How to Maximize Your Missionary's Visit

How to Maximize Your Missionary's Visit

by Karen Hardin
Teach Kids! Magazine January/February 2008

Prepare Your Students
• Learn a greeting in the language of the people your missionary and his family serve and use it to welcome them.
• Locate the missionary’s field on a world map.
• Help your children generate a list of kid-friendly questions for missionary children
Prepare the Missionary
• Do not assume the missionary is comfortable speaking to children.
• Let him know the ages of your group and what they already know about missions.
• If you plan to interview the missionary’s children, e-mail the questions ahead of time.
• If there is something specific you want the missionary to bring or do let him know. Cultural items of interest could include: native clothing, video clips, photos, letters or words on flashcards if the language of the country is non-Roman script, a chorus and game the children of their country enjoy, a common snack, currency.
• Ask the missionary to send prayer requests for his family, ministry and people he serves.
• Find out what equipment you need to have ready for the session.
Prepare the Teaching Environment
• Provide a large area for the missionary to teach a game common to his country.
• Set the scene by decorating the area where the missionary will teach.
• Plan learning stations for part of the program and set up materials.
Impact Accounts
• Interview the missionary family using questions you sent in advance.
• Have the missionaries give the dramatic presentation of a person they ministered to.
Prayer Activity
• If necessary write the missionary’s prayer requests in words and ideas on the age-level of your students.
• Use specific requests to develop a prayer activity that has a cultural flavor. For example, for a missionary to Asia use chopsticks to pick up folded prayer request cards.

What Easter looks like in El Salvador

Easter Week in El Salvador is celebrated differentlythan the way it is celebrated in the United States. In the United States, Easter includes the Easter Bunny and egg hunts. In El Salvador as well as many other Central American countries, it is celebrated with much a different atmosphere.

Easter feels like summer. The sun shines strong in the skies, the breeze somehow fresh, somehow warm. It is definitely the middle of the dry season in El Salvador, the equivalent of summer in northern lands.

Everything around, from sale signs to music, talks about sun and sand. The opportunity to enjoy beaches that are just an hour away from San Salvador is almost here.

For a full week, students are out of school and have the opportunity to enjoy beaches, visit relatives and do nothing; it is almost the equivalent to spring break in the United States.

However, there is one unequivocal characteristic that reminds every Salvadoran that it is not just a break, and that there is more than just sun and fun waiting for us during that week in April.

In El Salvador, the week of Easter is “Holy Week,” and the festivitiesrevolve around Roman Catholic tradition. Roman Catholics account for nearly 60 percent of the population. Protestant (also called evangelical) churches account for slightly more than 20 percent.

Even though El Salvador does not have an official religion, since the time of colonization Roman Catholic traditions have been the most common and most practiced in the country. Easter Week is the most important celebration for the Roman Catholic Church.

“It is slightly different for the Protestant Church” says Sister Wendy, wife of Pastor Rodolfo at the Baptist Tabernacle Church of Majucla. “For most of the children, Easter Week is an opportunity to spend time with their families. People take advantage of this time to go back to their homeland and spend time with their families.”

One of the most important Easter traditions in El Salvador is Lent. During this 40-day period before Easter, named “Cuaresma” in Spanish, people fast, pray and give alms. The last week of the40 days is called “Bigger Week” or “Holy Week.”

On Good Friday, there are two major processions. Early in the morning there is the “passion,” which is the representation or commemoration of the walk that Jesus took with the cross toward Golgotha. It is finished around noon.

Then in the afternoon, Roman Catholic churches and communities start making rugs on the streets with sawdust, which will later be part of the path where the “holy funeral procession” will pass, carrying the symbolic dead body of Christ.

The making of these rugs represents one of the greatest traditions for the Roman Catholic Church in El Salvador, since entire streets and main avenues in many places of the country are completely closed. The rugs cover entire streets.

Appreciation of the rugs goes beyond religion. For Salvadorians, it is about appreciating the art and about appreciating the effort the people put into making the rugs. For Salvadorians, it is a gift, an offering they are making for Jesus.

Catholic or not, Salvadorians go out into the streets on Good Friday to see the rugs. Apart from this tradition for Good Friday, Holy Week develops differently for Protestants.

For the Evangelical Church in El Salvador, Holy Week is an opportunity to spread the Gospel to as many people as possible. If there is the opportunity to preach the Gospel and carry more people to the feet of our Lord, the church takes advantage of it and tells El Salvador the true meaning of Holy Week.