Welcome to the “Hands-on Corner”

Many parents in the past have asked different ones of us how to incorporate foreign missions into daily home life. I believe it is very important to teach and train children in their growing up years to have a heart for different peoples and cultures than their own. Children CAN have a burden for the lost in other lands, and our missionaries abroad. We would like to frequently include brief ‘snapshots’ in the newsletter that would give you ideas of how you can make a difference in the hearts of your children and ultimately the church of Christ!

One of the first important steps in giving our children a vision for the lost people of the world is to impart into their lives a love for other cultures. They need to grow up with an interest in foreign languages, knowledge of other lands, and a palate for unusual foods.

Get creative and your children will come to love unusual special activities where everyone gets involved. Here is just one small idea for you but please take off with your own imagination. Pick a country and plan ahead to have a “Haiti Night” or a “Swiss Night” sometime during the week. Have your children study a bit about the climate, location, language, clothing, food, and religion. Then everybody can pitch in preparing that country’s national dish for supper. Decorate the table if you can, or dress up if you like. I remember so clearly as a child putting on our bathrobes (to imitate kimonos) and squatting around the low coffee table in our living room, eating with chopsticks on “Japan Night”. These times will forever stick with your children! End the evening with prayer for the spiritual needs of that country. The burden is not that we just have fun times as a family. Rather, the burden is that, yes, we have fun times together but also we are incorporating a burden and passion for others in our children. It is really all about others, is it not? We want our children to start viewing others no longer as just other people, but rather someone potentially without the gospel, without the hope of Jesus Christ, and on their way to a Christ-less eternity. Let’s work on coming up with ideas that bring that strange, far away land, filled with people that look different, act different, and do things so differently, much closer home to their hearts. May the Lord richly bless your efforts at making a difference in and eventually out of your home!

~The Editor

• If you have other ideas that you have found a blessing in integrating a heart for others in your children, please write and share them with us so we can pass them on and let them be a blessing to others.

  565 W. Swartzville Rd.
  Reinholds, Pa. 17569
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