Archive for the ‘Growing Up as a Missionary Kid’ Category

Praying for Missionaries

Friday, December 13th, 2013

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Every believer should be praying for missionaries, specific families on the mission field that are leading people to Christ. Missionaries are on the front lines, attacked by the enemy on every side. If missionaries fall, many people fall. If your church does not support missions, encourage them to do so. And if your church sends out missionaries, please be faithful to pray for them.

The prayer letters do not include the real prayer requests, by the way. Those are the prayer requests that will not be judged and taken wrong, like the conversion of specific people, or progress being made for the Lord. The real prayer requests for the personal lives of the missionaries themselves can’t be given to the thousands of people in the churches because by and large, people are shallow. They yank their support if it looks like missionaries are struggling. But let me tell you: all missionaries are struggling. They struggle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers of darkness. (Ephesians 6:12) Shallow Christians in the supporting churches reason that if the missionaries are struggling with sin issues and personal things, God can’t possibly be blessing them, so God must not be in it. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Missionaries need prayer about the things that everyone needs prayer for:

  • strong marriages
  • children who follow the Lord
  • ability to resist temptation
  • interpersonal relationships with difficult people
  • health issues from poor conditions like unsanitary water
  • overcoming anger, slander, or any other sin issue that everyone struggles with

Missionaries need prayer about not putting their work for the Lord above their spouse and children. This is very difficult to do. Spiritual work is all-consuming, and pretty soon marriages are distant, or idolatry has grabbed hold of the heart of the husband in the form of TV or any other hobby to escape from the pressures of being in ministry. Usually the idolatry is not a sin in and of itself, but taken in large amounts, a man will neglect his family. Preacher’s kids and missionary’s kids are notoriously rebellious because their parents pour their all into the ministry and not into them.

Please pray for the missionaries that your church supports, and I dare you to take a leap of faith and support a specific missionary family directly. You will find out specific prayer requests from them and be able to pray more effectively because you are personally invested in the work of the missionaries.

To follow news about missions and missionary kids, follow my Missionary Kid Page.

Why Support a Missionary?

Friday, November 22nd, 2013

why-support-a-missionaryWhy should you support a missionary? Why should you suffer financially to make a monthly commit- ment to a specific missionary family, to support them over the years?

First of all, Jesus commands all of us to “go and make disciples of all the nations.” (Matthew 28:19) If you financially support a missionary, you are enabling that missionary to preach the gospel to the unsaved in foreign lands, and that evangelism is attributed to you and counted as what you are doing for the Lord. There are many people who want to preach the gospel to the nations but don’t have the financial backing to do so because we as Americans love to live in luxury and in self-indulgence. (James 5:5)

Secondly, what we do with our finances reflects what we value. Let’s get our finances in order so that we can give more to the work of the Lord, to work that matters for eternity. If God were to look at your checkbook (or credit card bill), He would instantly see where your heart is. But of course God knows where your heart is already.

Thirdly, do you realize that you have a direct impact for Christ through the lives of those missionaries, and that you are rewarded for eternity for giving to them? Paul says that you participate in the gospel when you do that. (II Corinthians 9:13) Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy. (Matthew 6:20)

But the most important reason to support a missionary is for prayer. Yes, prayer. You heard that right. When you personally suffer financially to support a missionary every month, you have a personal stake in what happens in that missionary’s life. When my life is directly connected to a missionary, I’m more likely to pray. I don’t want my family to suffer financially if that missionary is not accomplishing anything for the Lord. If I fail to pray for that missionary family, they will be much less effective. When I pray fervently, God promises to answer. (James 5:16)

When missionaries go overseas and do not have prayer cover, this is worse than not having enough food to eat. Pastors and missionaries are attacked more spiritually because when they fall, many people fall. Please pray for your missionaries daily. If you don’t, who will? And the lukewarm prayers of the people whose lives aren’t as invested in the outcome aren’t as effective as the prayers of those who financially hurt each month to put food on the table for a missionary to be able to serve the Lord full time. For this reason my husband and I feel strongly about supporting missionaries, and we will continue to support missionaries each month. My heart is interwoven with their ministries.

I found a list of missionaries who translate the Bible into foreign languages of people groups who don’t have the Bible in their language. Here is the list: Wycliffe Bible Translators. Having grown up as a missionary kid, I can personally attest to the trustworthiness of this mission. What is more important than saving lost souls while delivering the Bible in their language for the first time, so that they can grow spiritually?

To keep up with news about missions and missionary kids: Missionary Kid Facebook Page

Giving to Missionaries Should Not Be Capricious

Tuesday, January 29th, 2013

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I don’t understand why people are capricious in their giving to missionaries. God prompts them to give to a certain missionary, and then they yank their support on a whim. A missionary would have to do something terrible for me to stop supporting him because if God prompted me to give, it would be disobedient for me to withdraw the funds. It is God whom I serve.

I hated the whole song and dance for people to throw a penny in the hat routine that I had to endure every time we went on furlough to the States. We visited one church after another, trying to prove that they should support us. My dad was an outstanding seminary professor, teaching Greek and New Testament theology to Spanish-speaking pastors all over the world. If we had to prove something, why didn’t the seminary students send recommendation letters about my dad? They could have easily done so, and I wouldn’t have felt like I was on display as a little girl, standing in front of churches.

One time while visiting a church in Canada on furlough, my dad spoke about all that was happening in Guatemala, and why the church should support us. After the service, my cousin’s daughter (who didn’t know that I was the daughter of the man who preached) said that my dad seemed like he was selling something.

Yes, that is what missionaries are reduced to: having to sell what they do. It’s stupid. Look, if God doesn’t prompt you to support a missionary, don’t support him. If God does prompt you, don’t be disobedient and bratty to pull away your support for no reason, just because you want more money in your pocket. All of our money belongs to God. It’s not ours. Many missionaries have had to leave the mission field because of capricious givers who disobey God.

On the other hand, missionaries do need to be making a difference in people’s lives. We should see God working. If God is not working at all, it seems like God wouldn’t have prompted us to give in the first place, though. In the Czech Republic, it sometimes takes 10 years of witnessing and hard work for one person to be converted. Even though God is working, there might be no conversions for years. But now, 12 years later, we see lots of soft hearts toward God that were not there a decade ago. God is definitely working.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that if God initially prompts you to support a missionary every month, it is God that you are obeying. I think it would be easier if fewer churches who really know the missionaries could support with bigger amounts, so that the missionaries don’t have to drag their children on display to 30 churches that we had to visit every furlough to “peddle our wares” or prove that God wanted my dad to continue to serve at the seminary that he loved so much. Give to God and be faithful to follow through to support the missionaries that He wants you to support, and don’t forget to pray for them.

Men Whistling at Women

Tuesday, January 15th, 2013

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Women who haven’t lived in a third world country will never understand the disgust that I felt every time I left my house in Guatemala to go for a walk, or to go wherever. No matter where I was or who I was with, the fact that I had white skin and red hair indicated to men that it was time to start whistling. It started happening even before I was twelve. It made me feel unsafe, especially if I was alone and a group of men were being rowdy. I learned to make a hateful, angry face to make them stop whistling. Either that, or I would simply turn around and walk the opposite direction, which was often the opposite of where I wanted to go.

When our maid got married in her 40’s, she was so pleased that she had found a godly man. This happened while I was away at college, and I used to write back and forth to her because we were friends. Back when I was living in Guatemala, I would knock on her door across the courtyard, and she would let me in. We would talk about God for hours, and what God was teaching us. She was a lovely, sweet woman who had the gift of evangelism. She would ask me questions about a particular topic, and I would open my Spanish Bible and find the answers. She would write them down on scraps of paper, and later she would tell me how she had counseled a friend, and how the verses had helped her friend.

Well, now that she was married, I wanted to go see her. I always thought of her as my equal, and I loved her. She had written me that she had found a wonderful man who wanted to marry her. He had lived in the States, and he had concluded that all the American women were snobs and mean. This man said to her that it was impossible to find someone beautiful on the inside and on the outside, and that the inside mattered more. So they got married.

I went to see my friend way out in the middle of nowhere, where a stray chicken can be seen crossing a dirt road, and a three-legged dog hobbled around, looking like a skeleton.

She lived in a cinder-block house, probably the nicest house in the town. The floor was not dirt like most houses, but it was a real floor. I hugged her tightly when she opened the “porton,” the metal door with bars. I almost cried to see her sweet little baby that she never thought she would have, not having gotten married until she was in her 40’s. We chatted for a long time, and we laughed together.

When her husband came home, I was so disappointed when he gave me “that look.”  He took one look at me, and even though he didn’t audibly whistle, I was disgusted. Anger filled my face, and I just looked somewhere else. I was so mad when I found out that my sweet friend (who deserved to be loved completely) had a husband who was gawking at some other woman. To be that other woman was disgusting to me. I couldn’t wait to leave.

This is just one of the struggles that a missionary kid has if she is a girl living in a country of people who do not have the same skin color. I mention other teasing that happened when children called me “Fire” and ran away from me because of my red hair. To read more missionary kid stories, click here.