Enjoying World Missions . . . in JANUARY
Throughout the year, international holidays and cultural celebrations can be focus-points for prayer and used to give our families an insight into our world’s need for Jesus. These vibrant festivities are filled with colorful expression, yet often these traditions are rooted in false religion and fear.
Enjoying Missions throughout the Year
A great way to involve your family in world missions – Excerpted from The Mission-Minded Family by Ann Dunagan, InterVarsity Press
Make a MISSION-MINDED CALENDAR:
As your family looks at current traditions around the world each month, you can utilize these specific days to target different people groups for prayer and to increase your family’s mission-minded vision. You may even want to commemorate some of these days. However, I am not encouraging your family to celebrate evil or pagan holidays. This international holiday list is simply to help your family learn about world cultures and to regularly remind you about the need for specific mission-minded prayer.
Get out your family calendar, and take a moment to write down the names of these holidays on their respective dates. Throughout the year, you can then come back to this section of The Mission-Minded Family to read about each holiday and pray accordingly.
January
1 – New Year’s Day, International – Around much of the world, this day is celebrated as a time of new beginnings. Many people make New Year’s “resolutions,” or promises, for the coming year.)
As mission-minded believers, pray for and seek God’s directions for the new year and take time to evaluate and realign your priorities.
6 – Epiphany, International – In many countries throughout the world, this day is celebrated to remember the wise men who came to bring gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the Christ child, Jesus. In Spain, children receive gifts on this day instead of Christmas. Children put hay in their shoes and find the hay replaced with treats the next morning.
Pray for the people of Spain to recognize Jesus Christ as Savior and Messiah, just as the wise men did.
14 – Pongal, India – In southern India, this day marks the beginning of a four-day harvest festival. The people gather to watch a pot of newly harvested rice boil. If it boils quickly, the people believe it is a sign of a prosperous new year.
Pray for a mighty spiritual harvest in India.
18 (2010 date) – Martin Luther King Day, United States – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, was a Christian minister and a civil rights leader. King was active in seeing segregation laws in the South abolished, and in 1964 he received the Nobel Peace Prize. He was assassinated in 1968. The third Monday of January is set aside as a national holiday to remember King’s leadership and the importance of civil rights.
Pray for harmony and love between different races and nationalities and for God to give you love and compassion for other people groups.
Check back each month, for more MISSION-MINDED HOLIDAY ideas for your family!
Mission-Minded Life Planning & Prayer Guide
Do you want to set aside time to seek God’s will? Do you want your life and your family to become more effective for God’s Kingdom . . . and for ETERNITY?
This year, don’t just make empty New Year’s resolutions that you’re likely to forget by February; instead, pray and seek God for His specific plans and purposes for your LIFE.
Get focused on God’s eternal mission and His long-term vision (including His Great Commandment — to love God and to love others, and His Great Commission — to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with people who don’t yet know Him).
And no matter what “job” you do for a living, may you and your family be a part of expanding God’s Kingdom, both in your own sphere of influence and across the world.
Introducing your FREE New Year’s Guide
Watch this 2 minute video for a quick explanation of this evaluation and prayer guide.
Our heart is to help you to plan a more effective and MISSION-MINDED New Year:
Click here — for your FREE New Year’s Guide!
(PRINT 1 copy of the entire document, pgs. 1-16, and 3 EXTRA COPIES of pgs. 10-11.
Also, here’s our favorite 1-year Bible Reading Plan from www.Bible-reading.com.Please share this with your friends, and help us by posting it on facebook, twitter, and your blogs. And let us know what you think. How is God directing you and your family to impact God’s Kingdom? We would appreciate your feedback and comments!!!
Have a Happy (& Mission-Minded) New Year!!!
In His Harvest,
Jon & Ann
Click here for more details about Ann’s books, The Mission-Minded Family and The Mission-Minded Child including a link for FREE sample chapters (and info about how you can get your own copies)!!!
Plus, stay tuned to learn more about our brand-new upcoming book:
THE SCARLET CORD – Nothing But the Blood of Jesus (A Concise Call to World Missions – by Jon & Ann Dunagan)
ON THE LIGHT SIDE: Grasshoppers for Thanksgiving?
By Joshua Dunagan, at age thirteen
“So, what did you eat for Thanksgiving?”
During the week of Thanksgiving, my dad and I were across the world in Uganda, East Africa, holding evangelistic outreaches in remote cities out in the middle of nowhere. It was my second Thanksgiving holiday outside of America. But this time was really different.
In Africa, most people eat the same foods over and over again; at least we sure did.
Day after day, meal after meal, we had overcooked rice, matoke (mashed steamed bananas), and a few chunks of tough meat and guts. But for Thanksgiving we had a “special” African treat. Along with our standard food, we were given a plate full of greasy fried grasshoppers!! They were about two inches long, with the legs and head still on.
As I stared at these insects, thoughts flashed through my brain. I imagined all the yummy food my brothers and sisters were eating at Grandma’s house: turkey and pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes and gravy. I also remembered a time I had eaten big bugs before (at a kid’s camp when I was bribed with a bunch of candy). It wasn’t so hard to chug down an insect just once or twice on a dare, but this was different. It was Thanksgiving—and I was hungry!
Actually, they didn’t taste that bad. As I took my first bite, they reminded me of a cross between popcorn and shrimp—crunchy on the outside and a little gooey on the inside. Soon I was eating one after the other, even throwing them in the air and catching them in my mouth. I must have eaten about sixty of them by the time I was done!
By the way, the ministry went well that night.
We preached to thousands of people . . . and I felt just like John the Baptist!
(Photo is our son, Josh, at 10-years-old, preaching the Gospel in Urua, Uganda)
Happy Mission-Minded Thanksgiving!
Related article on The Christian Post’s “Better Parents, Better Families” blog:
Give Ye, Them to Eat: Thanksgiving, Missions, & “Saints” – By Ann Dunagan
A Mission-Minded Thanksgiving article featuring Nate Saint (Ecuador missionary and martyr) and Rachel Saint (missionary with Wycliffe Bible Translators) – two world-renown Christian missionary heroes . . . from the same family!
Mission Thoughts at Thanksgiving
“Why should anyone go back to the table for second’s or third’s,
before everyone’s had a first helping?” —
Won’t anyone pass the food?
Imagine sitting down for a scrumptious Thanksgiving dinner with all of your relatives.
Everyone is eager to eat . . . but as you survey Grandma’s extra-long dining room table, complete with all the extension-pieces brought in from back of the entry closet, you can’t help but notice the lop-sided food layout. All of those delicious-smelling dishes are on the opposite end of the table.
After joining hands and thankin’ the Lord for His bounty, you wait patiently for one of those cousins to pass that basket of yummy-looking homemade rolls your direction . . . but for some reason, they don’t seem to hear you. In fact, it’s almost like you’re not at the table. It’s like no one can see you, or even hear you.
As the other side continues to heap their plates with second- and even third-helpings, everyone at your end is still waiting . . . and waiting . . . with empty plates.
No one’s trying to be mean, of course; it’s just that everybody is distracted. Grandpa’s stories are so hilarious this year; everyone’s laughing; and Aunt Polly’s turkey is more delicious than ever. The others begin to joke about their bulging stomachs . . . as yours continues to grumble with hunger.
Won’t anyone pass the food?
It’s a vivid picture we need to remember, of the need for world missions, and the need to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ . . . with the lost.
This month, as we sit down to thank God for His abundant blessings in our lives (both physically and spiritually), we need to remember that many people (over 1.6 BILLION) are still waiting . . . and waiting . . . for their first helping of the God’s Good News.
“Why should anyone hear the Gospel twice,
before everyone has heard it once?”
–Oswald J. SmithHave a Blessed & Mission-Minded Thanksgiving!
With Love in His Harvest,
Jon & Ann Dunagan & Family
