International (MNN) — With all the wish lists and Christmas sales, it can be easy to be sucked into the materialism of ‘getting’ this season. If you’re looking to refocus on the reason for Christmas, what better way than to give a gift to someone serving in the mission field or who needs to hear about Jesus Christ? And you can start by checking out Christian Aid Mission’s Christmas Catalog!
Amie Cotton with Christian Aid says the theme for their Christmas Catalog this year is “proclaiming freedom to the captives”. There are fourteen items you can gift, and they all have a reverberating impact for the Gospel.
(Photo courtesy of Christian Aid Mission)
“For as little as $5, you can provide a Bible to a new believer in their own language. For $20, you can provide warm clothing and shoes to a child living in a refugee camp in Turkey. So there are various ways you can give, various types of gifts from building churches, digging wells, caring for needy families, children, and widows; as well as providing vocational training to help at-risk girls.”
Cotton says, “People can get involved any time of year, but Christmas is a special time because it also allows the native missionaries who are working to distribute these gifts to share Jesus’ birth, to share the reason for the season, and their reasons they’re sharing the gift.”
Christian Aid assures that 100 percent of the gifts will go to the ministry designated. You can also give a gift in someone else’s name or in honor of a loved one!
“Individuals that want to give a gift in honor or in memory of someone can do so, and we will notify the honoree or the family by mail that a gift was made in their honor or in their memory.”
(Photo courtesy of Mission Aviation Fellowship)
When asked what some of her favorite items on the gift catalog are, Cotton replies, “One of the things that really struck me, and this isn’t something we kind of think about, is a film projection system. Entire communities can have the opportunity to watch The JESUS Film or other Gospel films in their own language, and we have had instances where a whole village came to Christ after they had the opportunity to see and hear the truth in their own language for the first time! So that’s so exciting, and it’s just $350 for a film projection system.”
She continues, “Also, you can sponsor a missionary for just $60 a month. That will allow that missionary to have food and the supplies that he or she needs to go out and reach the neighboring communities, to go to their own communities and share the Gospel and keep their family afloat…. We can be the hands and feet that enable them to go farther and to do more!”
Click here to go to the Christmas Catalog on Christian Aid’s website!
(Photo courtesy of Christian Aid Mission)
Ultimately, it’s all about the Great Commission and allowing everyone in the world to know the true meaning of Christmas — our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
“Christian Aid Mission is an evangelical missionary organization, and we assist indigenous ministries overseas through prayer, advocacy, and financial support. Today, we’re working with more than 500 ministries in more than 100 countries to reach the unreached where there is no witness for Christ, or where foreign missionaries are not allowed, and where Christians suffer from poverty and persecution,” explains Cotton.
“These are really the darkest places in the world that native missionaries who have come to faith in Christ, who feel called to reach their own people, are shining a light in the darkness and doing what our gift catalog theme is: proclaiming freedom to the captives.”
