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

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You Know You’re A Missionary Kid When…

Tuesday, December 4th, 2012

 

missionary-kid

You Know You’re A Missionary Kid When…

  • …people ask where you are from, and you hesitate.
  • …you are used to seeing 17 people in a VW bug.
  • …you don’t understand the jokes people tell.
  • …it takes over a year to receive an Easter box with candy in it, and you still eat the candy! Even if some of it has a strange flavor similar to that of the lotion which was also in the box.
  • …people ask you if you are happy to be “home” and your answer is “I guess?”
  • …you think in two languages at the same time.
  • …you miss the sound of raindrops on a metal roof.
  • …you worry that saying something in English will cause the price of an object to inflate ridiculously.
  • …people have asked you stupid questions like, “Do you go to school on elephants?”
  • …you’re in college and you haven’t seen your parents in years because they are still on the field.
  • …you see the embarrassing prayer card picture from like 8 years ago hanging on someone’s refrigerator.
  • …you can fit a tractor trailer load of luggage in a minivan.
  • …you have two passports (from different countries).
  • …you feel terribly guilty throwing away Zip-lock bags.
  • …the only people who think you’re normal are other MK’s.
  • …you’re staying at different people’s houses every weekend on furlough.
  • …you sit down and cry in the American supermarket because there are too many choices.
  • …toilet paper goes in the trash so the pipes don’t clog.
  • …you think American grocery stores have a certain “American smell” to them.
  • …you can’t stand people saying, “Welcome to the ‘real’ world.”
  • …you thought Grandma’s house was the lap of luxury when you were growing up.
  • …you were dressed about 10 years behind the times when back in the U.S. on furlough.
  • …you feel happy thinking about airports.
  • …you have trouble feeling comfortable in any American churches.
  • …you LOVE meeting people from your home country when in America.
  • …you can’t spend money on yourself.
  • …you look like you belong here but don’t truly feel at home.
  • …you think the real mission field is America.

To keep up with my MK posts, like my MK page on Facebook.
Buy the book: Growing Up as a Missionary Kid (profit goes to missions)

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New Missionary Kid Facebook Page

Wednesday, November 28th, 2012

Growing-Up-As-A-Missionary-KidGod has woken me up in the middle of the night for the past two nights. He’s often done that when He wants me to pray for somebody. But He wasn’t urgently laying anyone on my heart to pray for. I asked Him, “Why did You wake me up? I know it’s You.”

Now I need to back up to say that I wrote the book Growing Up as a Missionary Kid a couple of years ago. I felt so much spiritual joy as I was writing it, even though it wasn’t really a spiritual book. I just wrote about how it was to be a missionary kid. Then God opened doors for me to take the book to print, doors that I could have never opened for myself. God wanted this book in print. I dedicated the book to God and told Him I would give Him 100% of the profit for missions.

Now I was in a quandry, because I had no money to promote the book. I’ve got books just sitting in a closet in my house. Not only was this a waste of what God wanted me to produce for His purposes, but if I used money from sales of the book to promote the book, I would have no money to send to missions.

My husband and I already support several missionaries every month, but this month God prompted me to support another couple who is about to go to Africa. He just finished his training at Moody Bible Institute to join MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship). I have the personal conviction that if I do not support this couple, I will be disobedient to God’s prompting to give to them. I asked God to raise the money.

Back to the conversation I had with God this morning of why He woke me up. Last night God put it in my mind to start a Missionary Kid Facebook page for the book that I wrote. I thought, “Oh cool! I can find lots of missionary kids, and we can have a discussion! Or people who are interested in missionary kids could like the page.”

At the same time as God was working to enable me to somehow support another missionary couple, God put missions on the heart of my husband. This was completely separate and a coincidence that God prompted both of us on the same day to be more involved in missions. Alan just told me last night that he wanted to go back to the Czech Republic on a short-term mission next summer, to a different part of the Czech Republic, but doing the same thing, which is English camp. And the summer after that, he would like to lead a team from our church to go on a short-term mission, once again, to the Czech Republic, the country that has the least Christians on the face of the earth. Alan went on a short-term team to teach English at a camp a couple of years ago, while sharing Christ. It made such an impact on his life that God has called him to go back. This is all in the brainstorming stage at this point, and we have no money to do it. But God will provide. He always does. This is how God is.

So back to the Facebook page thing. I have no marketing money to promote the book I wrote to raise money for missions. This morning, the second morning in a row, God woke me up, and I distinctly felt like I needed to do it now. If people “like” the Growing Up as a Missionary Kid page, more people will find out about it, and 100% of the profit will go towards what God is prompting my husband and I to do right now, to be more involved in missions.

As an incentive to the first 100 people to “like” the page, I will send you a free copy of the e-book version of Growing Up as a Missionary Kid. It costs you nothing to help me promote the book which hopefully will give me the funds to obey what God is prompting me to do. After you read the e-book version, go buy the physical book as gifts for people for Christmas!

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Growing Up as a Missionary Kid

Tuesday, April 26th, 2011

Here is the book trailer for my Growing Up as a Missionary Kid book:

I’m Susan Evans, the author of Growing Up as a Missionary Kid. I grew up in Guatemala because my parents were missionaries there. My life was totally different than a person who has grown up here in the United States. For example, a bullet flew through the window and nearly killed my sister.

Also, a bomb went off at the house of one of my close friends. That was after her family got a note telling them to get out of the country or they would be would be killed. So they actually left and went back to the States. Shortly thereafter, some guerrillas took over the house; they shot it up and there was a big bomb and everything. My family got to go out to eat for dinner because the police wouldn’t let us drive down our street.

Growing-Up-As-A-Missionary-Kid-4Another day I was standing in line at a bank with my mom. There was a soldier in the corner with a machine gun, with his hand on the trigger. As a young child, I just looked at his hand on the trigger, and I thought to myself, “Hmmm… I wonder what would happen if I walked behind him and yelled, ‘Boo!'” Then everybody would be killed, right? Because he had his hand on the trigger. I mean, that’s kind of stupid.

So that’s how I saw life.

This book is interesting because it is ground-breaking in the way that it presents life from the point of view of a child in a missionary kid situation. For that reason, church libraries ought to have this book, to remember to pray for the children of missionaries and not just the parents. Yes, the parents are doing the work that matters, but the children also are important. They could drag the ministry down if they go astray. So it’s important to remember the kids.

Another place that would enjoy this book is Christian schools because even though I wrote it for adults, this is really juvenile non-fiction. Kids really resonate with it because it is told from the point of view of a child. It’s exciting non-fiction. A lot of non-fiction is extremely dry and boring for reports. So kids will be glad if you buy the book for your local Christian school.

Other people that would enjoy this would be homeschooling parents because not only does it give an excitement for missions to your children, but it also has lots of fun ideas of what you can do with your kids. I did a lot of investigating in all my escapades from boarding school. It’s a fun book about fun experiences. For that reason, it’s a fun read.

100% of the profit of this book go to missions, and so I get zero. So it’s not self-serving for me to tell you to buy the book. It is for your own enjoyment as well as supporting missionaries.

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Old Songs of Bygone Days

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011

old-songs-of-bygone-days

After writing my love story a couple of weeks ago, I was looking for some feel-good music that would take me back in time. As I blasted the music and sang with gusto to my husband, I told him this was how I felt about him before we were married, and that I still felt this way. He grinned and thought I looked too preoccupied to cook, so he took the spatula out of my hand and continued cooking as I sang into a pretend microphone. I could tell he didn’t even like the songs, that he was putting up with my nonsense just to be nice. But he grinned nonetheless.

The sappy music brought back memories of when my sister used to babysit me. She would crank up the tunes, and all four of us girls would sing and dance around the room, skating with our wool slippers across the hard floor. Ahhh, yes. The bygone days. The music brings back all the feelings associated with that era. My whole life was before me back then. My dreams were as big as the universe. The possibilities for my life were endless and exciting.

More memories were triggered, and I saw my parents slow dancing to 50’s music. I thought it was cute, and it made me feel secure. My dad played those 50’s records on the record player. Sometimes the record would skip, and we would pick up the needle and place it back down on the record.

I remember playing 50’s music when I made a restaurant in my sister’s bedroom. It was a romantic cafe. I had a tablecloth on a card table with two folding chairs. I lit candles and my three sisters helped me to serve my parents from the menu. My parents picked whatever dessert they wanted, and I went back to the kitchen to have my older sister scoop out the ice cream into two dishes. My parents looked happy at my restaurant. The ambiance was wonderful. Life was happy.

Sometimes it’s fun just to crank up music and be silly with your family. Love songs are particularly good to play when you are alone with your husband, since music from your dating days will evoke the same emotions that were there when you heard them back then. Music is powerful in improving your mood as well. So go ahead and crank up the music. Let the good times roll…

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