Curried Missionary Part 8

Pic: My brother, sister-in-law and nephew arriving in Papua New Guinea as missionaries with New Tribes Mission for the first time.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

Part 8 is a summary of ways to encourage missionaries. I would normally print this out to give out to people in meetings, suggesting they pin it up somewhere in their office.

"Ways to Encourage Missionaries

1. Get to know your missionary PERSONALLY. Find out their birthdays, anniversaries, how long they’ve been overseas, what do they exactly do? Ask questions!
2. Find out their likes and dislikes, what are their favourite colours, hobbies, foods etc..
3. Find out what TV shows they might like to watch. News? Sit-coms? Sports events? Movies?
4. What are their children’s likes and dislikes, how old are their children? Favourite colours etc..
5. What products (food, cosmetics, magazines, school products, hobby supplies etc) can and can’t they get where they live?
6. Letters – the simplest card is enough to be encouraging.
7. Small Parcels – with a simple thing such as gravy mix or chewing gum.
8. Bigger Parcels – with something such as a recorded or shop bought video/DVD.
9. Special Gifts – not always just for Birthdays or Christmas!
10. Food – you can send things such as chocolate, lollies, packet foods, specialty foods, (eg; vegemite or nice tea-bags)
11. Cosmetics – soaps, chap sticks, mud packs etc..
12. E-mail – just a short personal note of ‘How are you’ is enough, make sure you ask specific questions such as ‘What kinds of things do you eat over there?’
13. Sermon Tapes – often a missionary can’t get hold of these and they are in need of Spiritual encouragement too.
14. Newspaper articles, cassettes of you speaking, video recordings of yourself/DVDetc..."

Next - Straight From the Horse's Mouth - 60 missionaries tell you how they've been encouraged or discouraged the most.

Blackout

Two nights ago we had a blackout. It lasted for about three hours and meant that we couldn't do anything much. It was still quite warm (went from 6pm to 9pm) so we had to just sweat it out. It's amazing how technology keeps you awake at night, I was almost falling asleep around 9pm, sitting there in the candlelight having a discussion with Michael. As soon as the lights came on though I was awake again! I have to wonder whether God was helping us to take it easy for a few hours after our busy week.