wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Sales brisk for 2nd Mission Yearbook for kids

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Note #8140 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Sales brisk for 2nd Mission Yearbook for kids
04104
February 24, 2004

Sales brisk for 2nd Mission Yearbook for kids

More than 18,000 copies have been sold since November release

by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE - The 2004 edition of the Children's Mission Yearbook for Prayer &
Study is a runaway best-seller.

Presbyterian parents and educators have snapped up 18,500 copies of the book
since its release in November.

The first version of the annual, for 2003, flew off the shelves, selling more
than 20,000 copies by this time last year.

Clearly, that was no fluke.

The 112-page second edition, whose target audience is children in grades 3-6,
is chock full of stories and facts about the Presbyterian Church (USA) and
its mission around the world, and loaded with suggested hands-on,
mission-related activities for kids.

"They are going well - extremely well," Deborah Haines, the book's editor,
said of this year's sales. "I think it's popular because it's providing a
resource for students in an age group that have not had access to information
about the mission of the church in quite the same way.

"It's the illustrations. It's the international mission stories. ... It's the
action component."

Sales of last year's edition of the Children's Mission Yearbook prompted
Mission Education and Promotion officials to order up a second printing, then
a third. In all, the yearbook sold 23,000 copies.

"We sold out completely," Haines said. "Not bad for a first edition."

The editor said only one printing is anticipated for the 2004 edition because
more copies were printed in the first run.

Haines said work has already started on next year's edition.

The book is divided into 53 two-page spreads, one for each week of the year.
Each spead includes information about one domestic presbytery and one
overseas mission locale. Also included are scriptures and prayers, games and
puzzles, activity ideas and recipes for dishes such as Pisang Goreng (fried
bananas), a popular dessert in Singapore. There are helpful facts and figures
about the nations where Presbyterians are at work in mission.

Adults are using the yearbook, too.

"Actually, a lot of the people who are learning from the Children's Mission
Yearbook are adults and new members," Haines said. "A lot of congregations
are giving the book to new members, not just to children."

Such is the case at 475-member Fort Street Presbyterian Church in Detroit,
MI, where Dana Hansen, director of Christian education, has found the
publication "invaluable" and calls it "one of the best things that's come out
of the Presbyterian Church."

Hanson said she encourages families to use the yearbook as a daily
devotional, and includes excerpts from it in the congregation's bulletins and
newsletters. She also uses it in Sunday school classes and in youth
fellowship sessions.

"It's a Christmas present," Hansen said. "... The new people who come into
the church with children and begin to attend regularly, they receive one. The
children like it. They refer to it. It's very, very good stuff. It is
becoming our tradition."

The yearbook also is incorporated into the 2004 We Believe intergenerational
summer curriculum, Christ's Command: Go into the World.

To order the Children's Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, call
Presbyterian Distribution Service (toll-free) at (800) 524-2612 and ask for
PDS #70-612-04-451. Or place an order online at www.pcusa.org/marketplace.

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