Rice Bowls is one of the most creative missions ideas I have seen in a long time. I have previously blogged about another (almost) free missions opportunity through Voice of the Martyrs called Prisoner Alert. You can also get free Action Packs from VOM, however, you have to pay the shipping fees.

Rice Bowls, is truly a “free” missions opportunity for your kids and families. Here’s the deal:

1. You request a certain number of “Rice Bowls.” They ship them to you free of charge. These rice bowls are plastic banks in which kids can deposit coins and bills.
2. You promote what you are doing by using promotional materials from their website and provide dates and guidelines for your people.
3. Collect the bowls full of currency.
4. Break them open using a creative means of your choice (we found hammers and “multi-tool” saws to be effective)!
5. Deposit all the money and send Rice Bowls a check.

We did this as our VBS missions emphasis this year and raised over $1700 for Rice Bowls. The kids really got into it!

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If you are like me, you want the kids in your ministry to realize that there is a big world out there filled with needy people. If there is one thing I want them to remember that I taught, it is that the middle class life they live is not all that’s out there. I want them to know that there are people around the world in need of Jesus and that it takes sacrifce to reach them.

One way we can encourage our kids to impact other children for Chirst is through Make a Child Smile. At this site, your children and their families can review the stories of very sick children and write notes to them. What a great way to share the gospel of Jesus Christ in a caring and loving way! Kids could mail home made cards with tracts and Bible verses or care packages with Christian videos. I hope you’ll tell the families in your ministry about this opportunity.

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I have had an increasing conviction about teaching the kids under my ministry about how good we have it in the western church. I want them to have empathy and compassion for our persecuted brothers and sisters. One way I have recently done this is by using one ministry of Voice of the Martyrs called Prisoner Alert. On the Prisoner Alert website, you can write letters using a “wizard,” print those letters out, and mail them to imprisoned Christians featured on their website.

I recently did this with the Awana ministry at our church. I printed out a good deal of letters and had the children decorate them with Christian symbols and colorful pictures. They really enjoyed it. VOM will also send you a promotional video you can show your children to make them aware of how Christians are persecuted as well. I showed this prior to giving them the letters to decorate. Even though the letters cost money to mail, I thought this activity was well worth it to feature on this site.

You may also be interested in:

1. Families Celebrating Christmas
2. Evangelism Site for Kids

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If you are not familiar with Skype, it is a free computer to computer/phone line calling software. Computer phone systems have not quite taken the country by storm, but at this point they do have some special abilities, and yes, for the sake of my site, Skype is free (for the basic features and computer to computer calling).

This Sunday, I will be calling a family from our church who is serving in East Asia during both children’s worship services. I’ll project their video call on the screen and the computer will emit sound through the sound system so that all the kids in the worship can take part. We will hear them share their heart for missions and using a web cam in the worship room, we will allow some children to ask the missionary children questions.

We have done this once before and it was a success. You do have to beware that the video and sound could be choppy and it may take a few tries when the other person is in a country with poor internet infrastructure. But overall, it’s a good way to expose kids to missions work.

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