by Shannon Steuerwald

This event allows the entire church family or several ladies to work together in encouraging missionaries. The main idea is to set aside one Wednesday evening service or one monthly ladies fellowship during the month of November in order to gather, wrap, and box gifts for missionaries. Sending packages in November is necessary in order for the foreign missionaries to receive them during the holiday season. Here are some tips in making this event a success:

• Appoint a lady to contact all of the missionaries in order to generate a Christmas “wish list.” Be sure the missionaries know that you want lists for all members of their immediate family. Or, you can generate a list of missionary names and their ages to allow more creativity in the shopping experience. Should be done in early to mid-October.
• Generate a sheet of paper that lists the name of the missionary with his/her wish list or ages and allow church members or ladies to sign up to purchase those items. Should be done in late October.
• Instruct all gifts to be brought to the “Christmas in November” gathering. You may ask them to wrap the gift ahead of time or you may wish to do the wrapping as part of the main activity of the event.
• Appoint another lady to oversee the decorating. Since it is a Christmas event, you make it fun for those attending by having the meeting area decorated…lights, greenery, maybe a Christmas tree, appropriate music, etc., go a long way in spreading Christmas cheer.
• Appoint other ladies or members to oversee the snack foods and cleanup for the event.
• Another activity you can do during this event is have the ladies or church members write personal notes of encouragement on Christmas cards to insert in the boxes. Even the children can enjoy drawing Christmas notes for the missionary children!