Like most of you I assume, probably the hardest part about living overseas for us has been being away from family and those whom we love, and especially the fact that our kids don’t get to see their extended family as much as we would like. If it were up to us, we would love for our kids to see their grandparents and aunt and uncles every day! Thankfully we live in this day and age where there are so many amazing resources available that make the world feel a bit smaller. I have often thought about God’s sovereign plan to have me born in this generation, as I seriously doubt that I would have had the ability to survive as a missionary back when the only means of communication was letters carried overseas by ship and where responses took months on end, if they ever arrived. Praise God for email, blogs, internet photo sites, etc. that make it much more possible for people like me to be missionaries!
I thought I’d take a little time to post some creative ideas for helping your kids build and maintain their special relationships with family and friends back “home,” as well provide some online resources for keeping in touch.
Ideas to help your kids keep in touch with loved ones:
-Send artwork and school projects.
-Make home videos to mail back, or if that is too time intensive, just send 30 second video clips via email of latest milestones and other fun moments.
-Give family members a blank photo album and periodically order them photos from an online photo processing company (like snapfish.com) to fill their album.
-Go to snapfish.com or shutterfly.com and create a nice coffee-table photo book, a calendar, a photo mug, or any of the various other photo gifts.
-Use the video chat option on Skype, Gmail Chat, or other various sites.
-Create a family blog (wordpress.com or blogspot.com are easy to use).
-Have the kids put together a package of special things (candies, souvenirs, postcards…) from where you live to send back to grandparents, etc.
-phone calls!
-Have you kids’ grandparents read stories to them over the phone (obviously you both need to have the book).
-Have your kids fill out the Dr. Seuss “My Book About Me” and send it to their grandparents/family members as a gift.
Some online resources that are useful for keeping in touch:
snapfish.com- online photo processing and photo projects
shutterfly.com- online photo processing and photo projects
blogspot.com- create your own blog
wordpress.com- create your own blog
blurb.com- create your own book, or even turn your blog into a book
skype.com- free computer to computer calling, cheap computer to phone calling
vonage.com- get your own US telephone number and pay $25 per month for unlimited calls to and from the US (and free to many other countries as well)
idphonecard.com- cheap calling cards. You program certain phone numbers into your online profile, and then family and friends can call you “pin number free.” We did this so our family could call us whenever they wanted, free of charge on their part.
I know this is just scratching the surface of what is actually available out there. Feel free to suggest other resources that you have found helpful and fun!
Thank you for sending the link, I just took a quick peek of your site right now and find it very helpful if you need any help with graphics or anything else please feel free to contact me. My baby and I are sick at the moment and I haven’t had the time or strength to make a new post but I had been thinking about writting a list of things that have made our lives easier as we travel, I think some other missionaries and moms would find this site helpful so I’d like to link this site on my blog if you don’t mind. Blessings
Hi Ana! I am so sorry you are sick! I will pray for you. Also, by all means feel free to link this site to yours! I am trying to get the word out to other missionary moms. Thank you!
We just got something called a magicjack (www.magicjack.com). It was $40 for the jack and $60 for 5 years. It’s this teeny tiny box that plugs into the USB port and we can call anywhere in the US or Canada for free!! We also got to choose a local stateside number, so our friends and family can call us. It’s wonderful.
Wow! That sounds so cool! We definitely need to look into that. Sounds as good as Vonage, but cheaper!