Missionary Monday - Display Table

We were on a medical furlough this past winter (to welcome our 4th baby, Micah James, into this world).  While we were back, we traveled to many of our supporting churches and gave a report on what the Lord has been doing in Ukraine through the ministry of Simferopol Baptist Church.

Something that is customary for a "reporting" missionary to have is a display table, and I thought I would show you what ours looked like this time.

The table cloth that you see (above) of international people was designed and painstakingly hand-stitched by a deaf lady in our church here in Ukraine.  It was quite the conversation starter and attracted many people's interest!  Because of the "busy" design of the people, we kept the cloth a neutral color and worked hard to keep the "pretties" on our table to a minimum.  When we finished our furlough, we blessed a very missions-minded supporting church with this cloth for their use in their future missions conferences.

The banner stand that you see in the picture above was my all-time favorite feature of our display table.  It was *perfect* for traveling because of the way it folded up into a small size and traveled so well with us!  Now that we own the stand, all we have to do is change out the vinyl picture banner each time we travel back to America.

(Above)  See how the stand folds down into a convenient carrying case?  You can find one similar at this website, although we were able to order ours at a much cheaper price right here in Ukraine!

A big must on our display table are matryoshka dolls (also called "nesting dolls" because they each open and all fit into the biggest one), a very popular souvenir in Soviet countries.  Aren't they beautiful?!  They are made of wood and hand-painted.

God has allowed me to marry into a very talented family... full of musicians, authors, etc...  So, we are privileged to make books and CDs available to churches as we travel, such as the book Tom and Me (which was very recently translated into Spanish) [available for purchase in English on this page] and the CD I Have Been Blessed by the Sloan Sisters (my hubby's four sisters).  The selling of these items has helped us over the last few years in building our home here on the mission field.

We always keep an open Russian Bible on our display table.  And, yes, I can read it (for those of you who were wondering)!

Stickers for childrens' Bibles are something we always try to keep available on our table.  I have a whole blog post dedicated to the explanation of these prayer stickers here.

And, last but certainly not least, we give out prayer cards (that has all of our important information typed on the back).  We have two jokes about these cards... First of all, they are NEVER updated because it seems I am always "with child" in every prayer card picture and that child I am expecting is usually the reason we are back in America giving a report in the first place!  Secondly, our prayer cards have gotten progressively smaller with each time we have returned to America.  Now, they are almost as small as a business card!  My husband loves them this way because he can keep them in the pocket of his dress shirts and always have them available to give out.  They are also much less expensive to print this way!

So, there you have it...  Everything you ever wanted to know about our display table. {smile}  But the best part of it all is that everything travels compactly...  and that makes ME veeeeeerrrry happy!