. After being freed, God helped him to forgive them and called him to return to witness to them. You can read more about him at http://www.jacobdeshazer.com/.

Each of the kiddos received a Japanese flag to keep. You can get one for your home or let your kiddos color one easily by making a circle in the middle of a white piece of paper and letting them color it red.

Our church has a current missionary that is working in the country of Japan that happened to be visiting during the summer months, so we arranged for the mother of this family to come speak to our kids. It was fun to have a real person there that was familiar with Japan. She even brought some dried seaweed for the kids to taste. Each child received a prayer card with this family’s picture on it, so they could take it home and remember meeting the missionary. Hopefully they will pray for them, too.

Our craft was to make koinobori. This is a Japanese flying carp that is frequently made or bought to be displayed around their children’s day in Japan. Many times, there is one for each family member. The dad’s is usually black, and the children have red or many different colors for theirs.

Here is a fun song in Japanese about the koinobori.

You can make one of these at home pretty easily. You will need a toilet paper roll (or paper towel roll cut shorter), some glue sticks, scissors, tissue paper, and string. Sticker eyes are optional (You can draw in your own.)

Use the scissors to cut circles or ovals out of the tissue paper and then cut each one in half. Let the kids join in with the cutting if they are old enough. The half-circles do not have to be perfect. Start gluing the half circles onto your toilet paper roll at the bottom and make sure the rounded part of the paper is facing the bottom. Overlap your pieces as you go, and continue around and up the roll til you reach the top.

Draw some eyes or use stickers. Make a hole on opposite sides of the top, and attach your string. Cut some straight pieces of tissue paper and glue or staple them to the bottom edge of the toilet paper roll.

Now you are ready to display your koinobori!

I’ll post soon about the other weeks and the activities we did…in the meantime, happy crafting! If you want some great information about Japan, check out Operation World’s website!

Missions Music for Kids

Want a great album of music for your kids to listen to? Check out Psalty the Singing Songbook‘s webpage which features fun songs and stories for kids (of all ages) 🙂

This one is very mission-minded and teaches kids about how to learn and care about people in need all around the world. It also introduces them to the concept of different kinds of missionaries – all with a fun story and great music. Check it out by clicking here or on the image below!

You can even use a song or two from these albums in your children’s Sunday School or VBS! Purchase the CD’s, DVD’s, or download the music from the Psalty website.

Do you know of another great mission album for kids? I’d love to hear about it!

Befriend an International Student

You may never be able to travel to exotic locations around the world. BUT this does not mean that you can only learn about other places by reading books and watching movies. You can learn about another country in your own home! Curious?

One of the best ways you can learn about another culture and country is to befriend an international student. Most cities with colleges or universities have many students from other countries. Some families choose to host a high school student for an entire year. (My grandparents did this.) Other families, like mine, just become friends with a local college student. We have been friends, now, for two years – meeting a couple of times a month on average. We love having him in our home, eating meals with him, and including him in our activities. He loves our children and calls us his “American family”.

What does this relationship look like? We are friends! We ask him about his culture and country. We have tried to learn a few words in his native language. We try to learn about his religious beliefs. We have had many great conversations about what we believe and why we believe it. We have taken him to the airport, and picked him up again when he returned. We have given him advice on job searches and interviews. We have watched movies. We have helped him move…several times. I have cooked many meals (including one meal similar to one he might have gotten at home in his country). And recently he cooked for us!

The best part of this relationship is that my kids are learning about another culture. They are also learning how to be respectful of someone with different beliefs. They have made a new friend, and they love having him come to our house.

If you need help to find a student to befriend, try contacting an organization like International Students, Inc.

Family Activity – King Tut and Ancient Egypt

My oldest child is learning about Ancient Egypt and at the same time reading through Genesis and Exodus at school. This has been a great way for her to learn about the environment and culture during the time of the old Bible stories about Abraham, Joseph, and Moses.

Our whole family has learned a lot during this time, and we have watched several interesting documentaries about Egypt during our family movie nights. Here are some links to some of the videos we have watched:

A Film about how Egyptian chariots may have been constructed
A Documentary about how the pyramids may have been built
And this short video about where the Israelites most likely crossed the Red Sea

NOVA (PBS) also has a neat interactive feature on their website where you can explore many different historical sites in Egypt.

We also read a book about King Tut,

and checked out another book at the library.

We have mummified a chicken leg and have built a pyramid with sugar cubes, too.

I recently found another neat project at a local thrift store. I thought it would be a fun thing to do with my kids, and they loved it.

We spent several days painting the different parts of the kit and putting them together. They were able to make the mummy and decorate the coffin with all the supplies included. My kids thought this was great and plan to take King Tut’s coffin to school as “show-and-tell”.

If you want to purchase a similar activity for your kids, you can find one on Amazon here.

We have used this to talk about Ancient Egypt, but also to learn a little about modern-day Egypt. Currently, Egypt is a country rich in history and with many popular museums and historical sites. It is an Islamic country where Christians seem to be facing more and more persecution. We can pray for missionaries there to be brave in sharing the Good News about Jesus.

We can also pray for ministries like SAT-7 to reach many more people. This is a Christian television ministry that shares about Jesus in Arabic and other languages all over the Middle East. They even have a SAT-7 KIDS channel that broadcasts children’s programming in Arabic!

(This post contains some affiliate links. If you click on some links and make a purchase, familiesformissions may receive a small compensation.)

Free Video Ideas for Amazon Prime Members

Does bad weather or sickness have you stuck inside the house? Do you need some quality ideas for things to watch? If you are an Amazon Prime member, you can watch some great videos about traveling around the world for free.

If you have never seen the Globe Trekker series, you are sure to enjoy these videos. Different people host each show and travel around the country they are featuring. They discuss things like nature, food, celebrations, people, religions, and traditions. Each episode is different and has different areas of focus, depending on the country featured. Kids will like seeing the different activities and places.

Click on any of the pictures below to go straight to the video:

(Affiliate links)

There are more to choose from, but this gives you an idea of some videos that are available. (Remember that Amazon pricing can change at any time, but at the time of the post, these are free.)

Also, free this weekend is an American Girl video “Melody”. Amazon is allowing people to view this for free in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. It is about a little black girl in 1963 and the struggles that she faces.

Not an Amazon Prime member? You can sign up for a free 30 day trial. (Just remember to cancel it if you don’t want to stay subscribed.) Click below!

(This post contains affiliate links. If you click on a link and make a purchase, familiesformissions.com will receive a small commission. I strive to only recommend quality products and links to my readers!)

Uttarayan – International Kite Festival in Gujarat, India

Here’s a fun idea for a family activity … make a kite together! Every year millions of people in cities all over Gujarat, India celebrate the International Kite Festival. This festival marks the end of winter and the coming of summer based on the Hindu calendar. It is usually celebrated January 14th and 15^th. People of all different beliefs celebrate this festival together.

There are organized kite competitions, with some very fierce competitors trying to battle it out and break each other’s strings. The strings of the most competitive are prepared by tying them between trees. Glass bangle bracelets are broken into very fine pieces of glass and attached to the string with a special glue. The glass-covered strings, when rubbed on a competitor’s string in the sky, cause them to break. This eliminates the competition.

I don’t recommend that you use glue and glass on your string. 🙂 Just get some lightweight sticks, string, a glue stick or tape, and some tissue paper. You can look up tutorials on how to make a kite online or just wing it and invent your own. Let your kids decorate it with stickers or draw on it. Whether these kites ever actually fly is not important… just have fun and use the time making them to talk about people in other places, like India.

Need some information about India?

India is a country with tons of diversity in cultures, regions, and religions. For a book with fun pictures for kids, check out I is for India by Prodeepta Das.
If you want more information on culture, languages, and religious beliefs, you can check out Operation World by Jason Mandryk. This book gives parents some great ideas about how to pray for India.
Want a historical true story of a missionary to India? Check out books about Amy Carmichael or William Carey. You might even be able to find these at your local church or public library!

Quick ideas for prayer and conversation:

Pray that religious freedom is continued to be allowed and that laws are not passed or upheld that would punish those who want to convert.
Many languages in India still do not have the Bible in their language.
Pray for the safety of missionaries that live in India. Also, pray that they are allowed to stay and work in that country.

(This post contains affiliate links. If you click on a link and make a purchase, familiesformissions.com receives a small commission. I strive to only recommend things that I am familiar with and trust to be of benefit to my readers.)

Need Reading Ideas?

I recently saw a great post with some reading ideas for parents that want to read more books about missions to their kids. Many of us have this as a goal, but we don’t know where to start. Hopefully this post will give you some ideas!

Check out this post on the IMB website for some great ideas:

A Reading List for Missional Parents Raising Globally Minded Kids

One of the books they mention is Give Your Child the World: Raising Globally Minded Kids One Book at a Time.

I own this book and find it to be a great resource. It gives descriptions and summaries of many different books based on the part of the world they are written about and the age of the child you will be getting the book for. If you are teaching about a region or country, you can look for books from South America or Brazil, specifically. Take this with you to your local library or request books online ahead of time. This can be a huge time-saver for homeschooling families or moms with small children! One bonus of this book is that the books are not all about missions… many are just about life in different countries and cultures. This will broaden your child’s idea of what the world is like.

Don’t be overwhelmed with the idea of needing to read tons of books or follow a specific program! Just start….get one book. If your kids aren’t excited about the first one you try, keep trying. You will eventually find a book that piques their interest!

(This post contains affiliate links. If you click on one and then make a purchase, familiesformissions.com will get a small commission. I only recommend products that I am familiar with and would recommend to others!)