At church tonight I had the pleasure tonight of listening to a talk by Doug Nichols, president of Action International, which focuses on ministering to street children around the world. Doug is a wonderful role model--a man who puts his faith into action and who takes James 1:27 seriously. His message tonight was his usual style--biblically based exhortation sprinkled with insightful and interesting anecdotes. One of the convicting questions he asked was: What have you done today to practice pure and undefiled religion? (See James 1:27 above.)
At the end of his talk, Doug distributed a bulletin insert on "33 ways for children, youth, teenagers, young adults, the middle-aged and seniors to serve God by ministering to needy children and the poor in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America." He gave me permission to reproduce it here. If you'd like a PDF version to use as a bulletin insert, you can download it free.
Here's the list:
By Praying (5 ways):
- Gather a group of twenty people for prayer with each taking 12 of the 240 countries of the world (20x12=240). Example: if each one prayed for each of the 12 countries for 1 minute, the world would be prayed for in 12 minutes.
- Ask your pastor if you can lead in prayer one Sunday per month for the 160 million street children of the world and the 104 million orphans worldwide.
- Pray daily for the 13 million AIDS orphans in Africa and 104 million orphans worldwide.
- Prepare an ethnic meal of country for your Bible study, youth group or church and then pray for that country. Do this once a month, praying for 12 countries yearly. Start with the countries where your church missionaries serve.
- Adopt one of your church's missionaries, write to him or her monthly, and then pray daily for that outreach.
By Projects (4 ways):
- Gather vocational and technical books to send to a school for older needy children in the Philippines.
- Fill a 20' container with rice, beans, corn, and clothes, raise $8000, and ship the container to Malawi orphans.
- Gather and send good used study Bibles to needy pastors in Africa, India and the Philippines.
- Assign several from your youth group or adult class to an outgoing missionary and help with whatever is needed: packing, raising funds, storage, purchasing equipment, cleaning house. Arrange Saturday work team to help with this.
By Giving (12 ways):
- $ .50 - provides one evangelistic national language comic book written by Filipinos for street children. ($10 will provide twenty evangelistic comics).
- $1.00 - gives supplementary feeding for a child in Zambia for one month.
- $ .90 - fully clothes an orphan in Malawi or Zambia, Africa.
- $1.50 - provides a plastic-covered Zambian-language New Testament.
- $4.00 - sends an orphan to camp in Africa.
- $3.50 - provides a meal, the gospel, and a gift at a Christmas party for adults and children in India.
- $5.00 - purchases a Bible for an orphan or needy pastor in Africa.
- $6.00 - prints 200 evangelistic booklets for the Philippines or Mexico.
- $6.00 - provides a set of commentaries (worth $40) for a needy pastor in Africa or Asia.
- $50.00 per month will support a pastor in Cambodia, the Philippines and India (any amount would help!).
- $21.00 - sends a street child to camp in the Philippines.
- $4800 - drills a well for a village for orphans and their caretakers in Malawi.
- $56.00 - six month ?fish and bread? ministry for mothers in the Philippines including meals, medical, vitamins and training.
- $50.00 - to send a needy boy to a one week camp in Brazil.
By Going--short or long-term (4 ways):
- ACTION (www.actionintl.org) has worldwide opportunities for people ages 19 to 89 (especially in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America) with orphans, needy children, and the poor.
- Teen Missions (www.teenmissions.org) also has worldwide opportunities for all ages.
- Rainbows of Hope (www.wcc-int.org/rainbows) is a ministry to needy children worldwide.
- YUGO Ministries (www.yugo.org) - Mexico-- is especially for young people ages 13 to 19.
By Doing (6 ways):
- Make friends with people from other countries, learn of their countries and cultures for the gospel's sake.
- You and your family can invite missionaries to your home for a meal and ask them all about their lives and ministry.
- Make sure there is a display of world missions with pictures and literature in the main room of your church and in the youth and adult meeting areas.
- Obtain a copy of the book Operation World and learn all you can about the 237 countries of the world.
- If 19 or older, participate in the Missionary Apprentice Program (MAP) of ACTION (www.actionintl.org).
- Pick out one or two of the 30 items above and trust God to do them for His glory!
