Contact: Kirby Trapolino, Executive Director, Peace Gospel International, 281-303-3553

HOUSTON, Texas, October 13 /Christian Newswire/ -- Peace Gospel International, a missions organization existing to empower native missions in South Asia through micro-enterprise, has just launched a new online Alternative Gift Catalog in time for the holiday season. The organization says it is offering an alternative to the usual commercially-driven gift giving custom.

PHOTO: Widow's seamstress businesses are one kind of gift a donor can give on a friend's behalf. Widows are given training, equipment and supplies to get their business started.

The organization, founded in 1993, works with native missionaries in India and Myanmar who are multiplying their funding through micro-enterprise efforts involving dairy production or animal stockbreeding. This provides sustainability in their projects which include orphan care, educating the destitute, training of native missionaries, a widow's seamstress businesses initiative, and church planting in unreached areas.

Gifts in the new online catalog include water buffalo sponsorships, widow's seamstress business sponsorships, the sponsorship of an orphan's first year expenses at their new orphanage, wheelchairs for the disabled, piglets at their Myanmar pig farm, or child immunization gift packages. Shoppers can also choose between "full shares" of these sponsorships, or a portion thereof. Prices of gifts range from $10 to $500. How does it work? After choosing a gift, the donor proceeds to a secure checkout page. After checkout they are taken to an online certificate which they can then print and mail to their friend, or save and send as an email attachment. The certificate includes a photo and brief description of the impact the gift has made on behalf their friend or loved one.

"We've had supporters asking for this kind of feature for quite a while now. I think people are getting burned-out on giving the trendy gifts at Christmas that end up collecting dust within a matter of weeks. It just kind of leaves you with an empty feeling. But what I'm excited about with the alternative gift catalog is that you can give a gift with an eternal impact in your friend's honor; a gift of life and hope offered in the name of Jesus, and I think ultimately that's what both the giver and the recipient really desire." Notes Founder and Executive Director Kirby Trapolino on the win-win nature of the new catalog.

Peace Gospel hopes that their alternative gift catalog will ease the stress of shopping and allow donors to creatively make a charitable impact for native missions in South Asia.

For more information, visit PeaceGospel.org or go directly to their Alternative Gift Catalog.