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Kid's Can Write Missionaries, Too!
Kids love to send and receive letters and use the computer for email. Their natural curiosity about the world and their love of storytelling make them great communicators. Use these gifts to establish a long-distance friendship between your class and your missionaries. Families with children can use many of these ideas, too.
1. When possible, write missionaries the children have met recently.
Show the children the missionaries' picture and talk about what they do. Your children may especially enjoy writing to a missionary family with children similar in age to themselves.
2. Help your children to do some research about your missionaries and the country in which they work.
With older children, read several of the missionaries' recent prayer letters or email messages. Search the web for up-to-date country information or borrow from the library several books about the nation where the missionaries live.
Encourage children to include in their message one fact they have learned. Although they have many questions, allow the children to choose just one or two to include in their letter.
3. Find the missionaries' home on a large world map and help the children to trace the route their letter will travel from your home or church to the missionaries doorstep.
Guess the various modes of transportation by which it will travel and the approximate date of arrival.
4. Before they write, discuss with the children what they are going to say.
Help children list things that are new at your church, upcoming events, and interesting information about your class and individual members.
5. Discuss the different ways of communicating with your missionary:
email, postal letter, audio tape, videotape, phone call, package, fax, etc. Help children understand why some might be more suitable than others for them and the missionaries.
6. You may want to collaborate by writing one group letter on the board or overhead transparency
, later transferring it to paper and letting all of the children sign their names. Or each child might write a personal message to be incorporated into a booklet or mailed together in an envelope.
7. Encourage children to describe their favorite class activities.
This provides the double benefit of giving missionaries teaching ideas they may be able to use in their own ministries with children.
8. If someone in your missionaries' family will soon celebrate a birthday or if a holiday is approaching
children can make a card by hand or use a simple card-designing program on the computer.
9. You may choose to put your message on audio or videotape.
Plan carefully in advance who will speak and what they will say, although some spontaneity will make the project more fun. Before creating a video, make sure your missionaries have access to a VCR which runs on the American system.
10. Photographs or a video could accompany your letter.
Brainstorm with the children what to shoot. What has changed in your community or church since the missionaries were last there? Is there an interesting church-wide or class activity coming up?
11. Brainstorm with children for a list of small gifts to enclose in the envelope.
Possibilities: a key chain, stickers, shoelaces, solar calculator, Band-aids (cartoon ones for kids), bicycle tire patch kit, finger puttpet, bookmark, party decorations, drink mixes, etc. Choose one to include with each letter.
12. Children may wish to become pen pals with MK's (missionary kids) or national children who know English.
However, before you initiate such a relationship, make sure your class and the MK both have the commitment to maintain it. MK's are disappointed when a child or group promises to write but quickly loses interest. The reverse may also be true, so check with missionary parents to make sure that a pen-pal program is feasible before launching the idea to your class.
13. Older children can help address the envelope, weigh it and research the postage cost.
Or a child with a computer and email capability at home can become the cyberspace link, connecting your class via email to your missionaries half a world away.
14. Before the letter is mailed or emailed, stop and pray together for your missionary friends.
Challenge the children to ask God to use their letter to encourage the missionaries and their family on the very day the message arrives.
15. Caution children not to expect an instant answer, even via email.
Missionaries are busy and often struggle to find time to answer their correspondence.
16. Create a scrapbook of your correspondence back and forth with your missionaries
to serve as a reminder and as orientation for new class members.
17. Celebrate as a group when you receive correspondence from your missionary.
Read the letter together. Stop and praise God for His answers and pray for your missionaries' requests. Then write again soon!
This article is used with permission. Taken from An article on the TEAM website found at: http://www.teamworld.org.
1. When possible, write missionaries the children have met recently.
Show the children the missionaries' picture and talk about what they do. Your children may especially enjoy writing to a missionary family with children similar in age to themselves.
2. Help your children to do some research about your missionaries and the country in which they work.
With older children, read several of the missionaries' recent prayer letters or email messages. Search the web for up-to-date country information or borrow from the library several books about the nation where the missionaries live.
Encourage children to include in their message one fact they have learned. Although they have many questions, allow the children to choose just one or two to include in their letter.
3. Find the missionaries' home on a large world map and help the children to trace the route their letter will travel from your home or church to the missionaries doorstep.
Guess the various modes of transportation by which it will travel and the approximate date of arrival.
4. Before they write, discuss with the children what they are going to say.
Help children list things that are new at your church, upcoming events, and interesting information about your class and individual members.
5. Discuss the different ways of communicating with your missionary:
email, postal letter, audio tape, videotape, phone call, package, fax, etc. Help children understand why some might be more suitable than others for them and the missionaries.
6. You may want to collaborate by writing one group letter on the board or overhead transparency
, later transferring it to paper and letting all of the children sign their names. Or each child might write a personal message to be incorporated into a booklet or mailed together in an envelope.
7. Encourage children to describe their favorite class activities.
This provides the double benefit of giving missionaries teaching ideas they may be able to use in their own ministries with children.
8. If someone in your missionaries' family will soon celebrate a birthday or if a holiday is approaching
children can make a card by hand or use a simple card-designing program on the computer.
9. You may choose to put your message on audio or videotape.
Plan carefully in advance who will speak and what they will say, although some spontaneity will make the project more fun. Before creating a video, make sure your missionaries have access to a VCR which runs on the American system.
10. Photographs or a video could accompany your letter.
Brainstorm with the children what to shoot. What has changed in your community or church since the missionaries were last there? Is there an interesting church-wide or class activity coming up?
11. Brainstorm with children for a list of small gifts to enclose in the envelope.
Possibilities: a key chain, stickers, shoelaces, solar calculator, Band-aids (cartoon ones for kids), bicycle tire patch kit, finger puttpet, bookmark, party decorations, drink mixes, etc. Choose one to include with each letter.
12. Children may wish to become pen pals with MK's (missionary kids) or national children who know English.
However, before you initiate such a relationship, make sure your class and the MK both have the commitment to maintain it. MK's are disappointed when a child or group promises to write but quickly loses interest. The reverse may also be true, so check with missionary parents to make sure that a pen-pal program is feasible before launching the idea to your class.
13. Older children can help address the envelope, weigh it and research the postage cost.
Or a child with a computer and email capability at home can become the cyberspace link, connecting your class via email to your missionaries half a world away.
14. Before the letter is mailed or emailed, stop and pray together for your missionary friends.
Challenge the children to ask God to use their letter to encourage the missionaries and their family on the very day the message arrives.
15. Caution children not to expect an instant answer, even via email.
Missionaries are busy and often struggle to find time to answer their correspondence.
16. Create a scrapbook of your correspondence back and forth with your missionaries
to serve as a reminder and as orientation for new class members.
17. Celebrate as a group when you receive correspondence from your missionary.
Read the letter together. Stop and praise God for His answers and pray for your missionaries' requests. Then write again soon!
This article is used with permission. Taken from An article on the TEAM website found at: http://www.teamworld.org.
