In all my years of home schooling, one of my goals has been to inspire my children to see how they can make a difference in this world for God’s glory. “Nations and generations!“ has been the cry of my heart, echoing the cry of God‘s own heart. We’ve studied cultural geography to learn about how people live and what they believe, and we’ve talked about missions, but sometimes reading a biography about a missionary who lived a hundred years ago is too remote. We need to know that is going on the world right now – and how we can participate! Learning about global current events (such as the Pakistan earthquake) via the Internet, newspapers and TV news has also been quite fruitful, though we have to fight the tendency to be armchair spectators. Just knowing about a crisis around the globe does nothing to alleviate it.

        I realize that the most important lesson will be personal example. What do they see me doing, and what can we do together? We’ve always made a point to send both money and tangible items towards missions. Please understand that as I write the following examples, I am not trying to brag. Instead, I write to share a testimony of the Lord’s faithfulness to our family as we are trying to serve him globally, as well as offer some practical ideas for your own families.

        When the kids were young, they had so much fun stuffing shoeboxes with small items for needy children around the world, and then delivering them to a Samaritan’s Purse (www.SamaritansPurse.org) drop-off point. This is a worthy ministry organization that I highly recommend.

        One year, the girls collected blankets from our friends and neighbors to be sent to Sudan for Voice of the Martyrs’ Blankets of Love program (www.persecution.com). VOM has been a terrific resource to us. We’ve read their magazine articles about the persecuted church around the world, watched their excellence children’s video (Stephen’s Test of Faith), and subscribed to their children’s quarterly, LINK magazine. On the topic of persecution, also be sure to check out International Christian Concern web site at www.persecution.org for information on the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, which occurs November 13!

        The children have helped pack care boxes for pastors in the Ukraine and children in Mexico, to be personally delivered by friends. In 2001, we assembled gift baskets for Indian and Chinese students at UCF, followed up by a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner for them at our house.

        For Christmas the year I was pregnant with Ben, my daughter Mary (then 16) gave me the gift of prenatal care -- for a woman in Africa! She ordered this gift in my honor through Harvest of Hope, an outreach ministry of Partners International. You can “send” such unusual gifts as goats for milk and breeding, native language Bibles, bicycles for church planters, school supplies, sewing machines for cottage businesses, emergency medical kits, well-building supplies and more! Call 1-888-887-2786 or visit www.harvestofhope.org to see a catalog of gifts in different price ranges.

        One spring, we hosted a whole bunch of missionary kids for a party at our home while their mother’s enjoyed an elegant tea at a friend’s house.

        This past summer, Mary and Julia crammed their suitcases with balloons, candy and other small gifts for the children of Bolivia whom they would meet on their mission trips. They will share their own stories about this later in this issue.

        I want to share one more very recent story of God’s mercy…

        As many of you know, the $200 profits from this summer’s sale of the Learner’s Journal lesson planners were set aside to support the ministry of Pastor Headson Makazinga in Malawi. I knew he needed more Chichewa language tracts, so I had 500 of them printed and shipped in time to distribute to the many village pastors attending an annual conference last month. I also wanted to send money for Bibles, conference expenses, and the orphans in the care of Headson and his wife Regina. I could see that $200, while it could do a lot, would go only so far. I wanted to do more. About this time, we were also preparing for the birth of our tenth child, Melody. We have no regular health insurance. Instead we have limited medical coverage with Samaritan Ministries (www.SamaritanMinistries.org) which would pay for about half of our maternity expenses based on how long we had been members. I looked forward to having an epidural, as I had done last time, but we found this would cost us an extra $1,600! I knew that money could be put to better use than short-term pain relief, so I asked Thad if we could donate a portion of our savings to Pastor Makazinga if I could go without the epidural. He agreed to my unusual incentive plan. Unfortunately, as labor progressed, the pain greatly intensified, and I was only 5 cm dilated. I knew it could be several hours until delivery, so I reluctantly (and desperately) requested the epidural. My midwife, Cathy Rudolph, went out to the nurse’s station to request the anesthesiologist, but just 20 minutes later, before he could even come, I knew it was time to push. Cathy walked back into the room, and Melody was born just a few minutes later! So we were able to send the money to Pastor Makazinga after all! (More on this later in the issue…) God is so merciful.