Missions

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How to Help Overseas Missionaries

I am a missionary in Guatemala and know that it takes a lot of people at home to support one person overseas. Many of you at home may want to know how you can help people in the foreign mission field. The most important thing you can do is pray for them. If you don't know what else to pray for, pray for their safety, their protection from the evil one and for their health. You can also get on the mailing list of a missionary you know and start receiving their newsletter that usually contains prayer requests.

You can write to missionaries in the field. It’s nice that I have email and can communicate instantly with my friends and family back home but not everyone has that luxury, and a nice hand written letter or card is better than an email, in my opinion. I always send a thank you note back if I have a return address to mail it to. I have to pay for any mail that I receive here. Letters cost me less than $.50 to receive so I encourage people to write but sending packages is something different. Sometimes people send a missionary something and then it costs us more to get it than it does to buy the item new. Always ask a missionary before you send a package of they want it sent or not. I usually have packages sent to someone who is coming to Guatemala and then they give it to me when they get here.

Many missionaries need financial support from churches or individuals in the United States. I receive money from both churches and individuals back home and couldn’t stay in Guatemala without it. Thank you to those who are already doing this for some people.

Another way to support a missionary is to visit them. You will find out a lot about the foreign mission field this way and about the daily struggles of the missionary you are visiting if you do this. A similar way to help missionaries is through mission conferences. We have a missionary conference in Antigua, Guatemala in February or March every year. It takes about 80 people coming down from the United States for this conference to take place. These people not only pay their own way and help defray the cost of the missionaries (many who could never afford something like this) they also provided gifts for missionaries, worship teams, child care, youth workers, computer repair workers, hair stylists, foot massages, reflexologists, chiropractic services and counseling services for the missionaries. If you are interested in helping missionaries in Guatemala in this way, log on to http://www.intermissionsgt.org/.

If you know a missionary in the foreign mission field, you may want to start with that person and try doing one of these things. If don’t know any missionaries but you belong to a denomination, you can find out if they send missionaries overseas and do one of the things I’ve suggested. Thanks for all you do to support foreign missions. There are people dying everyday who have never heard the name of Jesus. If all of us work together, we can remedy that situation.

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