Church Missions Summer Reading Program

The missions committee at our church sponsors a kids summer reading program every summer.  The kids keep up with how many books they read about missions and have one of the committee members initial their reading log.  At the end of the summer, the kid who has read the most age appropriate books gets a prize.  This year, the first place prize was a Kindle!!!

I felt kind of inspired to participate in this program to teach B more about what missions is.  So, I grabbed the small amount of books for his age that our church had and ordered several more from our local library system.  So at naptime (and when I thought about it), we would grab one of those books, sit on the bed together as a family, and read about a missionary.  Then, the former elementary school teacher in me took over.  I pulled out the old map that I had in my classroom and hung it on B and C's closet door.  After reading about each missionary, I would write the missionary's name on a small piece of masking tape and place it on the map in the country where they missionary served.  B loved looking at the map and was quite taken with how many people were missionaries to China.  He was also quite taken with the fact that Jonathan Goforth had blue eyes just like him.

When the deadline came up, I was pleased as punch that B won second place for 'reading' (or having read to him) 13 books.  I was so proud of him.  And honestly, I was glad he didn't win first place--as much as I would have loved to have a Kindle, it really would not have been fair for a 4-year-old to win it for having books read to him.  And the first place winner was a high school aged kid who read 19 chapter books.  Props to him, for sure!!!  So B was presented with a $20 Wal-Mart gift card which I promptly confiscated to be used to buy stuff for his birthday party--with his permission of course.

It was really fun spending time together as a family learning more about those who have served the Lord.