Ideas for those on the Field
As busy as I know you are it is sooooo important that the link and communication between missionary family and home/supporting church is regular and constant. We don’t want to just be a 5 year old photo on the wall under the heading ‘Missionary’. With all of the resources available to us these days we don’t need to be, but it must be a commitment by the missionary family to keep up the flow of communication too.
Most, if not all of you, will do the newsletter thing which is great but do you know what is happening to it when it gets sent? Ask your supporting Church if it gets any further than the inbox. Does it get printed out, does it get displayed, if so how and is it seen, do excerpts get put in the bulletin, is it part of the church notices, is it part of the life of the church? These questions need to be addressed and answered, if people are financially supporting you, then the whole congregation have a right to know what you are up to!!! Is there someone in the congregation who can take responsibility for making sure the newsletter is as visible as possible and/or able to be seen by as many people as possible.
For those of you that have the internet capabilities, there are many sites you can access where you can set up your own family website. Even if it just consists of a few photos and a few sentences. As long as there is a commitment to regularly update the photos, this is a great and easy way for the supporting church to keep up to date. The good thing with this too is that people can access it at home and take the time to have a look. Please note, we are planning to provide this facility through MK’s Club!
A great way to communicate home is through the kids. If you have the technology, take a 5 minute video that can be played at Children’s Church. If you have kids, let them do it. If not, a short video of where you are and some ‘weird’ stuff will always go down a treat!!!
Try to schedule into your week/fortnight/month to email through a couple of photos, be it family or scenic shots, with a sentence to go with. If this is small enough it can easily be added into the weekly church bulletin which we all know is seen by the majority.
Most churches that support missionaries will have some kind of missions committee. Be in contact with these people, again if they meet monthly, send through a couple of sentences about how you are all doing. Make sure through the committee that you are seen and known and use the ideas from the site to help.
If communication is regular, it doesn’t need to be much!!!
As the missionary family, I would also ask of you to be real. I know from being on the field with missionary parents for all my childhood and teenage years that missionaries get very good at only communicating the good/God stuff. Please let your supporting church know when things aren’t going so good and don’t be afraid to ask for things you need. If the whole family is down with malaria and you are wondering again why are we here, let someone from home know. Every Christian knows that those on the field are at the cutting edge of all things Spiritual and come under constant attack, so they don’t expect to always hear the good!!!!! Even if you can just communicate the bad to the prayer team or to the missions committee, one of the most important ways to better support those on the field is to PRAY, so do communicate the LOT!!!! Your supporting Church is committed to YOU, through bad and good!!!
