One of my favorite times of the year at my church is the yearly missionary conference that lasts for a week.
Weeklong Missionary Conference for Adults and Children
All the missionaries that our church supports come home on furlough and spend the week with the church members with different activities.
On Sunday the missionaries would be assigned to different Sunday School classes to share a slide presentation of the country where they ministered.
Learning from all the different stories of lives touched by the Lord strengthened my faith.
Then they’d pass out prayer cards that had their pictures on them, with contact information, so we could put them on our refrigerator to remind us to pray for them.
During the week there’d be luncheons, where one or more of them would speak.
On Saturday there were special conference sessions for the adults, while the kids had a missionary VBS at the same time.
Each year there would be a theme
The theme that caught my attention the most was the 10/40 Window which is a rectangular window that lies between 10 and 40 degrees north latitude.
Two-thirds of the world’s population live there, sixty percent of whom have no access to the gospel.
While the adults learned this significance, the children learned the same through hands-on activities.
One year, when the theme was India, my daughter and I were invited to coordinate a few activities with the children’s ministry.
Modeling Indian Clothing
First, my daughter and I wore clothing from India that one of the doctors had brought home from a missionary visit.
We wore them in the church parking lot as we distributed invitations about the upcoming children’s program during the missionary conference.
The header photo and the one below are from this experience.
Shopping for Saris and Tea
Then Julie asked me to go shopping with her as we looked for some saris for some of us to wear while working with the children.
We also shopped for Indian tea and Indian snacks to serve the children.
Julie even enjoyed a private tea later that day with the Indian owner of his shop, so she got lots of firsthand information.
Preparing for a Sari Wrapping Demonstration
Julie also asked if I could do a demonstration, using my daughter as a model, of how to wrap a sari.
So, I did some research on the process and learned a few interesting things.
The sari is a very old style.
There is nothing to sew.
One long length of fabric is wrapped around the body while tucking sections of the fabric in strategic places.
There are lots of videos available on the precise steps, which I then practiced on my daughter.
Missionary Conference Indian Theme for the Children
Then came Saturday with the children.
We (the ladies) got to wear beautiful saris.
In fact, one of the moms was an Indian by birth. She brought her own sari which was even more stunning than ours.
Each room focused on different activities for the children to rotate through, like they do during VBS.
In our room, Julie gave a short presentation, then I wrapped my daughter in a sari. The children loved that!
Afterwards we sat around the table enjoying tea and snacks, as the Indians would.
We repeated the same with different groups.
It was well received, and my daughter and I had a great time.
Epilogue 2024
Years later, my daughter chose to “become” Amy Carmichael for one of our Becoming History Presentations. Carmichael was a missionary to India from 1895 to 1925.
For that costume I found a beautiful length of fabric and found a tshirt to match, for my daughter to wear underneath.
