In Celebration of Fathers ~ June 19

It's been said, "The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother."

As we reflect on Father's Day, let's remember that a child is always observing. American writer Clarence Budington Kelland said, "My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it."

   

A father holds his daughter just outside the walls of Old City Damascus in Damascus, Syria, one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. IMB Photo /  Family relationships in Turkmenistan are often fractured when parents leave their children in the care of relatives in order to move abroad as migrant laborers. Many Turkmen have moved to places like Turkey and Russia in order to find work. IMB Photo

Let's pray for those fathers who are absent, for those fathers who have been required to fight in wars, for those children who have been left fatherless, and for those fathers who have lost their sons and daughters.  

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The Origin of Father's Day

Though Father's Day wasn't made a national holiday until 1972, the efforts of one woman in Washington sparked a movement to celebrate dads long before then.

Sonora Dodd and Father's Day

The first known Father's Day service occurred in Fairmont, West Virginia, on July 5, 1908, thanks to the efforts of Grace Golden Clayton. The service was to honor all fathers, especially those hundreds who were killed during a devastating mine explosion in Monongah (just a few miles from Fairmont) the previous year. However, the observance did not become an annual event, and it was not promoted - very few outside the local area knew about it.

In 1909, Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, also was inspired to create a holiday honoring fathers. William Jackson Smart, her father, was a farmer and Civil War veteran who raised Sonora and her five younger brothers by himself after his wife, Ellen, died giving birth to their youngest child in 1898. While attending a Mother's Day church service in 1909, Sonora, then 27, came up with the idea. 

Within a few months, Sonora had convinced the Spokane Ministerial Association and the YMCA to set aside a Sunday in June to celebrate fathers. She proposed June 5, her father's birthday, but the ministers chose the third Sunday in June so that they would have more time after Mother's Day (the second Sunday in May) to prepare their sermons. So it was that on June 19, 1910, Sonora delivered presents to handicapped fathers, boys from the YMCA decorated their lapels with fresh-cut roses (red for living fathers, white for the deceased), and the city's ministers devoted their homilies to fatherhood.

Some interesting facts about this National Holiday

The widely publicized events in Spokane struck a chord that reached all the way to Washington, D.C., and Sonora's celebration started on its path to becoming a national holiday.

• In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson and his family personally observed the day.
• Eight years later, President Calvin Coolidge signed a resolution in favor of Father's Day "to establish more intimate relations between fathers and their children and to impress upon fathers the full measure of their obligations."
• In 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed an executive order that the holiday be celebrated on the third Sunday in June.
• Under President Richard Nixon, in 1972, Congress passed an act officially making Father's Day a national holiday. (Six years later, Sonora died at age 96.)

Different Days for Different Dads

North America is not the only place where Father's Day is celebrated.

In traditionally Catholic countries such as Spain and Portugal, Father's Day is observed on March 19, the Feast of St. Joseph.

Taiwanese celebrate Father's Day on August 8, the eighth day of the eighth month, because the Mandarin Chinese word for eight sounds like the word for "Papa."

 

In Thailand, Father's Day occurs on former king Bhumibol Adulyadej's birthday, Dec. 5.

No matter when Father's Day is celebrated, it's important to remember that a father's influence is so important in his children's lives. It's more vital than being famous, or climbing the corporate ladder. At the end days of your life, it's most important to know that your children know the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and acknowledge Him as their Lord!

 

This father is sharing a devotion and Bible reading time with his family. IMB Photo / Additionally, strong Christian men are needed to guide young boys into God-honoring men. An IMB missionary prays with local Zambian teenagers in a schoolroom during a True Love Waits meeting. IMB Photo

 

 

A Syrian father holds his son’s hand. The son wants to be just like his father, right down to the cast on his arm. The little boy’s cast is make-believe. His father’s is all too real—his arm was severely injured in a battle in the besieged city of Homs in Syria. He brought his family to Jordan for safety but is determined to return to Syria, injury or not. “I have a duty to go back,” he says. IMB Photo

 What the Bible says about parenting and our parents:

Proverbs 22:6 - "Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it."

 

 

Exodus 20:12. “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you."

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PRAYER & PRAISE ~ June 15-21, 2022

6/15 GREG & PAM SMITH 

InStep International, Inc., USA/Worldwide 

Pray for the Costa Rica summer mission project with Pastor Carlos Umana and Javier Espinoza.  In July 2022, Javier is hosting a Youth led evangelistic crusades in five cities for the entire month. Pray for these opportunities that will be life changing. One June team will have 28 mission volunteers.

 

6/16 Andrew & Inna Ryzhkov 

Byelorussian Mission, Inc., USA/Belarus/Israel

Please pray for the capability to purchase three reliable vans ($60,000) for transporting orphans from Ukraine to Poland and food to Ukraine; for provision of abundance of Bibles to distribute; and for starting four new church plants in Warsaw to accommodate the large-scale Ukrainian immigration.

 

6/17 Keith & Rita Haywood

OM, USA/Worldwide

Please pray for Valentina and thousands of displaced Ukrainians like her. Pray too for the OM teams providing shelter, food, a listening ear, encouragement, and prayer. 

 

6/18 D & C 

Central Asia 

Pray for God's direction as goals, three-year project plans, and budgets are discussed.

 

6/19  Happy Father's Day

J & K

Central Africa

Pray for God to sustain and prepare the three families and two singles who are currently learning French and are on their way to join the ministry by the end of this year. Pray for strength, joy, and love as they serve in a challenging area.

 

6/20 JOHN & LOIS NORTH

Ambassadors For Christ International, Australia

For months, efforts have been in re-designing the strategy for multiplying EvangelismSHIFT, both internationally and in each nation in which they work. Starting this month and for several more, monthly meetings will be held working with all the National Coordinators  to implement this new approach. Please pray for very effective training and discussions in these meetings as they mobilize for even greater multiplication.

 

6/21 Josh & Gina Bloomfield 

Ambassadors For Christ International, Australia

Pray God would develop the Methodist and Wesleyan denominational leaders, and Bible Society of the South Pacific, and Scripture Union parachurch ministry leaders of Fiji into catalysts who multiply the evangelistic efforts among those they lead. 

“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.” I Corinthians 15:58 (NASB) 

Our monthly Prayer & Praise Calendar is also available on fba.org/globalmissions 

 

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