Guide to the Missionary Correspondence Department Letters

The office of Educational Secretary was created by the Executive Committee of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS) in 1912. It was reorganized as the Educational Department and later the Division of Interpretation. The office continued to perform its primary function of keeping the church informed about its foreign mission work as the ECFM was reorganized as the Board of World Missions (1949) and the Division of International Mission (1973). The work of the Educational Department/Division of Interpretation was done through several offices which coordinated special programs and conferences; produced missionary literature; distributed films, slides, and other audio-visual materials; published and distributed printed "missionary letters" from various fields; and coordinated speaking engagements and visits by missionaries at churches, missionary societies, and denominational conferences.

The Missionary Correspondence Department (MCD) was the office responsible for reproducing and distributing letters from missionaries to the home church. Each missionary wrote letters home, and the MCD reproduced and distributed them to congregations and individual supporters on the missionary's mailing list.

After the 1983 reunion of the PCUS and the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (UPCUSA), the Missionary Correspondence Program continued under the Stewardship and Communication Development Unit of the General Assembly Mission Board of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), and later under the Congregational Ministries Division (1993) and the Worldwide Ministries Division (1997).