What a difference a few months makes! At the beginning of this church year, all of the preschoolers in our group were new to Mission Friends^®. I remember the first week when I realized none of them knew what the word missionary means. The preschoolers looked at me blankly when I talked about the missionary. I realized we needed to do a lot of explaining about missionaries and how they tell other people about Jesus.

Over the months I have continued explaining as we have learned about missionaries in North America and around the world. Our Mission Friends now realize that missionaries are in many different places. The missionaries might work in different ways, but they all tell people that God sent His Son, Jesus, because He loves us all. I can tell that it is still difficult for our preschoolers to grasp that there are people who have never heard about Jesus.

At a church fellowship a couple of weeks ago, I sat with the family of one of our Mission Friends. His mother told me that during that week, Patton had asked her about missionaries. As they were talking about missionaries, Patton asked, “Mom, do you know any missionaries?” His mother asked me if there were missionaries in our area.

I was thrilled to know that the conversation about missionaries was taking place in this Mission Friend's home. I was reminded that preschoolers learn little by little through continued conversations over the months in Mission Friends and also in their homes. This is why I like to give parents the Mission Friends at Home leaflets each month so they will be informed and able to talk with their preschooler about missionaries and their work.

Give parents the Mission Friends at Home leaflets so they can talk with their preschooler about missionaries and their work.

I was encouraged by this conversation with the parents in knowing that our Mission Friends have learned so much in the past several months. Through the activities, Bible thoughts, mission stories, and conversations, they have become familiar with the word missionary and what it means to be a missionary. The past several months have really made a difference in our preschoolers knowing about missions and in growing a missions heart.

A missionary couple in Alaska was overwhelmed last summer and fall with supplies they received from children’s groups across the country. Were they featured in WMU^® publications? Was it Christmas in August^®? Good guesses, but the supplies actually came from Vacation Bible Schools! Missions in VBS? Yes!

Each year the Southern Baptist VBS curriculum includes a Missions class as one of the “rotation” classes for preschoolers and children. Many, many children see the videos about missionaries and participate in learning activities about missions!

Each year the Southern Baptist VBS curriculum includes a Missions class.

Sadly, though, some churches choose to leave the Missions Rotation out of their VBS, often for the sake of time. Many of us are trying to squeeze a 3-hour Bible School into a 2½-hour evening time frame, and must make choices on how to condense. But for balance in a child’s spiritual development, missions education is important, and we must consider what is lost for those children who are not given the opportunity to learn about missions and missionaries in VBS.

Some children in Bible School may have no other exposure to missions education. They may be “church children” who do not attend Mission Friends^®, Girls in Action^®, and Royal Ambassadors^®. Or they may be children who are not connected to a church at all. Bible School may be the only time they hear about how God is using people to share His love with others in places far and near.

Some of the children in VBS may be regular members of Mission Friends, GA^®, or RA^®. The Missions Rotation gives them the opportunity to learn about missions in a different way or a different setting than usual. The Holy Spirit uses special ministries like camps and VBS to speak to people’s hearts in a special way. So VBS may be the place where all the things a child has learned about missions over the years comes together, as God plants the seed of a call to missions in their heart. Many children and youth make decisions in VBS each year to serve God in vocational ministry.

As children learn about missionaries, it is a great opportunity for leaders to talk to them about how our churches work together to support missions work. This foundation of understanding cooperative work and how the Cooperative Program is important for our missions efforts now and in the future. VBS can be a part of laying that foundation.

Last summer, missionaries in Alaska were blessed because VBS children learned of God’s work under the northern lights, prayed for that ministry, and sent supplies to help. The childhood and teenage years are important times for developing a heart for missions and beginning a lifestyle of mission support and participation. That starts with Mission Friends, GA, RA, and yes, even VBS!

Sue Harmon is Associate Director, Childhood Ministry, for the South Carolina Baptist Convention. Among her responsibilities is leading the state VBS team in providing training to churches throughout South Carolina. Each year, Sue sees the impact of VBS as churches report their numbers and stories from VBS. Sue is also a great sister to Joye Smith, WMU preschool consultant.

I have recently led several conference sessions on Project HELP^SM: Human Exploitation for preschool and children’s leaders. In a way, these are easy conferences to teach because leaders appreciate anything I can give them about using these tough issues with preschoolers and children. The conferences are difficult to lead because the issues within human exploitation are not easy to confront. Most of the leaders choose to attend this conference topic because they want practical ideas for using the issues of human exploitation with ones so young. They want to know, “What can I do with the preschoolers in my church?”

Lead the Mission Friends teachers in your church to do the Bible study for an issue from Release, Restore, Redeem.

I encourage preschool and children’s leaders to focus on three of the issues of Project HELP: Human Exploitation: Bullying, Media Exploitation of Children and Families, and Exploitation of Natural Resources for Personal Gain. Here are a few practical things you can do with preschoolers for each of these issues.

Bullying
Teach preschoolers how to work with others in order to prevent bullying.

• Focus on Bible stories about people who were kind. The four friends (Mark 2:1–12), the Shunemite woman (2 Kings 4:8–13), and Jesus loved the children (Mark 10:13–16) are just a few stories in the Bible about people who were kind.

• Do activities with preschoolers that help them develop listening skills. Being able to listen well is linked to showing respect to others. Ideas include clapping rhythms, singing motion songs, or telling a sound story in which preschoolers make a certain sound when they hear a word in the story.

• Do Helping Others activities with preschoolers. They will see that other people have needs, and their understanding and empathy for others will increase. Consider making cards for adults or children in a special needs ministry, visiting a nursing home, or making treat bags for international students in an ESL ministry.

Media Exploitation of Children and Families
Help families in balancing media usage and keeping children safe while using media.

• Encourage families to keep a log of screen usage for one week (TV, tablets, or computers). Invite families to a “screen free” night at church at the end of the week in which fun activities are planned for families.

• Invite an expert to teach a session for parents on keeping children safe online.

• Use safety controls on all devices used in preschool classrooms and visit all Internet sites before using them with preschoolers.

Exploitation of Natural Resources for Personal Gain
Help preschoolers learn that when we use natural resources in a selfish way, we may be causing harm to others.

• Use the Nature interest area to teach preschoolers about God’s creation and taking care of His world. Add and change nature items often to keep preschoolers’ interest and curiosity.

• Have preschoolers decorate blank canvas bags for their families to use as reusable shopping bags.

• Plan a “field trip” in which parents and preschoolers meet you at a local recycling center.

Take one of these issues and place your focus in that area. Lead the Mission Friends teachers in your church to do the Bible study for that issue from Release, Restore, Redeem. Guide Mission Friends^® leaders to decide on the actions you will take along with preschoolers and their families. Ask for God’s direction as you teach preschoolers to live out Jesus’ words in Matthew 22:37–39 to love God and love others.

Is missions just a culture lesson? In Mission Friends^® we teach many different aspects about cultures, but Mission Friends is so much more than simply a culture lesson for our preschoolers. Everything we teach should have the purpose of leading preschoolers to learn more about God’s desire for all people to know and worship Him.

Teaching about customs and different cultures is fun, and makes Mission Friends so exciting for preschoolers. My Mission Friends come running in the classroom, asking what we are going to do that evening. There is always something new that we do, and something new they learn about people in the different places we study. In Mission Friends we do activities related to the weather, dress, food, language, houses, churches, and games of people in different places. As we teach these aspects of culture, we need to be mindful to use these as tools to teach about missions work in various places. We teach these aspects so preschoolers will learn of different ways missionaries use to tell the people where they live about Jesus. Missionaries in Alaska will share Christ with people in different ways than missionaries in Burkina Faso.

Each month as you teach Mission Friends, read Meet the Missionaries in Mission Friends Leader to find out about the missionaries’ work. Read the Missions Focus page on the Web site. As you do activities related to the culture in the missions area, relate the activity to the missionaries and their work. Sometimes an activity relates to an aspect of the mission story for that session. Be familiar enough with the story that you can tell a part of the story with the activity. As preschoolers are involved in learning about the culture, place an emphasis on the people of that culture. Tell preschoolers of the people who need to hear about Jesus and His love. Use the Bible thought, Tell people about Jesus (see Matt. 28:19), to explain this is what the missionaries do in each place.

Each month as you teach Mission Friends, read Meet the Missionaries in Mission Friends Leader to find out about the missionaries’ work.

In Mission Friends preschoolers learn about cultures and customs within North America and around the world. The world is an interesting place, and we want to present various cultures in engaging ways. Make each session count by using cultural-learning activities as missions-learning activities. Each session is not just a cultural lesson, but a way of instilling a missions heart in preschoolers.