10. Get to know the world.

Lynn wrote, "We've compiled two lists--one is the name of influential people of countries we should pray for and the other is issues in the news we need to pray about. We put each on a card in two different boxes. We each pull one out to pray for in our family devotion time and keep track of how God is working on the cards themselves."

• Keep maps, globes, charts of progress in Bible translations, etc. in visible places in your home.
• Teach children bits of other languages and help them understand what other religions teach.
• Point out the beauties and talents--any positives you notice--of each culture's unchangeable attributes.
• Teach respect for other cultures (i.e., forbid jokes that demean other cultures).
• Get information about countries around the world from Operation World. Read each week about a new country, learn about the number of Christians and needs, pray for the people and missionaries there.
• Put a world map up. When you read about a missionary or world events, find the place where it happened.
• Choose a people group to study--people, beliefs, foods, the language, missionaries, dress, customs.

9. Serve in your own community as you prepare for missions opportunities elsewhere.

Dawn wrote, "My husband and I serve on the Missions Committee at our church where we keep a 'watchful eye' on our church's 50 missionary representatives around the world. Our four children have all been on multiple trips, our daughter is right now finishing up a four-month ministry internship in France. And I know so much of the passion and interest [started with a gift my mother encouraged me to give to a missionary when I was a child]."

• Be genuinely interested in the people you meet and in their backgrounds--even the ones from next door!
• Make cards and sent them to missionaries or overseas military personnel.
• Make food for a food kitchen or collect food for a food pantry.
• Make and serve community meals at holidays.
• Teach and recruit for Vacation Bible School.
• Exercise hospitality in your home.

8. Give of what God has given to you.

Landra suggests, "Have kids give money to missions and let them research and decide on their own (with some guidance) where they give. We have our kids give 25% of their allowance. They have bought chickens, goats and bees for poor people. One of their dreams is to buy a water buffalo--really! (World Vision and Samaritan's Purse both offer opportunities to buy animals that families in third world countries can use to earn money).

• Pack Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes
• Have a missionary offering jar--put change in and periodically give the money to a mission's cause, with the family's input.
• Sponsor children through Compassion International and have the kids write letters to them.
• Encourage your children to prayerfully give things that belong to them personally to those on the mission field.
• Pick a missionary family and write them before Christmas and see what items they need. Then spend your Christmas money on them.

7. Pray.

Lynne wrote, "Make a missions-focused phrase a constant part of your family prayer time. As Cameron Townsend was growing up, his father would pray daily from Isaiah 11:9, that the earth be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. He had no idea how mightily his own son would be used to answer that prayer!"

• Collect missionary prayer cards. Hand out the cards at a meal or at family worship time along with a list of suggested prayer requests. Younger children can learn to pray by reading through the prayer requests.
• Give missionary prayer letters to children to learn about, pray for and communicate with. Then meet together as a family so each person can share what he learned.
• Encourage family members to pray that God will use them in His Kingdom.
• Pray every day for your children that God will prepare them for the future He desires and that He will use them to expand His Kingdom for His glory. Let them hear you pray it, too.

6. Communicate. Use today's technology to stay in close touch with those around the world.

Christopher writes, "One way to spark interest in kids for missions would be to have Christian schools contact an MK school. This could also be done with church youth groups as well--developing a relationship with kids from a missionary church they support. You can use on-line video conferencing and e-mail to communicate, and possibly even organize a mini-missions trip to visit (or receive visitors)."

• Encourage children to e-mail missionary families (especially kids) and do projects for them here at home (making phone calls, sending letters, etc.).
• Send packages to the children especially on their birthdays.
• Use Skype to talk to (voice to voice and face to face) missionaries who have a high speed internet connection in their location.
• Have international pen pals. Christianet offers suggestions on starting pen pal relationships (look through the lists of sites carefully...some of them are dating sites which, while Christian, don't quite accomplish the purpose of the assignments!).

5. Get to know missionaries personally.

Russ says, "Have missionaries come to your home for a meal or stay in your home. When your child's only contact with missionaries is listening to them in church, it is easy for them to be perceived as actors on the distant stage. When our parents invited missionaries to our house and we played with their children who were our age, they became real people living in another part of a real world."

• Make your home a place where missionaries on furlough or passing through the area can stay.
• Invite visiting missionaries to your home for a meal.
• When you invite missionaries over, ask the children to prepare a list of questions so they'll have something to talk about.

4. Get to know international students.

Gene writes, "We connect with a campus ministry staff person who works with internationals. Every year we have a weekend for our church where 25 internationals come from the University of Nebraska (2 hours away) to spend the weekend in church homes. We eat together, play games, share our values, do tours of farms & businesses, go to church, etc. Our children participate right beside us. It is great for all involved."

• Be a host family for an exchange student (long or short term)
• "Adopt" a foreign college student to attend church with you, come over for Sunday dinner, attend events with your family, or stay in your home when the dorms close for holidays.
• Encourage your kids to befriend foreign exchange students in their schools, and to invite them over.
• If you live close to a college or university, get to know International Students by hosting them in your home for a weekend.

3. Read biographies and watch videos about missionaries.

John Piper says "Biographies are the great antidote to cultural myopia and chronological snobbery."

• Read missionary books to children while they do hand crafts, coloring etc.
• Pay the children a penny a page for missionary biographies they read. Several good sets are available from organizations such as Youth With a Mission.
• Read Voice of Martyrs magazine.
• Check out videos about missions on websites such as Christian Cinema.

2. Experience other cultures.

Jackie suggests, "Have someone from another culture in your home to cook a meal or dish from their country. (My favorite memory is of a man from Brazil, traveling with missionaries, who spoke very little English. I asked him to cook for us. He went through my spice drawer and communicated that we needed to go to the grocery store because I didn't have the spice he needed. At the store he opened the spice tins until he found what he wanted!"

• Cook foreign foods (even shop in culture-specific markets if possible; lots of recipes are available online).
• Go to ethnic restaurants, where the staff is actually from other places; stop at slightly odd hours when the staff will not be busy and the servers have time to visit a little (be careful to not unduly keep them from their work).
• Live like many third world people do for a day. No electricity, or not dependable. No heat, rice and beans for meals, sleep outside in a tent.

1. Go! Of all of the ideas folks wrote about, this one is clearly most important. Folks raved about the powerful benefits their families received by participating in missions trips.

Walter and Marilyn wrote, "In response to your question, the best thing we've done with our 4 home-schooled sons is to spend 2 months serving at an orphanage in Uganda, Africa.  Since our return, our church holds a monthly 24-hour prayer vigil for the staff and children of this orphanage--which is igniting a passion in the hearts of many of our congregation."

• Send your kids to missions camp (recommended by one subscriber was WorldVenture).
• Go with a church group or an organization that helps arrange short term mission trips, such as GlobalEncounter.
• When you go on a family missions trip, encourage each child to "earn" his own way. When he earns the money needed, he develops a greater appreciate for what it means when missionaries "raise their own support" and he gets more out of the actual experience.
• Make the most out of missions trips. Send "support letters," ask children to pray for provision, enlist prayer partners, meet with groups to share the vision and ask for prayer, and give follow-up reports.
• Start with simple trips and move toward progressively more intense experiences. Mexico is great because it's incredibly needy but very close and therefore pretty economical. Children can have meaningful experiences as early as 8 or 9 years of age.
• Give your older high school student an opportunity to study for a semester in an international school. Dalat School in Malaysia has an excellent program for this.